Hardennes Gravel Tour

The Hardennes Gravel Tour is a self-supported gravel crossing of the Belgian Ardennes, the gravel sibling of the same organisers' Ardennes Monster. The one rule above all others is self-reliance: no follow car, no feed stations, just checkpoints where the Resist & Ride crew waits, and a shared dinner on the eve of the start before everyone rides their own way.

Every loop starts and ends in Mirwart, in the great forest of Saint-Hubert. The longest route takes in the Hautes Fagnes, the Lesse valley, Bastogne, Herbeumont and, in the far south, Gaume, a gentler land of honey-coloured stone villages and sandy trails. Along the way the scenery keeps shifting between deep forest, lonely tracks, stone villages and wind-swept plateaus, with a lot of climbing in between.

The shorter routes are a way into the adventure: a western loop of deep forest around Saint-Hubert, Daverdisse and the meanders of the Lesse, and a faster, more open eastern loop towards Bastogne, which can be ridden on their own or back to back.