Dirty Reiver, live.

Kielder Forest gravel on the English and Scottish border

Dirty Reiver is a gravel event in Kielder Forest whose rides start from Kielder Castle on Saturday 24 April 2027, with the expo and sign-on the day before.

The Dirty Reiver weekend runs from 23 to 25 April 2027 at the Kielder Castle Forest Park Centre in Northumberland. The routes stay on the wide, hard packed forest access roads of Kielder and Wark Forests, about 95% gravel, and the organiser says it sells out in a matter of hours each year, with over 2,000 riders.

The Dirty Sixty Fiver covers 65 km with 1050 m of climbing and is the one for first gravel events. The Dirty One Thirty is 130 km and 2000 m. The Dirty Reiver itself is a single 200 km loop with 3500 m of ascent. New for 2027, the Epic is a 280 km, 4700 m ride for pairs only, with a pre-dawn remote start into forests not used before and across the border into Scotland before joining the 200 km route. E-bike riders can take the Dirt-E-Reiver on the 65 km route.

On the 200 km, riders cross the Kielder Dam wall, head south on fast trails, climb back towards the lake and finish with a northern loop over Blakehope Nick, at over 450m, before a gentler run in along the shoreline and over the Kielder viaduct. The routes may change with weather and forestry work, and the GPX is published two to three weeks before through Ride with GPS.

Riders on the 65, 130 and 200 km routes roll out from 9:00, with cut-offs on the longer routes. Kielder is remote: the nearest station is Hexham, around 35 miles away, and mobile signal is very limited. The event village has catering, a bar, showers and the Gravel Expo, and supporters can watch riders come home across the viaduct.

On Livebib you can follow a rider live when they choose to share their own position from the phone they carry. That dot comes from the cyclist, not from the organiser's timing, and the official results are published by the organiser after the ride. With so little signal in the forest, a shared position may only update where the phone finds coverage.