Starting soon! The Winter GravelQuest — Dec 7th 2025 – Jan 25th 2026!

Welcome to the all-new Winter GravelQuest, featuring 8 weeks of gravel adventures!

Each week we’ll post two new segments, ride at your leisure, and collect our unique Vancouver Island wildlife icons over the season!

Sign-up form is now active, scroll down to the next section!

How It Works

In a nutshell, two segments are featured every week for eight weeks, and riders can go ride them as fast or slow as they want. The main goal is to (hopefully!) check out some new gravel paths, trails and routes. For each segment you complete, you’ll be awarded a nifty wildlife icon on the scoreboard – try to collect 3-of-a-kind, or all 10 for bonus points!

Occasionally select segments will also be timed – give them a go for some bonus points. Your results and scores are collected here, and will be tracked and updated each week, along with a weekly write-up. You do need a Strava account, but doesn’t matter if it’s free or paid, all are welcome. And jump in any time – join the fun part way through!

If you’ve done our Segment Challenge, or GRAVEL EDITION, this is very similar but with a few fun twists!

Also check out the FAQ, scroll to the bottom of the page to check it out!

Safety is a huge priority of course, and all efforts are made to select quiet paths and trails that are low traffic, but please do not take any unnecessary risks, this is just for fun!

Defending Vancouver Island Wildlife

The Island is a unique place, and the wildlife communities we find here are our original residents, and are in need of our protection! From cutting down forests, to housing encroaching on wilderness areas to climate change, things are pretty rough for them.

This event I’d like to highlight The Fur-Bearers, one of Canada’s oldest wildlife protection charities, that advocates for wildlife on the Island and across all of Canada.

As well each week our email update will include a short section from them, highlighting some neat info on fur-bearers, wildlife and peaceful co-existence.

Six of the species featured in our Wildlife Icons are considered fur-bearers, and make up our Categories for the event. The Fur-Bearers works to protect fur-bearing animals through conservation, advocacy, research and education. Part of the ‘chip-ins’ will go towards them, and consider becoming a member to support their work as well!

GravelQuest Wildlife Icon Credit

A huge thank-you to Segment Challenge speedster and artist (who’s also contributed some of the coolest prizes we’ve had with offers to draw portraits) Louis Fernet-Leclair who generously created the icons for the series – thank you Louis!!

Winter GravelQuest – Rules & Sign-Up

A few rules to try to keep things fun for all:

• Be sure to join the AboutTheRide Strava group if you haven’t already (see button below)
• There’s a full week to complete segments, ride any time you wish, as many times as you wish, if it’s a TIMED segment your fastest result on Strava will be the one that counts.
• Most segments will be NON-TIMED SEGMENTS, and will not feature a time, and all will receive the same number of points (1pt). There will be a few TIMED SEGMENTS – these will be ‘competitive’ and the times tracked, and a few bonus points awarded for the top times (5pts, 4pts, etc..)
• Make sure your ride(s) is ‘public’ on Strava so I can see it in the segment list.
• The hard cut-off is 6pm Sunday each week when I pull the results from the segments, if you upload after that, tough luck!
• The TIMED SEGMENTS are to be SOLO efforts! You are not allowed help! Cannot draft another rider during any portion of a segment. Any riders found to be cheating will be removed from the competition. (It’s fine being side-by-side with a friend however, since there is no drafting benefit.)
• The rest of the NON-TIMED SEGMENTS can be ridden any old way you want, best with friends!
• Bikes: since we’re on trails, anything goes! All-road bikes may work for some segments, but you’re better off on a gravel or cyclocross bike, but MTBs (hardtails or full-suspension) are welcome as well!
• For each segment completed, you’ll be awarded one of our 10 Wildlife Icons at random. (So usually two per week.) Each is worth 1pt. If you collect 3-of-a-kind, you’ll get a bonus 3pts, and if you collect one of each, 5pts will be awarded as well.
• Do not edit your Strava ride files. Do not crop your ride files to the segments. There must be a ‘substantial’ amount of time and distance before and after each segment, so it’s part of a ‘ride’, and not an edited/cropped file of only the segment. This is supposed to be a fun cycling challenge, not a hack-a-thon.
• Safety safety safety – please follow the rules of the road!

There are six different categories, and they don’t correlate to anything! 😂

And yes, it’s totally free!

The segments will be a rich variety of trails – there will be climbs, and some flatter or faster trails. Some will be short, and some may end up rather long efforts! Most will be within 20-60mins riding distance from the Switch Bridge. The segments themselves will normally be nearby each other as well, so reasonable to do in one ride (but not always!)

To join the Winter GravelQuest 2025:

Step 1: Sign-Up Form (Google Docs form)

Step 2: Join our Strava Group (This makes it easy for me to sort our riders out on each segment.)

Sorry, but failure to follow these two steps will likely result in omission from weekly results.

Results!

Below you’ll soon find our results! Note the tabs at the bottom to flip between overall and individual weeks. Please contact me if there are any errors. COMING SOON: If a PDF is preferred, simply click here! Here is the full link to the GoogleDoc. (You can view the Notes each week for the Bonus and Curse details, which doesn’t show up in the table below.)

Scoring

NOTE: For those who’ve done the Segment Challenge, there are some changes for the WINTER GRAVELQUEST!

Scoring is geared towards rewarding the consistent. Try to make it out every week!

For NON-TIMED segments, 1pt will be awarded to each rider who complete each segment.

For the TIMED segments, points will be awarded this way for each Category for all who complete the segment that week:

1st – 5pts
2nd – 4pts
3rd – 3pts
4th – 2pts
5th – 1pt (and beyond, 1pt for all!)

Vancouver Island Wildlife Icons

These will be awarded for each segment, and you’ll get 1pt for each, plus if you collect 3-of-a-kind you’ll get a bonus 3pts, and if you collect all 10, 5pts!

Bonus Points

There are a few opportunities to score extra points! Since these are awarded to ‘one’ person each week, the rider may be in any Category. Some are random, some you can actually go for.

• New QOM/KOM – (TIMED SEGMENTS ONLY) if a new QOM or KOM is set on the segment, that rider gets an extra 2pts.
• Time Bonus – (TIMED SEGMENTS ONLY) a time will be secretly pre-selected for each segment, any who happen to ride that exact time will be awarded 2pts.
• The Early Bird – the earliest locked-in effort for the ‘A’ segment will get 2pts. (Eg: someone might preview the segment on Monday, and be the ‘first’, but if they ride it again and their final result tops that one, then the second is what counts – sorry, I just don’t want to have to refresh the segment pages constantly! 😉 )
• The Socialite – tag @AboutTheRideCA on Twitter, FB or IG in a post relating to the competition, and my favourite post each week will get 2pts.
• Birthday Bonus – if you ‘lock in’ one of the weekly segments on your birthday, and let me know, and you’ll get bonus points equal to 1/20th your new age! (Note: you have to email me before 6pm Sunday that week so I know.)
• Bonus Segments – some weeks there may be a bonus challenge, it won’t be scored like the others, but a declared number of points will be awarded to all who simply complete that segment.

Help Get Word Out!

Ain’t this more fun with more people? Help get word out! Follow our social channels, and share posts, mention what you’re doing on your Strava rides, invite friends to sign up and join you, get your clubs and bike shops to get word out!

Anything Confusing?

Fire over a note on the contact page if you’ve got any questions, ideas, suggestions, etc!