Off the Beaten Path

Some folks relish summertime trips to the family cabin. Others delight in regular junkets to Disneyland.
“Those,” Rob Britton notes without judgment, “are nice, safe things.” Nothing wrong with relaxing routines—for most people.

“But for me? I really enjoy new experiences,” he says. “Doing the same thing over and over is boring. We have a finite amount
of time—that’s just a fact.”

Fitted with a ready-or-not mentality, Britton is one adventurous soul, which is why the Victoria resident’s juices had been frothing after a decade as a professional road cyclist.

“It’s like Groundhog Day,” he says. So, four years ago, he heaved himself into the wild world of gravel racing. “I wanted to test
what I could do.”

In May, the 40-year-old got his answer when he captured the highly regarded Unbound Gravel XL in Kansas. To conquer 563 punishing and unsupported kilometres, Britton needed less than 18 hours, averaging 32.4 km/h. En route to shredding the course record, he added to his well of tall tales—wheeling over a badger, chasing down cycling legend Lachlan Morton.

Dominating the longest distance of the world’s premier gravel event earned him headlines. “I have garnered 10 times more notoriety and public interest by winning the XL—much more than my previous road racing career combined,” he says, chuckling.

However, not all of the athlete’s plunges into the unknown have turned out so well.

Britton’s maiden bikepacking venture was eye-opening, especially for someone who’d never experienced even one overnight excursion. But with 60 pounds of gear strapped to his bike, he off-roaded through the Rocky Mountains, grunting his way from Calgary, Alta to Port Renfrew, B.C., in 2018. “Kind of hilarious—going from zero to 100,” he says of the 10-day education. “Bikepacking was not as easy as the internet and Instagram made it appear.”

Then there was the 2022 BC Epic, featuring 1,000 off-road kilometres between Merritt and Fernie. “No real prep work. I just jumped in headfirst,” says Britton, who nevertheless posted the fastest known time—two days, nine hours—while fundraising for the Wirth Foundation, which offers access to mental health services for those in need.

“It was a terrible idea.”

A much better idea? Taking the tradition of a gruesome late-season slog with his chums—in December!—and transforming it into a popular community event. Christened The Last Ride, it always sells out, despite the ringleader’s deviously plotted routes.

But even Britton has limits. His open-mindedness stretches only so far. For instance, he has no interest in the Tour Divide, a self-supported 4,400-kilometre mountain-bike ordeal from Banff, Alta., to Antelope Wells, N.M. “That would break you so permanently. I’m wrecked enough as it is—I don’t need more stuff to drag me down. So, a resounding no.”

Laughing, Britton pauses. “Well, who knows?”

For a guy who thrives on the unexpected, never say never. 

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Photography: John Kasaian

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