About
Hidden Tracks
Gravel riding, events and a healthy curiosity about where that track goes.
Hidden Tracks Cycling creates gravel routes, events and off-road coaching in London and South East England. There’s a remarkable amount of good riding hiding on your doorstep, mostly in plain sight. I spend quite a lot of time joining the bits together.
The idea is simple. You shouldn’t need a flight, a van or a complicated plan to have a proper adventure on a bike.
The person behind the routes
I’m Charlie Codrington. I founded Hidden Tracks, am a serial cyclocross race organiser and lead the off-road coaching at Herne Hill Velodrome. I’m a qualified British Cycling coach and ride leader, cyclocross and gravel racer, general explorer, map man and history nerd. These interests have rather taken over.
For over 20 years I’ve been riding, leading rides and studying maps for promising lines. Drovers’ roads, forgotten railways, woodland tracks. I like knowing where they go and why they’re there. Then I find out whether they’re rideable. I also write regularly for London Cyclist, the London Cycling Campaign’s magazine.
How a route gets made
Chalk drains. Clay tends to keep you company. And that promising bridleway may have become a jungle since anyone last went through. So I explore, ride it again and fix the bits that looked considerably better on the map.
A route should feel like a discovery, not a punishment. Occasionally it’s both.
Coaching
Coaching is about helping people discover what they can do.
I guided three boys from Little Bedwyn to Paris. They started out needing reminders at every junction and finished riding confidently through the city. By then I’d become almost redundant. That was rather the point.
Why I do it
Some ideas start with a question. Could you link up an off-road loop around London? That became The 360. Others start with a railway map: take the train out, get on your bike and ride home. Allow a few days if you’ve gone to the other end of the country.
Along the way
I like giving people something unexpected along the way. I’ve arranged feed stations at St Paul’s Cathedral and Ightham Mote. A lay-by would have been easier. Rather less to look at, though.
I design the routes, organise the events and, whenever possible, ride them myself. On the self-supported rides, you manage your navigation, your effort and whatever the day throws at you. The achievement belongs to you.
Left alone, a ride like Land’s End to London can stay a dream: too much planning, too many things to sort, and always next year. Give it a date, a route and a start line, and it happens. I sort those. The riding is yours.
90% of riders can get an app to plot this route, but it would have a lot of road in it. You’re the only one who can plot this route with 90% gravel in it.
Where you’ll also find us
