Girls Gone Gravel is a podcast built specifically for women who ride gravel, and it shows in every episode. Hosted by Emily Chappell and Kathryn Taylor, the show covers the full width of the gravel world: race reports, training talk, equipment deep-dives, and candid conversations with some of the fastest and most interesting women in the sport. It isn't a generic cycling show with a female guest bolted on. Girls Gone Gravel is built by women who ride, for women who ride.
What Girls Gone Gravel actually covers
The show doesn't follow a rigid format, which is part of its appeal. Some episodes are interviews with elite gravel racers like Lachlan Morton's female counterparts on the event circuit. Others dig into practical questions: how to fuel a 10-hour ride, what tyre width actually suits mixed terrain, whether you need a dropper post for gravel (answer: probably yes). The hosts bring their own racing experience to every conversation, so the advice lands with specificity rather than vague encouragement.
Girls Gone Gravel also covers the emotional texture of endurance sport. Getting dropped on a climb. Bonking on a remote road with no food for 30 kilometres. Showing up to a start line undertrained and finishing anyway. These aren't framed as failure stories; they're treated as normal parts of riding bikes at a serious level. That honesty is what keeps listeners coming back.
Who the show is for
You don't need to race to get something out of Girls Gone Gravel. The show speaks to anyone who loves riding outside on mixed terrain, whether that means entering Unbound Gravel or just exploring gravel roads on weekend mornings. That said, the show doesn't shy away from performance detail. Episode discussions regularly include power targets, training periodisation, and race-specific pacing strategy. If you want depth, it's there. If you want inspiration, that's there too.
Women who are newer to cycling and want to understand how experienced riders think about training will find the show genuinely educational. Women who have been riding for years will find peers who take the sport as seriously as they do.
How it fits into the wider women's endurance podcast space
Girls Gone Gravel sits in a growing category of shows that take women's athletic performance seriously on its own terms. Shows like Feisty Women's Performance cover the science and physiology behind training for women, while Girls Gone Gravel keeps its lens pointed squarely at the bike and the road beneath it. The two shows complement each other well. Listen to one for the physiological framework, and the other for what that looks like when you're actually racing a 200-kilometre dirt route in Kansas.
For women who are also exploring multisport training, the conversations around endurance pacing and fuelling in Girls Gone Gravel cross over naturally with the world of triathlon, where long-course bike legs on varied terrain demand similar skills and mental discipline.
The case for gravel cycling specifically
Gravel has grown faster than almost any other cycling discipline over the past decade. It occupies a useful middle ground: more adventurous than road cycling, less technical than mountain biking, and far more accessible in terms of both terrain and equipment. For women who want to spend long days outdoors, push their fitness, and be part of a community that's genuinely welcoming at the entry level, gravel is hard to beat.
Girls Gone Gravel reflects that appeal without overselling it. The hosts are clear-eyed about the physical demands, the gear costs, and the time commitment. They're also genuinely enthusiastic, and that enthusiasm isn't performed. It comes from people who would rather be on their bikes than almost anywhere else.
Where to listen
Girls Gone Gravel is available on all major podcast platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. New episodes publish regularly throughout the riding season, with a mix of interview formats and shorter solo episodes from the hosts. If you're building a playlist of shows that take women's cycling seriously, it earns a permanent spot.
feisty