Two BRANCHY gravels accross the Atlas

A few months ago, after crossing the Alps on our gravel bikes, I reached out to the Gravel group on facebook looking for ideas for the next adventure.

Guillaume—whom I had met along the way—recognized me and suggested the southern section of the Caravans Route. (Riding WOODALPS wooden bike does make you stand out…)

Bingo. I had been dreaming for years about exploring the Atlas Mountains by bike.

The route is beautifully documented on Bikepacking.com, and it quickly became obvious: this was the one.

We rode 1,400 km in 18 days, from Tiznit to Beni Mellal, through landscapes that constantly took our breath away. We faced it all—the desert heat, endless tracks across the Atlas plateaus, vast dry lake beds, freezing temperatures close to 3,000 meters, snow, torrential rain, thunderstorms that sent shivers down our spines, river crossings, and long days without seeing a single soul… except for donkeys and stray dogs, some of which came very close to taking a bite out of our calves.

A full-spectrum adventure—one we won’t forget anytime soon. (Even if I lost my camera along the way… so no film this time.)

From a technical standpoint, we rode our WOODALPS wooden-frame gravel bikes, equipped with 45 and 50 mm tires. Honestly, that’s the bare minimum for this route—the Atlas and desert tracks are rough.

Against conventional touring advice, I used a SRAM Force AXS groupset (38/44). It held up surprisingly well, lasting between 400 and 600 km per charge. I carried two batteries and a charger.

Some will say I was loaded like a mule—and they wouldn’t be wrong. We had to carry a lot of food, especially since my wife is gluten intolerant, so the load wasn’t evenly distributed between our bikes. But we also needed to be ready for wildly changing conditions.

My front tubeless tire lasted just two days before being torn open on a sharp rock. I had to switch to an inner tube for the rest of the trip—the tire was beyond repair. I also couldn’t set up my spare tire tubeless: it wasn’t new, a bit stretched, and we didn’t have CO₂ cartridges (not allowed on planes).

We mostly camped, but every now and then we stayed in small inns to recharge batteries and enjoy a proper shower. The solar panel wasn’t very efficient—probably due to suboptimal orientation and constant vibrations.