New explorr Festival to launch in Royal Deeside with one-day gravel stage race
A new gravel-focused endurance festival is set to arrive in Scotland this summer, with organisers unveiling the inaugural explorr Festival in Banchory, Aberdeenshire. Scheduled for 28 to 30 August 2026, the three-day event will be centred around a new one-day gravel stage race in the foothills of the Cairngorms National Park, while also promising a broader celebration of outdoor sport and culture on the banks of the River Dee.
At the centre of the programme is the explorr Gravel Stage Race, a 120km challenge made up of four timed stages that will take riders across forest tracks, quiet roads and the wide open terrain of Royal Deeside. Instead of a traditional point-to-point or mass-start gravel race, the event will use a cumulative time format, with riders tackling separate competitive sectors across the day before their overall result is decided by combined stage times.
Organisers say the format has been designed to reward more than just endurance. With 76km of timed racing across the four stages, riders will need to balance pacing, positioning and tactical judgement as they move between race sectors on untimed transition sections. That should create a different rhythm from a conventional gravel race and, on paper at least, opens the door to more aggressive racing and shifting fortunes throughout the day.
There will also be more than one prize on the line. Alongside the overall General Classification, the event will feature mountain and sprint competitions across selected climbs and fast segments, adding another layer of strategy for riders who may not be targeting the outright win. It is a format that borrows some of the appeal of road stage racing, but places it firmly in a gravel setting that should suit punchy riders as much as diesel-powered endurance specialists.
The team behind the event is Red On Sports, the organiser of The Gralloch, which was launched as the UK’s first UCI Gravel World Series race and helped establish Scotland as a major destination on the international gravel calendar. With explorr, Red On Sports appears to be broadening its approach, using its experience in high-profile gravel events to create something aimed not only at elite racers but also at ambitious amateurs looking for a more varied and accessible race experience.
That wider appeal is a key part of the pitch. Rather than standing alone as a single race day, explorr is being framed as a full outdoor festival, with gravel cycling, running and community activities sharing the same space across the weekend. The event village in Banchory is expected to host live music, athlete talks, film screenings and an outdoor expo, giving the festival a feel that goes beyond numbers, timings and results sheets.
The wider programme reflects that ambition. Alongside the gravel stage race, the weekend will include running events over 5km, 10km, half marathon and marathon distances, as well as a charity night hike, children’s races and other community activities. The organisers say the night hike will raise funds for Prostate Cancer UK, Breast Cancer UK and Banchory Outdoor and Active, tying the festival to both national charities and local initiatives.
For riders, the location may be one of the strongest selling points. Banchory sits on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park and offers quick access to the kind of mixed terrain that has become central to modern gravel racing: hard-packed forestry roads, rolling backroads, big views and the possibility of punchy climbing. It is exactly the sort of landscape that can make a race memorable even before the stopwatch starts.
Early-bird entries for explorr Festival 2026 are now open, with full event details available via the organiser’s website. If the event can match the atmosphere promised in its launch announcement, it could give the UK gravel scene another significant date in late August and add a fresh format to a calendar that is still evolving at pace.
