Northern Minnesota Gravel Ride Guide

Cover image Bryan Hansel

If you’re looking for a gift for the cyclist in your life, consider this your sign!

About the Author

Bryan Hansel brings more than thirty years of field-tested expertise to every image he creates and every mile he rides. A professional, award-winning landscape photographer and respected outdoor educator, Hansel has built a career around seeking out wild places and helping others experience them with skill, curiosity, and confidence. His photography has appeared in major publications such as National Geographic and Outdoor Photographer, and Lake Times Magazine named him the Best Photographer in Minnesota in 2018. See examples of his work on his website.

Beyond his portfolio, Hansel’s work as an instructor and guide has taken him across the country, leading workshops in national parks, national forests, and other iconic landscapes where light, weather, and terrain can shift from challenging to transcendent in a single hour. His approach blends craft and adventure, encouraging participants to see the outdoors with both technical precision and a sense of play. That same spirit animates his cycling life in Cook County, where he has spent years exploring remote roads, jeep tracks, shoreline climbs, and inland pathways on two wheels. The result is a guidebook informed not only by technical accuracy but also by the perspective of someone who has ridden every route, scouted every bend, and felt the gravel under his tires in all seasons.

Overview map of Cook County gravel bike routes. Bryan Hansel image

About the Book

Cook County is a landscape made for gravel cycling, with long forest roads, rugged backcountry connectors, and quiet miles where cell service fades and the sound of loons replaces the digital buzz. The region’s mix of rolling topography, dense birch and pine stands, and inland lakes creates both beauty and variety, making it one of the Midwest’s premier destinations for mixed-surface riding. This guidebook distills that environment into 27 curated routes ranging from an approachable 8-mile sampler to a true county-spanning epic. Each entry includes practical specifics such as mileage, elevation gain, surface type, and notable features, paired with firsthand observations collected by someone who has pedaled each segment, sometimes underbiked and always fully engaged with the terrain.

Riders will find loops that wander through quiet glades, skirt lakeshores, climb remote ridgelines, and link jeep trails that see more wildlife tracks than vehicle treads. The range of difficulty ensures that novices, weekend riders, and committed bikepackers will all find routes suited to their ambitions. Beyond the maps and metrics, the book reflects a deep familiarity with Cook County’s character. It highlights how the region’s back roads knit together a landscape that can feel both vast and intimate, where the physical challenge of a climb sits side by side with the quiet reward of rolling through filtered light in a pine forest.

You Can Be Santa’s BIG Helper

Purchasing this guidebook supports a small, independent Minnesota business that invests directly in the outdoor community. Every sale sustains the work of a local creator who contributes to the region’s cultural and recreational life, rather than funneling revenue to a large corporate retailer. For readers and riders who value local expertise and local enterprise, the book provides both. It also makes a thoughtful, compact gift for cyclists, outdoor enthusiasts, and North Shore travelers. The perfect stocking stuffer, it sparks trip-planning conversations, and encourages recipients to explore Cook County with fresh eyes and solid guidance. For anyone who appreciates high-quality regional knowledge presented with clarity and passion, it is the kind of gift that gets used rather than shelved.

Buy local at Sawtooth Outfitters, Tofte and at several Grand Marais retailers, including Lake Superior Trading Post, Drury Lane, North House Folk School, and Northern Goods.
eBook: https://bryanhansel.com/out/gravelebook
Print on Demand: https://bryanhansel.com/out/gravelprint