French gravel riders.

La Gravelxinoise 2017, un petit air de « Mud day » …

Hat.

raw fish, on fireroads ?

I’m oot

Le picnic

La vidéo de Willy

😯

I’m in!

Grollocks.

and the three bears ?

Seriously, you can shove your ‘gravel’ up your arse.

Something I’d like to do to those who use the term to describe bicycles.

All good rides start at the station café.

Bof

<shrugs>

who use the term to describe bicycles

and the term ‘mountain’ aswell…….

Yep, all these terms to describe bikes, how ridiculous

Enduro bike
Track bike
XC bike
etc,
etc,.

Giving a clue as to the bikes primary use or style will never catch on.

But those describe bicycles that differ from normal, everyday bikes.

These are just normal, everyday bikes you can ride almost anywhere, the natural evolution of the bike for everyman (or woman).

Saying you’re buying a bicycle doesn’t sound as cool as saying you’re getting into to gravel biking, I understand that.

But they’re still just ordinary, everyday, useful bicycles, for doing ordinary everyday useful things on.

But they’re still just ordinary, everyday, useful bicycles, for doing ordinary everyday useful things on.

Oh, so they’re Dutch bikes then?

No, they’re just bicycles.

Pretty much the same as your great grandparents would have used to ride on paved and unpaved roads, to work and for everyday transport and pleasure.

Just bikes.
Great innit?
🙂

I’m pretty certain the bikes they rode had far more in common with Dutch bikes than gravel bikes. Maybe your great grandparents were in the first Bordeaux-Paris but mine were using bikes for “ordinary everyday useful things” like going to work or to the shops 😉

Ah, safety bicycles?

We dropped the safety bit years ago, when ordinaries became less popular.

If it makes you feel special, by all means do what the marketing people tell you to do.

But they’re still just bikes.

But then we call them all “bikes” and then the conversations involving anything more specific become rather long-winded. I mean, I know “gravel” isn’t necessarily the most useful descriptor (though given that many of them frustratingly omit mudguard mounts it’s not a bad one) and there’s a very blurred area around gravel, cross, audax, touring and so on, but let’s face it, most mountain bikes never see a mountain and most racing bikes never see a race, but they’re still useful terms for characterising things that are otherwise “just bikes”.

So what about GritCX then? Is it like chewed up graveleux?

But they’re still just bikes.

All bikes are just bikes. Can’t see what is wrong with saying one bike is a road bike, one is an enduro bike, another is a gravel bike. All bikes, but all different

Majority of my riding is on gravel roads but I use a track bike not a gravel bike. I don’t therefore call my track bike a gravel bike because it is not one, it remains a track bike.

I’m a little disappointed the french haven’t coined the term ‘Gravellier’ it sounds a little more dashing. Anyway, not really worth getting het up about is it?

joemmo – Member
I’m a little disappointed the french haven’t coined the term ‘Gravellier’ it sounds a little more dashing.

Somewhere, deep in the marketing department at Rapha, an alarm bells has just rung…

scrambles to register it as a trademark

Bez – Member
But then we call them all “bikes” and then the conversations involving anything more specific become rather long-winded.

I didn’t say that.

The current crop of all rounders can do pretty much everything that most people need them to do.
The natural evolution of the bicycle, the most capable, reliable, useful machines we’ve ever had.
So, just call them bicycles.
The gravel bit is utterly superfluous.
🙂

It is the same as “winter” bikes…

Here is my old man on his summer bicycle riding off road in 1948.

So, just call them bicycles.
The gravel bit is utterly superfluous.

But if I went in a shop and said “I want a bike please” “to do what” “everyday riding” it’d take ages to get to the gravel bike section.

I’m failing to see any connection between the phrase “winter criterium” and the phrase “ordinary everyday useful things” 😉

Bez – I’m failing to see any connection between the phrase “winter criterium” and the phrase “ordinary everyday useful things

He raced it, rode it to work, trained on it, nipped to shops, Friday night pub run and in the winter went off road. What other oordinary everyday useful things should a bicycle do?

It is a lot easier to walk into a shop and say I want a gravel bike than I want a relaxed geometry all day comfortable bike with wide tyres strong wheels rack and guard mounts etc etc, also easier to search on said term “Gravel”

These are just normal, everyday bikes you can ride almost anywhere, the natural evolution of the bike for everyman (or woman).

sort of like the dropbar bikes of 30+ years ago before your road bike had to have tiny skinny tyres and such a radical riding position that it cannot be used on anything but smooth tarmac? Leading to needing a different bike if you want to actually ride it with either luggage or for more than a couple of hours or possibly take to a gravel path?

Ah, but when you say gravel bike you could get anything from a Moulton to Dogma depending on the niche the manufacture is trying to fund and the bloody mindedness of the shop keeper. Say,slack angled, over heavy poorly thought out and you’ll get what you need.

I always explain my brace of highly specialised bicycles thusly.

It’s like golf clubs you get me. Sure, one golf club would get you around the course but it’d be shit, you’d probably keep wanging the ball into the rough, and the greenkeeper would chuck a mental at all the divots you kicked up on the green, you know what I’m saying.

The pedantry is strong in this thread.

Shush, we enjoy it.
🙂

It’s like golf clubs you get me.

Not really, golf is several shades of wrong, whichever club you choose, you’re still playing golf…

Our resident plastic Scotsman is, amazingly, correct.
🙂

And the term ‘Racing bike’ should only be applied to bikes that have actually been raced.
If not, they should be referred to as ‘Fantasy Chariots’.

Golf clubs?
No.
Unless you have someone following you in an ugly German car containing your entire quiver.

Ah, but when you say gravel bike you could get anything from a Moulton to Dogma depending on the niche the manufacture is trying to fund

True I agree bikes are bikes and all bikes are part of the spectrum with say DH bikes at one end and TT or Tri bikes at the other.
I went into a shop and said I was thinking Gravel bike at roadie end of spectrum…bought one and went riding. I cant really understand how this is upsetting for some on here.

anagallis_arvensis – Member
‘So, just call them bicycles.
The gravel bit is utterly superfluous.’
But if I went in a shop and said “I want a bike please” “to do what” “everyday riding” it’d take ages to get to the gravel bike section.

To those folk who apply the principle of just calling them ‘bicycles’, can I come and watch when you go into a tool store and ask for a hammer… 🙂

I went into a shop and said I was thinking Gravel bike at roadie end of spectrum…bought one and went riding. I cant really understand how this is upsetting for some on here.

Because it’s another new trend and that makes it bad, plus it’s from America so extra bad and because it’s just bad because of rules and it’s really important that everyone understands the badness of it all because they are wrong. So stop it.

Gravel, Road Plus, All Road, Adventure etc. just recent short hand for describing drop barred bikes with clearance for fat tyres – all of them are clunky terms but gravel seems to be the one that has stuck. Best to just get over it and enjoy the bikes.

Because it’s another new trend and that makes it bad

My point is that it’s neither new nor bad.
In fact, it’s the exact opposite, as has been stated several times, but don’t let that stop you.

Didn’t mention America either.
🙂

And I didn’t suggest we refer to all bikes as just bikes, just the everyday practical ones.