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Took my 8 year old son out - on a borrowed cross bike - for a ride on some local gravel roads/paths yesterday. He said to me after about an hours riding, "when can we get off these boring trails and go home?" So I took him on some rooty trails instead to make it a bit more interesting and he was not happy with how much he got beat up on the cross bike compared to his mountain bike.
So there you go, according to an 8 year old boy, gravel riding is rubbish! (I'm still a fan though 😉).
I'm with him!
But each to their own.
I'm on his side. Endless pedalling along featureless bridleways is absolute purgatory. Can you even schralp a booter on a cross bike?
I can't schralp on my mountain bike 🤣
Two of mine refuse to even ride one of our gravelly / do everything bikes!
However, one enjoys it as steep tech isn't his thing.
Depends where you live and what you take it on too.
Endless pedalling along featureless bridleways is absolute purgatory.
Some shite bridleway near me last week.
I don't have a gravel bike per se, but took the commuter for a ride around the new forest last summer and it was rather pleasant.
If I'd had a 29er XC bike I'm sure it would have been just as nice.
isn’t his thing.
Depends where you live and what you take it on too.
That really. It's never going to be as much fun as a proper mountain bike but I rode mine over to see my girlfriend on friday. If I was on the road bike I would have had to go through Edinburgh city centre ,my 'gravel bike's (singlespeed Roadrat with huge tyres) meant I could go straight through the middle of the Pentlands, much nicer!
It's a tool for going somewhere, not a toy like the MTB, but it makes the journeys more fun
It's definitely an old man thing. I enjoy a gravel ride, but I'd never see of taking my 18 year old on one. We took him on a similar type ride before it was called gravel riding and he was bored stiff. Think he only enjoyed the ferry trip which came half way round. Keep it with the real ale and pipe & slippers 🙂
I'm getting increasingly tempted by the gravel bike option, getting older and heavier, while I swear the state of the tarmac on the western South Downs lanes feels noticeably worse this year on the few times I've ventured up there since January.
I find gravel riding is an ideal way to catch up on my favourite radio programmes.
Bikes and music . Double win.
Gravel is better than riding my fatty on a beach. That is properly boring.
Some shite bridleway near me last week.
Yeah, nice scenery doesn't make a trail fun. I'd rather walk it.
Bear in mind we're talking about entertaining an 8 year old. It's just that my inner 8 year old is still quite vocal. I'd rather do skids and hit jumps then pedal through a Bob Ross painting.
I like both.
The appeal isn't the scenery though it's the ground covered and where you can travel to during the ride.
My inner 8 year old likes adventure as well as tech as much as my outer 45 year old.
It depends where you ride.
Living in the Pennines we are blessed with twitchy, exposed and challenging XC riding.
My Camino is giving me the opportunity to mix up my ride with very big road climbs to spin the legs leading onto incredibly diverse trails.
This is my ride this morning and I have a smile wider than a Cheshire Cat, even though I’m in Lancashire.
You see, I look at Monty's first picture and think 'what a waste of height'.
@easily Ignore the philistine, that looks like a fantastic ride. Whereabouts were you?
Glenartney, looking West to the back of Beinn Eich and Stuc a' Chroin.
Try him on a gravel bike rather than one designed to go round in tight circles 😉
Try him on a fixed gear, makes gravel riding and tame off road less boring.
The trails around me are tame on a mtb so being on the gravel bike makes them more challenging. Took mine 20 miles down to the mtb trails of Kingley Vale yesterday and 20 miles back, via QECP and the Downs. More fun than my FS in a pick-your-line sort of way.
I've always had 3 bikes , A mixture of big bike , xc bike , hardtail ,road bike , fat bike and cx bike over the years . I now have a Trek Slash and a Trek checkpoint and they cover all bases to be honest . Round my way in east lothian the local trails dont really require a big enduro bike and can all be done quickly on a gravel bike . The local descents are a blast on 43mm tyres flat out clipped in and we have miles and miles of core paths to ride.
Cant see why anyone wouldn't want one but each to their own.
It turns out that different people like different things.
Endless pedalling along featureless bridleways
Forest access tracks in conifer plantations are about the only featureless riding I can think of even here in East Anglia. Getting the best out of a CX bike on the sand-filled ruts that are the norm around here is a whole new game. OR the fantastic (sarcasm at max) clay based ones that the horses have turned into bog or rippled hardpack with their hooves.
People like different things and we live in different places.
That’s the beauty of what we do, nothing is right and nothing is wrong......... hang on what have I said
He'll be right, he's back at mountains bike training next week.
Stanfree, I've ridden on some of the wooded trails around east Lothian and - as you say - are a blast on a cross bike (Trek Crockett here). Might give it another blast one evening soon as I work quite local.
Nice bike montylikesbeer. 🤙
I like doing gravel style riding on a horse, especially in a multi-day, staying at pubs manner. On a bike I’m not even much good at XC rides, I always get distracted by steep plummets or messing about doing jumps badly.
It's bikes innit. It's all good.
Had an amazing gravel ride today. SDW as far as clanfield, then pointed the bike north west and rode home using whatever bridleways i happened to stumble across. Still finding new ones after 10 years. 85km and 1200metres of smiling.
It’s all about the chosen terrain, the sort of stuff that ‘can’ be exciting on a gravel or cx bike will be dull as **** on an mtb.
Terrain that’s gnaarr enough to make an mtb exciting will be virtually impossible on a cx/gr bike.
Just like any bike then really.
sold my ebike and SB130 and now ride my gravel bike on my usual MTB trails in kent and surrey.personally i like a challenge and find the current trend of heading out over biked to be the dullest riding of all.
I went out today on my 11 year old cx bike with file tread tyres. Did 75km, mixture of road, river side tracks, singletrack, deep sand, gravel paths, double track, and grass.
It was a nice ride, with only 5 out of control dogs.
It suits me quite well.
If I was living up country then I might mix up more riding either my drop bar 29er, or my FS. But I don't so it works.
I concur ! I’ve had 2 gravel bikes and they are like mountain biking without the fun 🙁
I wouldn’t be seen dead on a gravel bike, or for that matter anything that didn’t have 800mm bars and at least 150mm of travel!
BUT as already said above each to their own, and if it works for others, fair enough.
I love nothing more than going for gravel rides with friends. They ride their new gravel bikes and get punctures and i ride along at the same speed on my mtb. They go up a steep hill a bit faster and wait for me at the top. Then we ride something a bit more challenging and i wait for them at the end.
It's just another attempt to sell more bikes to MAMILs.
It’s just another attempt to sell more bikes to MAMILs.
Not really. Some of us are able to objectively assess the best kind of bike for the riding we want to do. So it's good that alternatives are widely available. If however some numpties buy them and ride their usual MTB trails and expect some kind of revelation then they're fools.
If you rode with me on the kind of ride I think gravel bikes are good at, you would be left behind on all the road bits.
I go out with my friends on their mtb’s in our local woods and trail centres. On the uphills the ebikes are always first but on the along and downs I’m always waiting for them, unless of course I get stuck behind the next group of mtb’s who don’t like to move out of the way. Personally I’m having more fun being forced to choose lines and picking off riders on their long travel skills compensators. 😀
Gravel bikes are great at trail centres. Sure, you have to pick your routes down, but I’ve never felt the need to get a man in a minibus to give me a lift to the top.
Gravel bikes are great at trail centres. Sure, you have to pick your routes down, but I’ve never felt the need to get a man in a minibus to give me a lift to the top.
My rigid MTB is awful at trail centres. It climbs ok but the stony ground the put in to armour the trails is rough as hell on every descent. I can imagine a gravel bike would be even worse.
Plenty of actual MTBs can climb just fine - they even make a category of bike purely for this, called XC.
Why has everyone totally forgotten about XC bikes these days?
Personally I’m having more fun being forced to choose lines and picking off riders on their long travel skills compensators.
Suspension isn't there to make it easier, it's there to allow you to go faster. Much, much faster.
My gravel bike is more of an adventure road bike. Used to do a bit of road it always found it anoying' that 30miles from home I'd ride past a bridal way and had no way of going down it - too far out to MTB to and don't want to risk punctures on skinny tyres.
Completely with the ops son - going from MTB to gravel is dull..... but going from road to gravel opens up lots of possibilities and fun.
Gravel bikes are great at trail centres
Which trail centres?
I only ride Park.