Question for gravelling Roadies

I was a roadie for years, club runs, tts etc. Occasionally I mountain biked but was still a roadie. When I got a cx bike about a decade ago I pretty much stopped road and just did cx rides from then on.  The last year or so I've gotten a bit bored with CX and am starting back on the road. I could probably use road tyres on my CX bike but as I have four good road bikes there seems little point.

I have quite a focussed road bike, but an old one, a steel colnago and it's great to ride - even on 25c tyres.

Therefore buy the road bike.

If you give it a couple of weeks, GCN will produce a new YouTube video on the theme of which is best. 😁 They always come to the conclusion that a proper road bike feels faster and more lively, but measurably there's very little in it. 

Yep, have two road bikes and most recent purchase is a Crux. Sometimes I fancy some light offroad, sometimes not. Crux has been great in the winter but still kept riding the road bikes.

Posted by: tthew

↑

They always come to the conclusion that a proper road bike feels faster and more lively, but measurably there's very little in it. 

Disclaimer that I have quite an old "gravel" bike (actually originally sold / marketed as a CX bike but it's done all sorts, it really is very capable). And a much newer road bike.

The road bike is faster. No two ways about it, you stand up and put some power into it, it goes. And it's not a top end bike: carbon and 105, nothing exotic. If I'm doing a road ride, especially a longer one, the road bike wins hands down. 

To ride the gravel bike, you need to accept that it will both FEEL slower and BE slower overall. Yes, it'll do more gravelly track, more crap roads than the road bike but it will be slower and trying to ride it like a road bike is inevitably frustrating.

The same local loop for me is about 2mph quicker on the road bike for the same actual effort.

So yes, I still ride and enjoy my road bike and in spite of how capable modern gravel bikes are, I would not want to be without a road bike.

I put the fancy summer wheels on the road bike a month ago and haven't used it yet. The bone dry conditions off road are definitely a factor but so is my anxiety about where I ride the road bike...on road. Not helped by the final straw of following some arsehole watching IPL cricket on his Samsung stuck on the windscreen recently.  Just so much more enjoyable being able to get away from traffic. Problem is I love riding the road bike. It's getting a holiday in France in a few weeks though.

I have a proper road bike and a gravel bike. I still enjoy the road bike. I'd buy another to replace it but as I no longer race I'd probably get something on the endurance end of the spectrum that can handle crap roads better - probably run a 32mm year round.

On my own the gravel bike is fine. But in a group it is very much dependent on what others are riding. Its a bit of a slog on the gravel bike. That said, I ride one set of wheels and tyres so 43mm gravel tyres are no match for 28mm road!

I tend to go through patches of liking bikes. Had a great gravel holiday and a few big events coming up. Struggling to get time on my road bike so ended up with my second ride of the year being a 200km audax. Will do a bit more on it now. Also love a bit of XC and enduro.
Having more bikes is great. They last forever as you don't actually ride them all that much. Doesn't matter if one is out of action for a bit. It always leaves me wanted to ride more and looking forward to the next ride. Get a bit tired of one and just switch to a different style for a bit until the love comes backk.

I have a Giant TCR for the road and a Revolt for the gravel. I mainly ride gravel but quite like taking the road bike out for a club TT on a Tuesday evening or for a tempo ride. The difference in speed is huge. The tyres and geometry are very different though. Narrow 38cm wide bars on the TCR and 28mm road tyres. The revolt has wide bars 44cm and 50mm wide tyres. 

Would I use the Revolt on the road with road tyres? Yes it would be pretty good, the difference would probably only be 1 or 2 mph average. However I think if I had space for both I’d definitely have them. The TCR feels like a sports car compared to the SUV feel of the gravel bike. 

I rarely use my gravel bike now I have a comfortable road bike. Any gravel rides are usually handled by my rigid MTB.

Posted by: davy90

↑

Questions for the roadies out there with race orientated road bikes and also have a gravel bike.

Do you still ride and enjoy your road bike regularly?

 

so i went the other way Mountain -> gravel -> road. Bought the gravel bike as i couldnt bare the thought of not being able to ride off road 🙂 now in terms of miles 99% of my riding is road. I love the novelty of being clean at the end of a ride. That with mountain biking i need to plan a route - with a road bike i just ask strava to pick me a 75 or 100km route and go for it. I am really enjoying my road cycling at the moment - i am become a full roadie 🙂 cant wait for the weather to pick up and be able to do really long rides when a 4am start isnt 3 deg C 🙂

I have an aero brick road bike, but it's had one outing of ~1 hour since the egravel bike started getting used two weeks ago... Legs feeling pathetic since the two weeks of respiratory illness from previous two weeks.

a more focussed road bike

More focussed on what exactly? 

From the sounds of it you want to cover distances (so an "Endurance" focussed road bike?) but like many people you are obviously noticing that "Endurance" Road bikes and "Gravel" bikes or "Adventure Road" or whatever the marketing spin is this week all seems to be converging a bit? 

I'm of that opinion anyway and hence I'm going down the experimental route of one bike two wheelsets (and two pairs of pedals). Thus far I'm finding the experiment a positive one, I'm covering more road miles at present partly because chonky slicks are a bit of a novelty and partly because I want to test just how much distance I can build up over time. 

I'm becoming a bit evangelical about the concept of the "Roadified Gravel bike" now, for people of the right age and disposition, if you're not going to be using it for Crits, and you're not riding with the fast group every weekend trying to tear each others legs off, quick enough and comfortable makes so much more sense than spunking huge sums on bleeding fast, aero road bling (all IMO of course)... 

I ditched the skinny light road bike and I'm not missing it yet, YMMV of course... 

Thanks for replies all.

I went Nursery run with a kiddy seat and then trailer > MTB (with the family) > Gravel (lockdown) > Road with commuting throughout.. and between drying out the sealant in its barely used tyres, still get out on my XC hardtail every so often.

Good to hear that folk feel the difference between their bikes is a positive thing.

Cheers.

. Double post

I've had a decent road (race-oriented geometry) bikes for about 25 years even though I've never raced. I then bought a gravel bike (Specialized Diverge) and put on the fattest tyres that fit and really enjoyed it BUT quite quickly realized it's limitations.

My idea of "gravel" involved exploring for secret, backcountry MTB trails so it got out of its depth and then I got a hard tail for those explorations instead.

Anyway, the road bike (a TCR actually) gets FAR more use than the Diverge and the Diverge feels a LOT more sluggish even on flat, well surfaced roads and I don't know whether to attribute that to the tyres/wheels, the heavier weight, the cheaper groupset, the more upright geometry or the longer wheelbase (probably all factors). I intend to do some multi-days tours this summer but I never seem to ride "leisurely" so I don't know whether the TCR or the Diverge will get used for these sort or rides (Diverge at least has more mounting options for "stuff")

If I was to have a "fresh start" I'd consider a Giant Defy or similar with two sets of wheels (but both with fairly fat tyres) to replace both TCR and Diverge (my TCR is six years old and has clearance for 25mm tyres which I now think is less than ideal).

Summary: the TCR is a much more fun bike to hammer, if that's what you like to do... 

HTH

(BTW: I'm 61 so not exactly a paragon of flexibility and I need a fairly decent stack of spacers under the stem.)

I thought I was going to be the voice of dissent on here as I assumed everybody would recommend that you keep the gravel bike and put some even more fancy road wheels on it, but as it happens I agree with most of the posters here.

No matter how capable these new age gravel/all-road/adventure bikes are, they are never going to be as good as a bike dedicated to a particular niche. Personally, I think when the bike industry pushes the idea of "one bike to do it all" on you, what they really mean is "one bike to do it all, alongside all your other bikes". 

I think if your idea of a road ride is to keep wearing baggies and enjoy the scenery as you go then probably a tweaked gravel bike is just fine. If you have any interest at all in going fast though, whether its with the club run, strava segments, TTs or you just enjoy the feeling, then a dedicated road bike will always feel better IMO. 

Someone up there ^^ mentioned the difference being "only 1 or 2mph average" but to my mind that is a huge difference over anything more than 60mins. 

Most people assume if you're buying a road bike you're planning on riding centuries every weekend but I rarely do that. Mostly its used for short fast rides, TTs, outdoor interval sessions or hill climbs or whatever and the majority of my rides at the moment are less than 60miles and I will always prefer a faster-orientated bike for this. 

I have to say, I am not super-fast on it these days, but its all relative to yourself, right. 

i have 2 gravel bikes, one, a Revolt X is more at the MTB end, and the other, a carbon Diverge, more at the road end of the spectrum. The Diverge geo is not much slacker than my Synapse, and its only a smidge heavier, being carbon frame, carbon wheels, AXS 1x.  Tyres are fast rolling 42c pathfinders, tubeless.

The Synapse is a carbon frame, with 12 speed di2 Ultegra groupset, nice DT Swiss ER1400 rims/DICUT hubs, and 30c GP5000's, tied up to a blingy Zipp Service Course SL XPLR bar/stem setup.

The difference between them on my local 24 mile road loop, which is all back roads and hilly is quite noticeable, and I'm sure the tyres have a lot to do with it.  Yes, maybe only 1.5mph max average over that type of ride, but the road bike just feels so much faster/responsive.

I went from a defy advanced pro to a tcr because, although the defy is considered a quick endurance bike, it still felt a bit sluggish when you stood up on the pedals on a steep incline. But my times between the two were very similar. Also have a crux which is at the fast end of gravel bikes, I put the tcr wheels with 30mm tyres on it as opposed to its usual 42mm tyres and it was very similar to the defy. The tcr is just more fun on the road and is comfy with tubeless 28 / 30mm tyres

Just regarding the speed differences between gravel bikes and pure play road bikes. Since I got my pinarello X7 earlier on this year I've been smashing all of my Strava personal bests on the road.

On my gravel bike I would be cruising at around 30 kph. Whereas on my road bike I'm easily cruising at 36 and if there's any kind of slight incline I get to 40 without even thinking. On my gravel bike to push 40 to 42 km an hour on the flat was hard. On my road bike it's relatively easy. It's not just tires by the way, I had gp5000s on both of them. I don't recommend gp5000 as a gravel tire 🙂 not unless you have deep pockets and patience to fix many flats

Very different beasts IMO. The gravel bike is a tool for going places; its not inefficient on road, but its not super zippy either - you just sit there and plod away until the road bit is done. I love my Enigma roadie for the way it feels when you ride it, the directness, the acceleration, the effortless speed, dare one say it the purity.

I rode my gravel bike on the club ride yesterday - it's a titanium cross bike with 1x11 SRAM red electric shifting and reasonably aggressive geometry. It is sub 8 kilos with road wheels, so as light as a road bike. I ride with dedicated road wheels and 30c GP5000s which I also use on my endurance road bike - a Defy Advanced SL.

The biggest challenge for an all-in-one Groad bike is gear ratios, with a 38T on the front and and 11-28 on the back, I can climb most hills just fine (it is the old fashioned small road bike gear after all), but on the flat and downhills, one is down to about three gears. And I am a spinner with a useful cadence of up to 120! Off road, I have an 11-32 on separate wheels with 33c gravel tyres, and this again allows good climbing but I do not need that 11T and am thinking an Ultegra 34-11 might be a better bet. And possibly a 40T chainring to get one more useable road ratio.

For serious fast riding and racing, I have a Propel Advanced SL, and that is MUCH faster than the Gravel and the Defy. It also has the same geometry as the TCR (I raced an alloy one before the Propel). The TCR is a fabulous all-round road bike, and if I had to choose one road bike to do it all, it would be a TCR.

BTW changing wheels is trivial, but changing pedals gets old pretty quick, I change just one for my Assioma and that is enough Pfaff. I'd stick with SPDs and buy the new Favero single sided SPD power meter pedals for a Groad bike. I commute on SPDs and don't notice the difference to Look on all of my other bikes.

I'm of that opinion anyway and hence I'm going down the experimental route of one bike two wheelsets (and two pairs of pedals).

Amateur 🙂

I've a carbon race-ish gravel bike and THREE wheelsets, all with rotors and a cassette; one set with 32mm slicks, another with 42mm semi-slicks and the last with 2.1 XC tyres.

Use it for road (local 1-2 hours thru to a 300k day), gravel (local tracks and longer distances - did a lap of the Gralloch last week) and bikepacking on both road & gravel.

Also MTB's too.

Posted by: JonEdwards

↑

Very different beasts IMO. The gravel bike is a tool for going places; its not inefficient on road, but its not super zippy either - you just sit there and plod away until the road bit is done. I love my Enigma roadie for the way it feels when you ride it, the directness, the acceleration, the effortless speed, dare one say it the purity.

Pretty much exactly this, although I've still got some lingering PBs on the road that I set on my gravel bike but they were longer, ploddier segments (one is longish local climb ironically) but for chasing rolling and twisting sort of TT efforts the road bike is much more fun and motivational I think, same difference between summer road bike and winter road bike which is still a relatively stiff and direct beast but with mudguards and heavier tyres just doesn't reward digging in and pushing on, even if it is probably barely any slower.

The biggest challenge for an all-in-one Groad bike is gear ratios, with a 38T on the front and and 11-28 on the back,

Use a wider range cassette and then you can put on a bigger front ring - I run a 44T and 11-46 on mine.

Posted by: intheborders

↑

one bike two wheelsets

Make sure the hubs are the same on both wheelsets, or you'll likely find you need to re-index the gears when swapping wheels

11-46 on mine.

I'm limited to about 22T using my (already sunk cost £700) ex-TT bike SRAM Red eTAP rear derailleur - I'm not swapping that! 🤣 . Low gears are not really the problem on the road or off. The real issue is not having enough closely spaced top end gears, and these dinner plate sprockets make the jumps even bigger. Being a single speeder off road and fixed on, I'm not worried about gradients too much. I'm not carrying luggage either - if I was, I'd just add the eTAP front derailleur and a compact chainset. I wanted to test whether 1x11 could do it all. Close but not not quite there yet.

Make sure the hubs are the same on both wheelsets

And definitely this! Mine are the same and it is a joy not to trim, even electronically.

I have a lovely carbon Pinarello Prince with carbon Corima wheels and lovely Campag 10 speed that eats up the miles.  It's old but still fine.  Comfortable as long as I've been riding it a few times so my neck muscles get used to it.  My riding mates have lovely bikes too, one has an S-Works Aethos, the other a Rourke 953.

But...

We also have gravel bikes, 2 of us have Diverge STRs.  And since getting them the road bikes haven't had much of an airing.  If we do a 50 mile ride on quiet lanes we usually come across loads of rough bits of gritty and potholed road that we're glad we've got a bike that doesn't mind, and we often find bits of bridleway that we can add into the route.  For example it's much nicer to get from Coalport to either Ironbridge or Bridgnorth using the off-road.

And usually on the final little slight uphill section on the way back one of us will ask "Do you find this bike draggy, do you wish you were on the road bike?" and another will answer "Aren't these bikes great?".  And we still use the Tracer gravel tyres they came with.

If we were riding over 60 miles (as if) or we were concerned about the average speed we might prefer the road bikes, but now I wouldn't consider replacing or spending money on the Pinarello.

Low gears are not really the problem on the road or off. 

Come ride where I live and then tell me that 🙂 

I had a CAAD4 and a CAADX, and bought an endurance bike which is now by far the most ridden. 

As others said in the thread on roadie tyre sizes, there's something a bit fun about being rattled about on 25mm tyres, but equally it's nice not getting rattled around the whole time! I've still got the CAAD4 which will probably come out for shorter evening rides on nice days. But I think I've talked myself out of buying a more modern 'race' bike for the time being. 

The Colibri even handles light gravel well. I wouldn't take it 'off-road' but it's capable on fire roads and farm tracks.  If it wasn't for the sunk cost in them I'd be tempted to thin the shed down to the Colibri and maybe a proper lightweight race hardtail, but I think I'd miss the drop bars on long days off-road. Maybe the compromise there would be to fully matchmaker the levers, go back to lock on grips and switch between flat and alt-bars.

I went from using my gravel bike as a winter road bike to having a dedicated winter roadie and a dedicated gravel bike. The main reason was not having to comprimise on gearing - don't mind the big jumps in gears off-road but much prefer closer gear spacing on a group ride. The difference in geometry is noticable, but not in as much as it affects the enjoyment of the riding.

I have a racy summer bike as well and the difference between that and the other two bikes is huge. Its main use is for pretending to be whatever pro has done something cool in a race that week.

Weren't the Gravelling Roadies that group Roy Orbison and George Harrison had in the 90s?

I went from using my gravel bike as a winter road bike to having a dedicated winter roadie and a dedicated gravel bike. The main reason was not having to comprimise on gearing - don't mind the big jumps in gears off-road but much prefer closer gear spacing on a group ride. The difference in geometry is noticable, but not in as much as it affects the enjoyment of the riding.

The bigger difference for me is being able to have decent mudguards. Swapping wheels is easy, but there's an inverse correlation between how good mudguards are and how long they take to fit.

Low gears are not really the problem on the road or off. 

As a fellow committed single speeder I'm going to have to disagree. My new bike has an 11-36 and "drop a gear and disappear" has been my new party trick on climbs 😂.  Being able to spin at 85rpm whilst everyone else in inefficiently standing and struggling is a game changer.  Just because I can ride at anything between 30 and 120rpm, doesn't mean I should.

Oh I should have said my 'Groad' bike (is that what we're going with?) is using a double 46/30 currently with 11-32 on the road wheels and 11-36 on the Gravel set. 

It sort of shook out as the best compromise (again for me) it wouldn't be hard to swap to 48/32 or indeed 50/34 and I can play with cassettes on either wheelset too, lots of choices to allow both range and suitable ratio jumps... 

Roadie most of my life, used to race so had mid range and top range road bikes from 35 years ago - still have them - fabulous bikes and they ride very well, other than I'm 35 years older and carrying broken spine and broken pelvis injuries. Great for moderately hilly rides but nothing too steep like we used to do on them - Winnats on a 42 x 21.... 

Had a 90's MTB as well that we mucked about on. Roll on some years, got a fixed road bike for commuting - was great until broken spine arrived 9 years ago. Got a full suspension and then went MTB'ing more and stayed off the roads. Started back on road about 4 years ago, and back to commuting off road about 3 years ago.  Fancied something 'in the middle' as the old rigid MTB was the commuter with racks, the FS a bit much for the canal and  local tracks, and the vintage raod bikes too nice for any crappy weather, giving how expensive Dura Ace and 600 from 35 years old is getting.

Bought a used 2012 Colnago CX World Cup with 105 two years ago. Came with road tyres but I had spare wheels to fit gravel tyres as I've tonnes of rim brake wheels.  The old MTB is used most for commuting, followed by the CX bike. The others haven't been used much.  The CX bike is race geometry and behaves very well on road, and I've done a stupidly hilly 205km sportive on it - I've also bike packed the KAW too. It's a decent bike to ride and very close to the race bikes on road tyres but can climb easily - the race bikes have massive gearing by comparison, but are like magic carpets despite the 25c tyres as they are top end steel bikes.

I'm not to worried with the CX bike as all the bearings etc are easy to get.

Posted by: fossy

↑

I'm not to worried with the CX bike as all the bearings etc are easy to get.

There is something about a CX / gravel bike where I don't mind getting it mucky - it seems built for it in a way that road bikes aren't. Road bikes should be clean and sleek. Gravel bikes are allowed to look like they've been dragged through a swamp!

Dry dusty trails only for mine so far. But a bus driver stopped me in Brentford after a session off road in Richmond Park, opened the window and said “that is a beautiful bike!”. Given his Italian accent I took this as a compliment. Brushed titanium keeps off the dirt, polished hubs and tanwall tyres add to the glamour.

Nobody ever said that about my carbon road bikes 🤣. The groupset on it is more expensive than my road bikes too, but I’m still a sucker for Dura Ace 9000 black and silver on the Defy. Grey Ultegra is utilitarian and just for racing/crashing. But the gravel bike is all bling!

A red NW 40T has arrived to replace the red 38T. I’ve already tested a 44T and it was perfect for road but not off-road. 

I have both. I ride both regularly. I'll say this though, it means I'm much more likely to just leave one broken.

Thanks for great replies folks.

Took the mudguards off the Revolt, squished everything into a small pannier and got 5 PRs and a new fastest overall on the commute home tonight. That and the new tyres, flying 😀

My two wheel sets both run 11-34 cassettes and despite being different brands, fit and index perfectly (GRX 810 11spd) without any fettling, perhaps Giant and Hunt use the same hubs... They're both black..

I'm more than convinced that adding a dedicated road bike to the fleet is an excellent idea, exactly what and how depends on a work conversation I need to time correctly.

Will be eyeing up white shoes next.... 😯 

Cheers all.

I guess it depends where you live as to what's appropriate....but my take is that I've reduced the crossover by making my gravel bike a lot more off road orientated. It's got a dropper, a redshift suspension stem, 2.1" tyres and stupidly wide and flared bars. It's 'road' wheels are still 40mm chunky things capable of some light off road to turn it into a road/cycle path bike packer. My road bike therefore feels and performs markedly differently - it's not a marginal gains thing, it's night and day. 

If I lived somewhere where one of these very racy gravel bikes made more sense, I'd go down the route of a pair of faster road wheels and be done with it and not bother with a road bike*

*I also have a winter road hack/ commute bike that has a set and full guards and a rear rack. I'm a firm believer that everyone should own one! It's a complete mongrel with looks only a mother could love but is totally cherished. It allows my other bikes to remain unmolested. 

Posted by: TiRed

↑

Nobody ever said that about my carbon road bikes 🤣

Nobody ever says that about my custom painted Rourke gravel bike which I love, but my carbon  Basso road bike is perhaps the first 'classy' looking bike I've owned and still draws compliments, although bizarrely half the compliments are for the Absolute Black chainrings which I transferred from the old bike 🙄

Posted by: davy90

↑

is this a silly idea or should I just step away from YouTube and listen to Mrs Davy90 and just be happy with my jack of all trades and very capable Revolt

For a while, all I had was a lower end CX bike which I built from random bits. I rode it everywhere - even did the Raid Alpine (Geneva to Nice) on it. Covered thousands of miles.

Replaced it with another entry level CX bike from Dolan - again, rode it all over the place. Did various trips including Vienna to Budapest, and another trip to the Alps.

Eventually I got a mid spec road bike, and got a gravel bike (I wanted discs on the gravel bike). Both saw lots of action...

...things fell apart when I got a very posh road bike. Not sure what happened, but I've been put off riding it. Probably because it's made of cheese on a hot day. 😂