[Closed] Why are gravel bikes so heavy ?

Is that heavy then?

you are looking at the wrong ones....

think mine is about 8.8kg

My Rose DX cross with Alu frame, carbon fork, full Ultegra hydraulic disks and DT Swiss wheels with tubeless 35mm tyres, SPDs and mudguards is just over 9kg.

Seems pretty reasonable to me considering I can ride it off road and year round

Chunkier frames, forks and supplied wheels.

Ive no idea what mine weighs.

For safety obviously.

Gravel is Gnarly AF it might look the case but it's actually nothing like or touring potholed uncategorised roads on an old CX bike or a dawes galaxy at all. No way you'd get me trying it

Heavy? My Cutthroat is 9.5kg on uncalibrated scales, my Salsa Marrakesh tourer, now that’s the only bike I know likely to survive a nuclear holocaust...14.5kg, that’s ruddy heavy.

Such a broad spectrum too.  Some might be slightly beefed up road, others are marginally slimmed down 29'ers.  What price bracket are we talking here? There's probably a lot being used at lower price points as N+1's, so will be a bit lardy.

Well when you can have a rigid mtb of similar spec and lighter .. Where’s the weight hiding ?

Ive got a space chicken and with few Chinese upgrades it’s 8.6kg medium with pedals. Full sram force and decent wheels.

Supposedly 9.8kg here but feels lighter.   Super nimble yet bloody strong.  Absolutely love it. I don't buy into the weight thing - if I enjoy riding it then job done.

Gravel is Gnarly AF it might look the case but it’s actually nothing like or touring potholed uncategorised roads on an old CX bike or a dawes galaxy at all.

Shoosh you,or they'll all want one!

My pinnacle iroko has full xt nice wheels and a pike its 11.7kgs with pedals.. Giant slr anyroad £1250 is 10.72kgs no pedals.

9.8kg here.  Feels super nimble yet bloody strong.  Absolutely love it. I don’t buy into the weight thing.

Couple of mates spent a fair chunk chasing that sort of weight on 29r MTB's

 Giant slr anyroad £1250 is 10.72kgs no pedals.

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Canyon Grail 7.0 CF £2k 8.8Kg No Pedals, been bombproof so far

My pinnacle iroko has full xt nice wheels and a pike it’s 26lbs

So 11.8kg - sounds like you have some mismatched specs or intents there

last one i built was 8.8kg, didn't seem too portly

Beefier frame and wheels than a strictly road bike. Disc brakes too. Chunkier and more PR resistant tyres. Bigger range cassette. Guess it all adds up at each price point.

But similarly, probably lighter than a HT MTB at each price point.

Occupies the middle ground dunnit!

2015 Fargo 11.3 kg but feels lighter.

My bottom of the range caad x with tiagra, and upgraded wheels and tyres weighs less than 10 kg with pedals. That's with absolutely stock finishing kit, a 800 gramme fork, and budget groupset.

The wheels are fit for purpose 1850 gm affairs. Could probably get it to under 9kg with an ultegra groupset, carbon parts, and weight weenie wheels, but I see no point. It's my favourite bike and I ride it far more than my carbon best bikes costing 3 or 4 times as much, but part of its appeal is that its cheap and chearful, and I don't go out on it trying to smash pbs on Strava.. It's for cruising about having fun and getting out in the fresh air.

Just highlighting you can have an11.8kg modern geometry beefy-ish mtb with 120mm travel fork for pretty gnarly mtb action. Yet a road type frame with no suspension/lighter tyres and ok even allowing for a beefier frame is only a couple of lbs lighter ?

Yet a road type frame with no suspension/lighter tyres and ok even allowing for a beefier frame is only a couple of lbs lighter

and ones like mine that are 6.5lb lighter, So plenty of bikes about

Some are designed to carry lots of luggage.

Some aren't.

my cube nuroad was far too light for me. so light infact that i sold it because it made riding too easy.

i replaces it with a concrete surly ecr with monster wheels and steel everything.

far harder to propel, which is ace for training purposes.

why would anyone want to ride a light bike.

Just highlighting you can have an11.8kg modern geometry beefy-ish mtb with 120mm travel fork for pretty gnarly mtb action. Yet a road type frame with no suspension/lighter tyres and ok even allowing for a beefier frame is only a couple of lbs lighter ?

And how much do each of those bikes cost?

Salsa Vaya here, steel frame carbon fork, tubeless 650b wheelset, Carbon seatpost, full 105 drivetrain and trp/hd brakes, coming in at 22lbs. Not overly concerned with the weight ( I’m not racing) when I was building it. To be honest was more concerned with comfort and durability especially as I’m on and off road and can easily manage sections of local trail centre. Don’t get hung up on weight.

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Mine's a little over 18lbs with pedals (Time XC8) and a couple of Elite Cannibal cages.

Therein lies the issue, gravel covers a spectrum from crabon fribe fastvagens all the way to biffers like a Bombtrack Hook ADV (c.29lbs).

A bit like saying, "Why are MTBs so heavy?" and using this as an example,

Rather than this,

My alu Bergamont Grandurance Tiagra, disks, carbon fork - 9.8kg:

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I've been posting here about how heavy and slow it feels compared to my 8.3kg road bike.   It is heavier, and slower yet much more stable, and of course whisks through "gravel".     Its easy to moan about that but long slow rides during winter will be its forte.  Because of the Grey I've nicknamed it "the Tank"...

As alluded above though, that was £995 compared to the carbon road bike which was £1500 reduced from £2250...  so thats £600 per 1.5kg.

It seems like the cycle to work scheme 'gravel' buys have flooded the market with heavy (ish),ok type bikes.

If you want something a lighter you need to shop/build a bit different.

Yeah guess it’s maybe sub £1500ish bikes with heavy wheels/finishing kit ? Still heavy for the money though 🙁

Still heavy for the money though

So whats a good weight for a 1k bike?

https://road.cc/content/review/231252-specialized-allez-elite-2018

This is tipping the scales at 8.77kg, good value package from spec there

Krytons bike above is 9.7kg at the same price point with discs, sturdier/wider wheels and bigger rubber and probably a bit more frame to go with it

Can't find the weight on the Rockhopper Pro X1

https://www.specialized.com/gb/en/mens-rockhopper-pro-1x/p/154450?color=236326-154450 but that is the equivilant HT price point there.

I've got an alloy one and with pedals, saddle pack, pump, cages, garmin etc its bang on 10kg. Mates carbon chinese 3T copy is about 500g lighter (heavier wheels mostly). The weight problem on my bike is me.

If you fix price at say 2k, then Canyons weights are

Road, rim brake - 7.1kg https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/road/ultimate/ultimate-cf-sl-8-0.html

Road, disc brake - 7.8kg https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/road/ultimate/ultimate-cf-sl-disc-7-0.html

Gravel - 8.8kg https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/road/grail/grail-cf-sl-7-0.html

29er - 10.3kg https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/mtb/exceed/exceed-cf-sl-6-0-pro-race.html

So presumably it's a combination of the weight of discs, plus the weight of tyres, beefed up frame etc.

So we can file this

Essentially a slightly beefed up road frame sporting skinnier tyres than a mtb and obviously cheap wheels at a given price point but **** me 10-12kgs

As just lack of research then? And the weights all make sense unless your comparing an ultralight road bike, WC XC Hard Tail and a steel gravel bike then?

My vaya with steel frame. cheap wheels. 47c tyres was over 12kg

My CaadX with alu frame, mid range wheels and 38c tyres is ~8kg.

Not a gravel bikes are the same.

Lots of bikes have really heavy wheels- especially ~£1k - you can loose a lot of weight even with cheap upgrade wheels.

How on earth do you get your caad x to weigh 8kg? Must be a pretty bling build as mine is just under ten with upgraded wheels and 35mm gravel King sks.

My CaadX with alu frame, mid range wheels and 38c tyres is ~8kg.

Are you sure? The CAADX range tends to be just approximately 10kg as standard. My old Sora and canti equipped CAADX is roughly around 10kg, even with lighter wheels and tyres, and the 2018 Ultegra bike was the same according to Cycling Weekly.

I bought this Norco for something like £500 from Ebay. It was a couple of months old & like new.

As standard it's fitted with TRP Spyre cable discs,Shimano 105,Scwalbe Tyrago 35c tyres & with proper mudguards,Crank Bros candy pedals,lights,pump & saddlepack it comes in at a burly 13.5kg.

Sure it's a burly beast but for £500 I'm not complaining.As others have pointed out you can get lighter bikes,it just depends on how much you want to spend.

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Mikesmith.. No not really. Giant one of the big hitters not shy of turning out a light alloy frame have the £1250 slr tough road at 10.7kgs(no pedals) ? Surely the point of gravel bikes is they are lighter and faster than mtb’s ? Obviously on suitable terrain ? Any £1000 Hardtail with pogostick up front replaced with rigid fork will be similar weight to a gravel rig ? Not just giant look at ns rag-genesis datum-specialized sequoia(ok steel) lots of others

Weights quoted from manufacturers are fantasy at best !! I’m only going on actual weight of my mtb and gravel bike.

Are you ignoring all the examples of 8-9kg gravel bikes out there in even in the £1k market. Giant may have got theirs a bit out or a bit different there, plenty of others are doing just fine with sub 10kg bikes about halfway between the similar price point road and 29r HT

The weight of my Canyon is spot on the quoted weight.

"Are you ignoring all the examples of 8-9kg gravel bikes out there in even in the £1k market"

Which bikes are these?

Please show me gravel bikes sub 9kg for £1000

Are you sure? The CAADX range tends to be just approximately 10kg as standard.

No - my spreadsheet is at home. It only retains frame fork/ headset as original every other part upgraded, and a lot are quite light. I took over 2 kilos off the vaya, then moved most of the parts over.

mistype to mean 8.x - 9.x but take Krytons sub 10kg one up there others available, I could of course go and cherry pick where a brand has a gravel bike heavier than an XC HT but plenty in the sub 10kg range which seems resonable taking the Spec Allez on the other page as 8.77kg for an Alu road bike anything under 10 is on par surely?

Please show me gravel bikes sub 9kg for £1000

as above see my correction - would sub 10kg be acceptable to you? Is that not resonable for the cash?