End of the road for me and gravel bikes?

35 percent of the roads in the USA are unpaved, over 1.3 million miles of gravel roads.

You just need to ride the bike you are comfortable on and enjoy riding the most. If you are not in a race then being a couple of minutes slower over an hour because your position on an MTB is not as aero as a gravel bike doesn't really matter.

I prefer riding MTBs on gravel so that is what I ride but if I was riding 200 miles then I would use a gravel bike as hand position is more comfortable. As I never ride more than 25 miles then not really something for me to consider.
And put the same tyres on an MTB and a gravel bike and other than hand/arm position there won't be much in it when riding on gravel. Put a 2.2 on a gravel bike and it starts to feel MTBish, put a 38c on an MTB and it starts to feel gravel bikish.

There’s quite a few people on this thread claiming that an XC hardtail is almost as fast a a gravel or road bike on the road, but unless you’re all slow riders, that’s rubbish.  Most (all?) modern XC hardtails are almost all limited to 32-34t front chainrings, this means that the spinout speed is going to be around 22kph with a 10t cog.  That’s pretty slow for road and gravel.

Off road, sure, on anything remotely technical or even loose at speed, a hardtail will be faster, but on much of the stuff in between, it will be slower and IME far less comfortable.

@Daffy I’d second that. As for what constitutes ‘gravel’, can we just stick with the more traditional and accurate term of ‘rough stuff’? Anything that isn’t paved road or mountain.
OP sorry to hear of your issues. Hand and subsequently or correspondingly head and thoracic/cervical spine position has led me to try many different bar types, heights, widths and tyres. What worked for me in reducing the upper back pain was a more upright posture. I ended up with Whisky Winston moustache bars on one bike which worked great, Ritchey Corralito on my Audax / rough stuff bike which again allow both a more raised posture and a wider hand position that’s more towards my body.

It was definitely riding in the drops and looking up that would exacerbate the pain.

Medical history for comparison with yours: L1&3 fractured. Minor brain injury, left shoulder SLAP lesion repair 75% of the way around, no collarbone end: synthetic ligament holding in place, left wrist broken in 14 places and pinned.

Good luck getting sorted with the bike, and just a wonder; could you reverse mullet it with a 29er front to bring it up slightly?

There’s quite a few people on this thread claiming that an XC hardtail is almost as fast a a gravel or road bike on the road, but unless you’re all slow riders, that’s rubbish.  Most (all?) modern XC hardtails are almost all limited to 32-34t front chainrings, this means that the spinout speed is going to be around 22kph with a 10t cog.  That’s pretty slow for road and gravel.

22kph is an incredibly slow speed to spin out at unless you spin out at a cadence around 50rpm.

With a 32t or 34t chainring and the 10t at the back you’re looking at around 40kph at 90rpm which is probably a lot faster than many will cruise at on either gravel or road bikes.

My Scalpel HT has a top gear of 34x10 which is good for mid-20s mph at a 90 rpm cadence - quite a lot faster than 22kph. The biggest handicap is the 760mm bars, but if you grip them closer to the stem it makes a huge difference. The gravel bike is faster on the road, but not by a huge amount, a lot of which is probably down to the tyres. The MTB is much more confidence inspiring on anything even vaguely loose or technical. Which is why the gravel bike is now mostly used for touring and as a winter road bike, or just occasionally off-road when I feel like scaring myself for fun. I still love the bike, it's just that living where I do there aren't many gravel tracks to ride.

There’s quite a few people on this thread claiming that an XC hardtail is almost as fast a a gravel or road bike on the road, but unless you’re all slow riders, that’s rubbish. Most (all?) modern XC hardtails are almost all limited to 32-34t front chainrings, this means that the spinout speed is going to be around 22kph with a 10t cog. That’s pretty slow for road and gravel.

There’s a maths problem there. It also contradicts my experience. I can pedal my MTB to over 40kph without spinning out, that’s with a 30 tooth chain ring a 10 at the back.

For my local rides a short travel MTB or gravel bike with big tyres are fine for most rides. I’ve cheerfully done group rides with me on my gravel bike and others on their MTB. Its a leisure activity do it however you want. Some days i like from drop bars and weaving round the roots, other days i plough over them on my FS MTB. Its fun both ways

The term gravel is a one marketing one. But we started cycling before the roads were paved and rough stuff has been around for years. So gravel bikes predate road and MTB

We could say that the first Tour de France winning bicycle in 1903 was half-fixie half-gravel. A steel bicycle, with fixed gear, wooden rims, 32-38 mm wide tires, leather saddle and a handlebar that resembles some current gravel models.

https://www.siroko.com/blog/c/tour-de-france-bikes-history-part-one/

Op have you tried a bike fit and/or physio?

I've a gravel bike and a light XC bike, both great a what they do, which is not quite the same thing, although plenty of overlap..

horses for courses..

There’s quite a few people on this thread claiming that an XC hardtail is almost as fast a a gravel or road bike on the road, but unless you’re all slow riders, that’s rubbish. Most (all?) modern XC hardtails are almost all limited to 32-34t front chainrings, this means that the spinout speed is going to be around 22kph with a 10t cog. That’s pretty slow for road and gravel.

22kph is an incredibly slow speed to spin out at unless you spin out at a cadence around 50rpm.

With a 32t or 34t chainring and the 10t at the back you’re looking at around 40kph at 90rpm which is probably a lot faster than many will cruise at on either gravel or road bikes.

It does depend where you live too but riding a bike with MTB tyres on tarmac for any distance just sucks the fun out of it for me. Locally a 40 mile ride will probably see 15 of those off road so making the tarmac sections in between less tedious is key. A gravel bike is perfect for that. I don't care about average speeds or spinning out, why does everyone reference that? Are you all racing every ride at full gas?

Gravel bikes are for exploring places and enjoying the view, getting an adrenaline rush attempting trails on the edge of being rideable on 45mm tyres and compared to an MTB they are perfect for that if you aren't lucky enough to be able ride off road from your door

There’s quite a few people on this thread claiming that an XC hardtail is almost as fast a a gravel or road bike on the road, but unless you’re all slow riders, that’s rubbish

I beg to differ on this one... but it comes with  caveat of, it depends. An xc hardtail as it comes stock for off-road won't be that fast, but stick something like a Thunderburt 2.1 out back minimal RaRa out front (common XCO type spec), use a sensible 90's style bar width and maybe centre bar ends if you want. Most average specs will be too heavy, but a superlight chi-chi build can easily be 19lbs these days even with a 100mm suss fork, or lighter with carbon rigid, as light or lighter than a lot of gravel bikes. Am not a slow rider by any means and when I first started riding a bike like this (am older and slower now) keeping pace or overtaking full-on TeamSky kit style road bikerists while on the way to flip the script on some singletrack was just part of the training regime, same goes for e-bikerists. A gravel bike might be a tad faster still, but on the boring bits it doesn't need to be faster - and as soon as you hit the fun stuff a hardtail is way more fun... most of the offroad up my end would be naff on a gravel bike. Think more like the sort of dropbar 29er builds they're using at rougher US gravel races now, something more like a classic Norba xc racer geometry, not LLS - and we can see that there's not much speed lost to big tyres and minimal suspension... just choose the bar style most comfortable with, but yeah drops will be a few percentage points faster if you need that on the boring bits. Spinning out a 34-10 is a non-issue when riding for fun, racing on smooth gravel may require more... but smooth US gravel looks a lot smoother than most of the 'roads' around here...

getting an adrenaline rush attempting trails on the edge of being rideable on 45mm tyres

Nasally aerated tea everywhere... 🙂

So gravel bikes were always something of a solution looking for a problem in the UK. However, they do make excellent tourers and winter road bikes, and they are well suited to the somewhat unpredictable surfaces of the average NCN route

Exactly.
Mine is a 'do it all' bike.

Would be interested in the OP’s experience after trying some XC MTBs. I don’t have a dog in this race, and I have no gravel experience, but I have to confess that I read the OP and my immediate thought was that a gravel bike (no matter how tweaked) did not sound like the OP’s ideal solution.

There’s a maths problem there. It also contradicts my experience. I can pedal my MTB to over 40kph without spinning out, that’s with a 30 tooth chain ring a 10 at the back.

There isn’t.   30:10 will have you at over 110rpm at 39kph.  How long can you sustain that for and just how bouncy will that be?

At 34:10, you’ll still be over 90rpm (at 40kph) and on a MTB 90rpm for a significant period is NOT comfortable at all as in most circumstances, you have a slightly less efficient pedalling position that that of a road/gravel bike.

60-70rpm is about the best comfortable rpm for a sustained off-road effort. Heck, even on road, most people will be at a 70-75rpm average.  Fit cyclists will be above 80 average and pros can sustain 100+, but not most of us.   Okay, you may not spin out at 10:34 on the flat, but your legs will be a blur and your contribution to power will be minimal at the top end.  Any for of downhill gradient will have you spun out.  Contrast that to any gravel bike with typical gearing 40/42:10 and at 65-70rpm you’ll be at 35kph as opposed to ~25kph on 32:10.

The number of folk I ever see spinning at 90 rpm is a close approximation to zero.

@Daffy

The maths problem i  referred to was the claim that the spin out would occur at 22km/h. I haven’t seen anything that supports that yet. Surely know one is calling 60 rpm a spin out

I thought i better check my claim so i kept an eye on my speed today. I definitely hit 44km/h pedalling down a road hill on my MTB.

I put 100 rpm into sheldon brown. This is what i got. Obviously this is for a 29 er. So I’d say 110rpm is about correct for me today. That’s higher than my normal cadence but not by a huge amount. I think my normal cadence is 80 to 85 rpm.

The number of folk I ever see spinning at 90 rpm is a close approximation to zero

My last road ride was at an average of 86 .

Most (all?) modern XC hardtails are almost all limited to 32-34t front chainrings, this means that the spinout speed is going to be around 22kph with a 10t cog.

That's just not the case. I have a 30t chainring on my XC FS (It would be 32 or 34, but it's been a bad year!), and I'm still pedalling at 20mph+ on road. And not all that fast in cadence terms either.

I'm sure gravel bikes are faster, and more comfortable on road, but a short travel bike, locked out, with sensible tyre choices isn't the worst way to move on tarmac.

Average cadence 89rpm from 1.5 hours on the Kickr this afternoon.

On the gravel bike with road wheels (and full mudguards) 😀

rockshox and rimpact foam inserts

I was one of those suggesting my gb was only a bit faster on road. It had similar 1x gearing to my xc ht, similar tread tyres and was steel compared to carbon for the xc. Can’t see why you’re surprised Daffy tbh?

Not sure I’ve seen anyone claim a xc ht is nearly as quick as a proper road bike either?

Thanks all. I didnt mean to stir up such a vigourous debate.

I also own a Cube reaction carbon HT. Its a 29er. It set up rigid with some Travers prong forks. Ive found a set of S/H rockshox sid forks im going to try in it and see if im comfier and happy with the speed compromise. I shall find some speedy tyres....Thunderburt at the rear? Maxxis Icon at the front?

Think my Cube Reaction had a Maxxis ardent up front, Schwalbe Racing Ralph out back? Seemed a decent combo for gb type stuff.

Thanks! I will check them out. The forks need a lowers service so i can find tyres whilst i sort that out. Then i will compare how it all feels.

A Racing Ray up front and a Racing Ralph on the rear works well on my XC hardtail.