I’ve got a flat bar road rat, with bar ends. About to stick an Alpkit confucius bar on, maybe with the bar ends. Going up to a 40mm+ tyre. Maybe put a rack on it. It’s that coffee brown colour. It’s carbon free and v-braked. I think I might be safe with calling it mildly annoying as it’ll offend people. It’s a bike, it goes places, it’s been places, I like it.

Sounds like a life bike! Or possibly an urban cycle.

I think you mean a life cycle.

Sounds like a life bike! Or possibly an urban cycle.

Definitely not an urban bike, only ever ride it in the countryside.

I think you mean a life cycle.

Having been to a talk by the guy who came up with this – Deep Adaptation – might just be transport for the collapse of society. Having a practical skill and a very robust bike seem to be useful things to have. Atleast I’ve managed the bike bit. Glad I held onto the single speed conversion kit.

Only on a gravel bike thread could someone talk about a bike niche such as the collapse of society bike.

🤣🤣🤣

Raleigh Pursuit sir?

Early in this thread I claimed to have invented MTBing by riding my 10sp Raleigh around the cliffs of Gower – it was a Pursuit! 😁

Live by the genre, die by the genre…..🙂

They’re all just bicycles to me, but if you’re one of those people who must classify everything, enjoy your hybrid.

Steel singlespeed monster cross bikes will inherit the earth

Nah. Dinosaurs died out long ago and aren’t about to make a come back.

They’re all just bicycles to me, but if you’re one of those people who must classify everything, enjoy your hybrid.

On one side bike is bike on the other all communication is discrimination.

Us funny British and our love of classification, structure and rules. Oh hang on, that was yesterday.

A hybrid by it’s nature can not be a genre as it could be a hybrid of any other types of bikes.

I ride a fixed gear with riser bars so it is a hybrid between a bike with track geometry, a bike that can take bigger eyes and can also run brakes so it is not a track bike, not a road bike, not a gravel bike etc,. It is also not the same hybrid as a flat barred commuter bike.

Probably need to take a cue from the plant world, they are very good at defining and classify hybrids…

But

But

t ugly.

Saying that the Rough Stuff Fellowship did what became mountain biking is a joke.

Maybe not, but they possibly invented what a lot of us now use mountain bikes for.

Maybe not, but they possibly invented what a lot of us now use mountain bikes for.

This, I really doubt my usual loops are much different to what the RSF rode.

We’ve been through this before. The Americans put the words Mountain and Bike together, apparently for the first time, and because we live in an anglophonic world the words have been used to encompass a whole gamut of riding styles, routes and bikes. Inevitably, folk can come up with examples of those predating the activities in Marin County. I doubt the French have the same debate as they still use the VTT term too.

I doubt the French have the same debate as they still use the VTT term too.

Are you saying that the VTTs that the French ride are different from the MTBs that we ride, which have a direct descent from the Marin County bikes and not the RSF bikes?

Maybe we’re looking at this wrong. Gravel bikes are normal bikes, everything else needs a adjective.

Bike types became specialised and what was once a normal type of bike disappeared around 1960.

A normal bike was one you could use for daily commuting, go touring on, go RSF riding on, and even race (just remove mudguards, lower or swap the bars, and put on your race wheels which you’d carried to the race on your bike with the special adaptors).

So a gravel bike can look like anything you want, all it has to be is versatile, and maybe we just call it a bike like we used to… 🙂

🙂

The ‘absence of ideology’ can be a wonderful thing, if you let it.

Have bike.
Ride bike.
Everywhere.

The less you have to worry about the limitations of your bike, the less you have to expose yourself to relentless marketing bullshit.

All rounders are the truest iteration of the physical and mental freedom a bicycle can provide.

Only those scared of their own potential impose genres and categories on themselves.

Man. 🙂

@jameso

Thank you for that.

The ‘absence of ideology’ can be a wonderful thing, if you let it.

Have bike.
Ride bike.
Everywhere.

The less you have to worry about the limitations of your bike, the less you have to expose yourself to relentless marketing bullshit.

Yep, it’s great. I just get on and ride my fixed gear bike everywhere without ever worrying about if it is the right bike (it pretty much never is) and as no new stuff ever comes out for that type of bike I just ignore all new stuff (other than tubeless tyres which are a new thing I have taken up)

Maybe not, but they possibly invented what a lot of us now use mountain bikes for.

Yes and no. I doubt RSF riders were doing a lot of my local tech single-track since a lot of it didn’t exist 20 years ago never mind 50.

Anyway. Since MTBs have become gnarlier the mid point between MTB and road bike has also shifted. My bike for mixed on and off road riding is a rigid 29er with 2.35s, flat wavy bars and MTB gearing.

The less you have to worry about the limitations of your bike

You think it’s ideology that makes people ‘worry’ about their bike? It’s not, it’s thinking about what could be better in any given situation. It’s what gives us innovation in cycling and everything else. If I were riding around only on a steel tourer with drops and rim brakes I’d miss out on a huge amount of what I love about MTBing and many local trails wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun as they are now.

maybe we just call it a bike like we used to

Or, we can not care about it and call it the same thing as everyone else so they know what we are talking about?

I’m firmly in the “call it what you like, it’s just a bike” camp. My latest purchase gives a bit of a nod to those old french tourers, with its 650b wheels and wide tyres, but it has disc brakes and a carbon frame, which kills the retro vibe. It’s a bit like a CX bike, but mostly-slick 47mm tyres aren’t really anybody’s first choice for racing round a muddy field and the BB is a bit low. Plus there is the 150mm dropper post. You could call it an adventure or an all-road bike if you like, but the people who made it called it a gravel bike. Probably because they are American. To me it’s just “my bike that isn’t my mountain bike”. The one I use for linking up back roads with farm and forest tracks (plus the odd bit of tame Singletrack). But you can call it whatever you like.

TBH this thread was better on page 1 when everyone was just taking the piss.

You think it’s ideology that makes people ‘worry’ about their bike? It’s not, it’s thinking about what could be better in any given situation. It’s what gives us innovation in cycling and everything else. If I were riding around only on a steel tourer with drops and rim brakes I’d miss out on a huge amount of what I love about MTBing and many local trails wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun as they are now.

I disagree.

I ride most of the trails I ride on MTB on my steel tourer.
I just recalibrate my expectations and sense of achievement.
It isn’t any less fun, just different.

Be here now.

@Rusty Spanner
well said. 🙂

Since MTBs have become gnarlier the mid point between MTB and road bike has also shifted.

This is an intelligent statement. My first MTBs were very rideable on the road, especially if you switched tyres; current MTBs are not designed for road riding in any way. Something was going to fill that gap.

This is an intelligent statement. My first MTBs were very rideable on the road, especially if you switched tyres; current MTBs are not designed for road riding in any way. Something was going to fill that gap.

This is why I referred to my so-called monstercross/gravel bike as an ‘ATB’. Because it felt most like my old ATB except with drop bars and 2.1 or 40c depending on mood/need. It was very different from a carbon roadie ‘gravel’ bike with 28c and arse in the air face in the front wheel. Genres today are wider thanks to choice. I bought a ‘hybrid’ once. It had flat bars, adjustable stem, thick alu frame, hyper-rigid forks, narrow tyres and a low B/B. It was a dead lump of commutist utilitarianism upon which I commuted, and it never once inspired me to head offroad on it. As it was I had to install a suspension seatpost on it to save my bonch from potholes. This added another KG to the anchor.

Circa 1989/90 my first ‘mountain bike’ was an ‘ATB’, and before that my first road bike was quite often ridden off-road. The earlier handbuilt cromo ATB was much better everywhere than the later hardass hybrid I bought. Other (choose brand and budget) hybrids could offer much more or a little less.

On-topic – (gravel bikes) could just as easily be given the title ‘DOI’ (do it all) bikes. Still wouldn’t make it definitive or literally true.

Anyway, folks always liked to argue and indulge in banter/smartarsery so why spoil it with policing and narrowing classifications…

This has got me thinking of definitions:

MTB – anything you have to put it in the car to get to the trails because nothing sucks like doing mileage on the road with big lugged tyres. Rarely found on an actual mountain.

Gravelbike – a bike you’re quite happy to ride 15-20 miles to a trail, but even easy local stuff is fun because it takes more way skill with skinny tyres with virtually no tread. It doesn’t matter how it’s configured if it does the job, And there’s no expensive linkages or suspension parts with a service life of hours. Sometimes pictured next to trig points on actual mountains.

Hybrid – an early attempt at gravel bikes but marketed to the use once and stick in the back of the shed user. Some of them were actually quite good and are a cheap way into gravelbikes with a few mods such as disposing of the ‘suspension’ fork. Mountains? – only fools ride up there.

Sometimes pictured next to trig points on actual mountains.

But mainly used by feart roadies, or folk that live in shite biking areas.

If i turned up to a gravel bike race on my hybrid, would i get burned at the stake?

All depends what sort of hybrid. If it is pretty much like a gravel bike but with flat bars then the only differentiator is the bars so sure you would be fine, but people may ignore you more.

I readily switch bars between risers and drops as I have no brake or gear levers to worry about. When I ride the bike with drops the majority of roadies say hello as we pass each other. When I ride exactly the same bike but with risers on the number of roadies saying hello goes down to about 5%. People are shallow aren’t they…

wors
If i turned up to a gravel bike race on my hybrid, would i get burned at the stake?

Only if you won 🙂

But mainly used by feart roadies, or folk that live in shite biking areas.

Most of the people I ride with have many bikes, normally including something that can be lumped under the ‘gravel’ banner. We live and ride in south Wales, right in the middle of one of the best MTBing areas in the country.

BUT…..most of us don’t want to be hitting the techy stuff every day, not when there are great views out in the hills, ice-cream parlours and beaches to ride to, or just those days when you don’t want to wash, lube and service your trail bike yet again.