Gravel – Am I missing something?

I’ve recently been watching a fair few gravel events on YouTube- Dirty Reiver, Tuscany Trail etc and to my eyes they would be far more ‘comfortable’ and ‘fun’ on a XC bike.

I’ve ridden the Ridgeway event on my XC FS and enjoyed it, my mate took his gravel bike and was AOT a number of times – he’s a better rider than me.

I watched a recent Guy Kes YouTube video and he was on some gravel bike with suspension forks and his ride (to my mind) only going to the shops would have been better suited to an XC bike. Plus why on earth put sus forks on a gravel bike?

Don’t get me wrong I have a gravel bike myself but I only ride it around town or on actual gravel, so don’t have a downer on them. I just can’t get my head around why they are so popular for muddy or single track events?

Yes I know – ride what you want – it’s just that you’d not take an XC bike for an uplift day……….

I just can’t get my head around why they are so popular for muddy or single track events?

Depends on the sections you’re seeing in videos I guess but (for example) Dirty Reiver on a HT, I’d be overbiked for 90% of it and it’d be about right for the other 10%. Whereas on a gravel bike it’s about right for 90% of it and possibly marginally underbiked for the remaining 10%. But that’s still preferable to the first option.

There are plenty of routes I ride in the Peak District on mine, dipping in and out of tiny lanes, bridleways, old railway lines etc where a HT would be ideal for some of the tracks but a total slog on the rest of it. The gravel bike is ideal for most of it and needs a bit of care on a few short sections.

gravel bike has a very wide range of gearing, is better suited to higher speeds, also good for tamer trails. A gravel bike is the only bike i have ever ridden 20 miles through the country side, roads, fields, byways etc, run an official blue trail loop, and then rode home again.

I could probably ride to the blue and loop it on an mtb, would take longer, and id be knackered… and unwilling to ride home

If i only rode local trails, for sub 15 miles.. an MTB would be fine. anything that has 15+mph of pedalling for extended periods.. i don’t want to be on an MTB

Another gravel bike owner here who doesn’t get the hype… Offroad I’d rather be on an MTB, even if it’s decidedly untechnical. On road I’d rather be on my road bike…

Of course where the gravel bike wins out is on actual gravel forest roads, funnily enough, what they’re designed for… It’s just that we don’t have all that many of them in the UK unless you live in Scotland, Kielder or West Wales to be honest…

Plus why on earth put sus forks on a gravel bike?

Well I wouldn’t, but those I know who have them say it does make a big difference for the kind of moderately bumpy riding we do a lot of round here (west pennines).

IMHO

a suspension fork on a gravel bike is great fun, takes the fatigue out of the arms. love mine

on crappy road climbs gravel bikes take far less energy than a mountain bike. i never get that MTB feeling of this hills gonna be a killer. my own experience sonder camino/rockshox judy  vs   yeti arc/XTR, the sonder does it better on everything except techier climbs and steep fast descents.

my local riding involves tarmac between woods / bridleways / canal towpaths, et al.

that said i did a sonder winter gravel series on my tallboy a few weeks back, i kept up with sonder gravel bikes, with effort

and had far more fun on the descents :0) but the ride wasnt worth a mtb imho, my shoulder had been aching so wanted less fatigue so took the hit on the legs instead.

i think a lot depends on where you live, if i lived in good mountain bike trails territory, then that’s what i’d use.

But i live in Norfolk, my full sus is my “holiday” bike, most of my riding is 50% road linking the 50% off road of gravel, bridleways and field boundaries, and a decent ride is 50-70 miles normally, plus off road is a bit more “sketchy” and fun on a gravel bike when tame, 2.4 tyres are slower and grip almost too well.

If i lived elsewhere, i”d probably still have a gravel bike, but the bias would be more towards mountain biking every time

Gravel – Am I missing something?

About two threads every week for the last ten years saying the same thing?

You are not missing anything, it is just not for you so you just carry on riding an MTB of that is more fun for you.

ps. gravel bikers are definately in one of two camps (at heart), basically MTBer or Road Bikers.

a road biker would spend money on making something lighter, whereas i’d prefer decent hope brakes and 40mm of travel,

In ten years time, gravel bikes will look like this:

They are generally appalling at anything vaguely off-road apart from the smoothest forestry tracks. I say that as a gravel bike owner.

I don’t find it a hoot to ride some difficult terrain on it. I just wish I had the MTB instead.

Should’ve bought an XC bike instead. Not quite as quick on the road (but not bad) but massively superior off-road.

^ I want an XC bike like that so much…

But not for gravel. For XC.

Gravel bikes are just road-ish bikes that don’t flinch at a bit of CX. The things that make a gravel bike a decent road bike substitution are the things that make them lame off-road Vs any MTB and there’s no changing that, despite what the marketers say, it’s just the compromises of balance and tyres, bars and things like that.

ps. gravel bikers are definately in one of two camps (at heart), basically MTBer or Road Bikers.

100% this. Those who appreciate good road bikes will like gravel bikes for a bit of ‘road plus’. The MTBers who like them are probably those old-schoolers who know what underbiking and pin-balling is and enjoy it, in moderate doses.

The MTBers who like them are probably those old-schoolers who know what underbiking and pin-balling is and enjoy it, in moderate doses.

>> Waves at jameso 🙂

#chooseyourbattleground

gravel bikers are definately in one of two camps (at heart), basically MTBer or Road Bikers.

Nah. I’m in neither (or both) camps.

About two threads every week for the last ten years saying the same thing?

Apart from that.

I rode 300miles on an XC bike for SSUK-21 in Comrie an lost all feeling in my palms for about 2 months.  Drop bars just don’t have that issue as you’ve got 3 sets of bars in one to move the pressure around on (or duck out of the wind).

To me unless it’s specifically just going out for a quick blast and having fun (in which case the gravel bike tends to win because it covers more ground and there isn’t an abundance of singletrack from my door) then the difference is distance.  The mountain bike is for fun stuff, which tends to be shorter rides. And the gravel bike is for bigger distances (because there’s hardly any 100mile long gnarly trails).

40miles on an XC bike feels like a long ride, 40miles on a gravel bike is Tuesday Evening.

I’ve taken the gravel bike to Swinley, it was ****. Scary, fun, fast, but objectively ****.

I’ve taken the XC bike around the local lanes, it was dull, I ran out of gears on every slight downward gradient on the road, and it’s not actually that comfortable a position to sit still in, it’s designed for you to move around.

In ten years time, gravel bikes will look like this:

No, that’ll still be an XC bike.  Although it’s no bad thing that some brands have filled in the gap between 120mm XC race bikes and rigid bikes again.

And like JamesO, yes please.

Basically what jameso said, and what I said in the other recent threads in recent months 🙂 I’m pretty done with my gravel bike, but just about appreciate its appeal and it still does a useful job, which is subjective to the rider and the local terrain. I just now prefer my rides to be mainly XC on a XC bike, and I put up with the tarmac bits quite happily.

Those who appreciate good road bikes will like gravel bikes for a bit of ‘road plus’. The MTBers who like them are probably those old-schoolers who know what underbiking and pin-balling is and enjoy it, in moderate doses.

I think I fit into both those categories!

I have a gravel bike because it suits my local ‘from-my-door’ riding (bridleway bimbles with connecting tarmac sections) and it can pull dual duty as my ‘road’ bike when I want to go further afield or get out when the trails are under water. The back lanes I use to avoid the traffic tend to be borderline gravel anyway, grass up the middle etc.

If i want to ride ‘proper’ off road I have the hardtail

If i want to ride ‘serious’ off road I have the big boingy Eeb.

Horses for courses.

I just think of mine as an explorer bike. I can choose somewhere on a map within a 50 mile radius of home and know that it’ll get me there and back whatever the terrain might be, if I choose to ride there all off road on farm tracks or bridleways and woods it’ll be fun enough, if I choose to ride home on the road I can do that too.

Thanks chaps – interesting views and yes distance can be a bit of a slog on an XC MTB – I’ve ridden the SDW which I found hard but it would have destroyed me on my gravel but.

As you say horses for courses and I still don’t know what bike to ride if I do the Tuscany Trail next year.

I just can’t get my head around why they are so popular for muddy or single track events?

I’m not sure they are tbh. It sounds unlikely.

I always get back to the point that gravel bikes work better on tarmac – even quite broken tarmac – than mountain bikes. And better off road than road bikes. They’re great for stuff that mixes up the two. Things always get a bit weird when people start pointing out that mountain bikes are better off road, especially on chunky stuff, than gravel bikes, like duh.. I don’t think anyone’s arguing otherwise, are they?

I like my Camino, it’s at the mountain bike end of the gravel bike spectrum, which means it’s at least competent off road. But I’m never going to argue that it’s better than my mountain bike on anything remotely technical. But why does it matter. It is what it is.

Gravel bikes are so last year. Repurposed early 90’s 26″ MTBs are where its at these days. Fit whatever wheel and tyre combo you can get away with that suits your local riding, whatever bars you like best, and off you go with a all terrain bicycle, made, not bought.

They are generally appalling at anything vaguely off-road apart from the smoothest forestry tracks. I say that as a gravel bike owner.

Massive disagree! Mine is pretty old-school, 2x, 40mm tyres, rim brakes, and is excellent on virtually everything I throw it at, which extends far beyond smooth forest tracks.

However I very quickly realised what gravel bikes weren’t good at (steep, gnadgery, airborne) and learned to avoid it, which surprisingly wasn’t very hard. I think they’re actually BETTER at narrow and or muddy singletrack, again, where it’s not steep or mega rooty or rocky, which again, is surprisingly common, certainly around me.

In fact, I haven’t enjoyed riding off-road as much as I am now in a long time, clearly because I was never really cut-out for the pointy end of modern MTB.

Also, to the OP, the gravel specialists doing these big events ARE starting to experiment with drop bar MTBs, even full suss, and they clearly make sense for certain events, but if it was your only bike and had to do a multitude of things (my gravel bike is also my Audax bike) then I think ‘traditional’ is more versatile.

I think of mine as a really comfortable road bike, which is about 2mph slower than my actual road bike, has gearing suitable for the hills around me, tyres suitable for the back roads around me (Northumberland) and is the fastest thing I could ride on roads to link up the endless converted railway lines and tracks through the woods around me.

When I want to stick some gear on, get out for an hour or two and then back to spend time with the family there’s no other bike I’d rather be on.  As much as I’ve enjoyed riding an enduro and DH bike again this year, if I had to have just one bike, I think I’d choose the gravel bike.  I’d have probably said a similar thing years ago doing the same kind of rides on a Jake the Snake, but a modern gravel bike is lighter, much faster on the road, much more comfortable on gravel and has a massive choice of tyres which aren’t just road tyres or CX tyres.

I love mine, but horses for courses…

I think of mine as a really comfortable road bike, which is about 2mph slower than my actual road bike, has gearing suitable for the hills around me, tyres suitable for the back roads around me (Northumberland) and is the fastest thing I could ride on roads to link up the endless converted railway lines and tracks through the woods around me.

Same here. It’s just a great all-rounder. It’ll do stuff that road bikes won’t but which would be dull on MTB. There are any number of lanes around here (Peak District) which would just shake a road bike to bits but which a gravel bike will skim over no worries.

If the trails and South Downs are claggy mud, a nippy narrow tyres gravel bike is much more fun than an MTB. For a start there is only so much mud that can stick to a 40mm tyre, there is more clearance, and both bikes will be sliding around all over the place so you might as well have one that cuts through the mud a bit more easily

At the risk of re-igniting the gravel bikes are 90s mtbs with thin tyres, I remember putting 1.5″ specialized tyres on my Pace F5 and thinking this makes sense.

I ride my gravel bike all over the place in the forests around Augsburg and mountain foothills in the Allgaeu taking in all the potential fun of road riding but without idiot car drivers.

As said above, if I want some bouncy stuff I’ll ride my Stumpjumper. Everyday though, as I approach 60 and have lost any ability to bounce when falling off (more splatt than boing these days) I am happy to remind myself of the fun we had in those early MTB days (my Manitou 4s were a revelation to anybody who rode them) and just go slow or push down tricky sections, but blast round the woods or mountains with similar aged mates. Horses for courses ?‍♂️

Edit to above, the emoji was a shrug on my phone, not the symbol shown

I had a gravel bike but came to the conclusion a light XC HT set up with similar tyres was better for me most of the time. I’m a MTB’er at heart though and struggled with drop bars + like to avoid roads as much as possible.

I’d have another but it’d have to be N+1 rather than a replacement for something else.

welshfarmer

Full Member

Gravel bikes are so last year. Repurposed early 90’s 26″ MTBs are where its at these days. Fit whatever wheel and tyre combo you can get away with that suits your local riding, whatever bars you like best, and off you go with a all terrain bicycle, made, not bought

Yay!t that means my current mountain bikes are bang on-trend!  A ’97 Kilauea, and a 2006 the king   flats on the king. With bar ends, and risers on the Kilauea!  SS too!

I’m with @airvent here – I can go where I don’t know, down lanes and the CX bike (older) will get me up any road climb on 34 x 34. I’ve made mistakes with my two classic road bikes (very nice ones) but at nearly 55, 39×26 does not cut it if you hit an unexpected 20% plus hill, or a descent covered in wash off on 25c tyres.

I did Mam Nic on 39×26 a couple of years ago and it was most unpleasant keeping the cranks turning. I did it, but blimey. Did Mad Manc this year on the CX with road tyres, with a 25% at 40 miles and one at 80 miles, and 34×34 was fine after the distance – far more suitable for long distances and climbing.

Did KAW in September on the CX with two mates. Four hard days sliding around on the chalk as it rained overnight each evening. Weight was an issue for my CX bike, and two of us were running fine tread, which worked in the Peaks sand mud, not KAW – the other lad had knobbly tyres that got sliced by the flints – 4 in one day.   My old 26″ rigid MTB would have been far better and rigid as my rack was only P clipped as the CX is a race bike. Down side, the MTB would not have been flying down the tarmac bits.

The CX bike is most used excluding the commuter, as it’s versatile, can swap wheels out and fig race blades. The two old classic bikes are now too nice to take out in crap weather as parts are expensive !   General whizzing about it not suitable for the FS with the added faff of maintenance. I save the FS for the big stuff, and not the stuff where the CX bike will do it.  The old rigid MTB is in full commuter mode these days.

I now find a rigid 29er with some kind of swept back bars more comfortable than drops.  I guess one of my problems is that most gravel bikes don’t have enough stack for me to get comfortable for long rides… I get a stiff neck and spend less time looking at the view if my bars are too low. Uncool as it is, I like the bars level with the seat.  I also find that fatter tyres are more comfortable and often faster on most of the stuff that passes for gravel in Wales.

I’ve taken the gravel bike to Swinley, it was ****. Scary, fun, fast, but objectively ****.

It’s Swinley, of course it was shit, the choice of bike doesn’t make the difference there.

Yes I know – ride what you want – it’s just that you’d not take an XC bike for an uplift day……….

There speaks a man who’s never entered a the HT class in a local DH race.

Not sure I really understand the issue OP, different people like different things for different reasons. You’ve had a go on this particular hype train and are still not sold, you’re fine to hop off at the next stop, nobody will judge you…

Gravel bikes are so last year. Repurposed early 90’s 26″ MTBs are where its at these days

At the risk of re-igniting the gravel bikes are 90s mtbs with thin tyres, I remember putting 1.5″ specialized tyres on my Pace F5 and thinking this makes sense.

I have a repurposed ’90’s MTB (and a 2000’s one). As well as a bang up to date HT and a 180mm FS ebike

And a gravel bike. The gravel bike is nothing like vaguely resembling either of the older bikes – or the newer ones if it comes to that

I got it for banging some miles in. Gravel is slightly limited in the Derbyshire Dales, but I can chuck a 50 miler in with about 60/40 gravel/road. I’m not a fan of road riding at all and have no desire to take the gravel bike on anything too technical – but have done the odd section that was ‘interesting’. Anything technical and I’ll take the MTB, but I do like riding the gravel occasionally for something different and as I said, getting some miles in.

Will get some mudguards and hopefully use it a bit for some winter miles = summer smiles

Gravel bikes are good for eating up the mild off road miles but I prefer flat bars over drops and I like mtb riding more than gravel. As a result I’ll be selling on my Tempest

I’ve a proper 90’s rigid MTB – Diamond Back Ascent running XT and LX. Use it for work now – land cruisers and panniers. Works really well off road and road.

Get out the old Skool CX bike and a rucksack – it’s much faster over 10 miles – 5 plus minutes  – tested it last year. Load carrying, the old MTB has it.

why they are so popular for muddy or single track events

I had  gravel.bike which got sold nd replaced by MTB with a rigid fork.

I guess because people have gravel bikes and want to use them

I keep thinking about trying a cheap one (Voodoo or something). I got a road bike for getting some local miles in, but doesn’t feel safe any more and it’s a bit boring. In theory gravel bike makes sense for doing local rides and connecting bits of bridleway with roads, and there are miles of canal paths a few minutes ride away. Sometimes do it on my hardtail but it’s still a bit of a slog, at least with trail tyres. I don’t really use the drops though (but like riding on the hoods) and tyre choice seems like it’d be a compromise either way – draggy for the road sections, or too slick for off road. Not really a fair test but I tried my Langster on some gravel/bridleways and hated it, really uncomfortable and killed my hands. Probably need to try something with bigger tyres though for a fair trial!

As much as I’ve enjoyed riding an enduro and DH bike again this year, if I had to have just one bike, I think I’d choose the gravel bike.

Very much ^^this^^ for me too.

And years ago it would have been a HT MTB that would have been the keeper, bikes have changed and so have I.

One thing I will say is that “gravel bikes” are very much on a spectrum from ‘pretty much an MTB‘ to ‘almost a road bike‘.

Personally I err more towards the ‘adventure road‘ point on that spectrum today, tyres under 40mm more roadie like drop bars, 2x drivetrain no suspension or dropper. But that’s just me.