Gravel bikes are for roadies who can’t admit mountainbikes are better and way way cooler.

go stand in the corner you dummy.

Yawn.
All bikes are teh awesumz. End of.

So that a person with 6 bikes buys a 7th.

So that a person with 6 bikes buys a 7th.

I resemble this remark.

Why not? Plus they make ace commuters.

1/10, back to troll school for you

Congratulations! you are the 1000th user with this question. You have won a free pass to the troll factory!

Poor troll. You have to actually provide a reasoned but controversial argument to suck people in. No-one’s falling for that obvious nonsense – not even me.

This is like one of those piss-poor clickbait headlines which nonetheless gets thousands of hits from people just calling it out for being piss-poor.

E.g. what I’ve just done.

This is like one of those piss-poor clickbait headlines which nonetheless gets thousands of hits from people just calling it out for being piss-poor.

E.g. what I’ve just done.

Yes

Dammit

In for a penny…..

Gravel bikes are for roadies who can’t admit mountainbikes are better and way way cooler.

Mouintainbikes are for tubby weekend warriors who can’t ride and are ashamed of how they look in Lycra.

Gravel bikes are for ATBers who like drop bars.

FTFY.

I like riding and messing about with and on bicycles. They don’t make me ‘cool’. Neither does using the word ‘cool’ 😂🤣

OP yesterday:

This is a beautiful day… It is a new day… it is a day of cycling awareness, it is a day of bike riders taking care of cycling people’s business… We are together, we are unified… and all in accord… Because when we are together we got power… and we can manual…
Today on this program you will hear mtb, and road bikes and gravel bikes, and fat. All those are just labels. We know that bikes is bikes… All of our people have got a soul, our experience determines the texture, the tastes and the sounds of our (Cotic) soul. We may say that we are may be in the shed but the shed is not in us.  We may be in the spare room Zwifting, but the prison is not in us. In what we have shifted from, burn baby burn to learn baby learn. We have shifted from having a seizure about what the man got, to seizing what we need. We have shifted from singlespeed and bmx tricks to community control and politics
That is why we’ve gathered today, to celebrate our homecoming and our own sense of somebodyness. That is why I challenge you now to stand together, raise your first together, and engage in our famous two wheeled litany. Do it with courage and determination

(with profound apologies to Jesse Jackson)

Gravel bikes are for roadies who can’t admit mountainbikes are better and way way cooler.

Nah – they’re for MTBers who realise that the roadies might be onto something with the whole actually going to a destination and the whole fitness malarkey, but have realised that a grand tour spec bike is not the ideal vehicle for doing so.

Mouintainbikes are for tubby weekend warriors who can’t ride and are ashamed of how they look in Lycra.

I’ve never quite understood “weekend warrior”, unless its an either/or Professional rider vs WW? An amateur who only rides in their free time, summed up in an alliterative phrase by assuming most people work mon-fri.

Skewed by my limited circle of friends, but the majority of MTBers I know do at least a weekly night ride. OF my road bike enthusiast friends*, I don’t think any of them ride in the week in the winter.

* that is, they dont ride the roadie. Some are MTB too, some are on the Zwift.

Bit of banter, social experiment, possibly a bet, hardly trolling guys, nobody’s crying apart from with laughter ie malvern, but look who’s resorting to name calling, not the OP, as for click bait, it kinda worked.
All cyclist’s are okay by me, apart from those bloody asbo kids wheeling past me on the pavement with 2 inches to spare, on their halfords bikes, oh and Brompton users 😃, that’s gonna trigger some folding monkey bike enthusiast.

Doesn’t matter what bike it is, so long as you enjoy riding it. Enjoying mine, for local stuff its more interesting than dragging an Enduro sled around easy trails.

It’s just like The Two Ronnies Class Sketch, some people think they are Cooler and Gnarlier, but they aint compared to the other guy.

It’s just like The Two Ronnies Class Sketch, some people think they are Cooler and Gnarlier, but they aint compared to the other guy.

Buffoon! That was The Frost Report.

In the US they have about 1.3 million miles of dirt roads, mountain bikes are overkill, CX bikes are almost perfect but need bigger tyres for comfort and to cope with washboard. What’s needed is an easy riding, fatter tyred CX bike, a bike for gravel. (What’s actually needed is a do it all bike like a Jones imo).

So all the bike companies start making “gravel” bikes then market them World wide. People buy into the marketing and new craze starts. Being a bit easier to manage off road and with allegedly better manners than a CX bike when loaded they hit a spot with several types of rider. Those that want a more compliant ride on the road, those that want to do some light trails, those that want to do a bit of light touring, a sort of jack of all trades bikes.

I’ve never ridden one so this is purely my opinion.

Pretty much sums it up although not quite jack of all trades as not all gravel bikes are the same (some are almost like road bikes (tight, no bosses etc,.) whereas others are like touring bikes (slacker, 10,000 bosses etc,.)

Depending on where you live they are a great choice for the UK.

Emperors new clothes 😉

Emperors new fatbike 🤣

OP, I used to feel like you but then I saw this and now I’ve changed my mind completely

Emperor’s new e-bike.

All bikes are teh awesumz

But sum bikes r moar awesumz than uvvas. An it ain’t gravel bikes!

Watty

Subscriber
Emperor’s new e-bike.

Another apt username!

Having bought a gravel bike last year to replace a Caadx and Caad12 I think I would instead now ask the question “road bikes, why?” With quick wheel or tyre swap they’re transformed from a useful commuter to as good a road bike as anyone would ever need, unless you’re a serious racer of course. Generally all bikes are good aren’t they. For me the problem is that they’re all so expensive now so one gravel bike and one mountain bike is enough to cover all my biking requirements while keeping the biking budget relatively reasonable.

For me the problem is that they’re all so expensive now so one gravel bike and one mountain bike is enough to cover all my biking requirements while keeping the biking budget relatively reasonable.

Yep. And going 1 reductionist step further – 1 x monstercross and a spare set of wheels/tyres can (arguably) cover more bases better than any other bike if rider is a bimbler/commuter/ATBer/tourer/bikepacker/light XCer/adventurer

bimbler/commuter/ATBer/tourer/bikepacker/light XCer/adventurer

Any mountain bike can do all that stuff. The compromise of course is top end speed on tarmac, gravel or commute. Similarly the gravel bikes compromise is that you ain’t chucking one down Ullock pike.

So, it all depends what you enjoy more, really.

Similarly the gravel bikes compromise is that you ain’t chucking one down Ullock pike.

Probably wouldn’t throw a monstercross down there either, that’s why I left out gnarr/downhilling. But the extra tyre-clearance of a monstercross gets you more varied and longer XC capability than the average gravel bike simply on account of tyre-volume/knobblies. At the other end I wouldn’t want to be touring or distance commuting on a gnarpoon no thanks no sir.

I stand by the claim that a monstercross handles the broadest spectrum of general riding, with the least compromise. It’s basically an ATB with multi-hand-position bars, so it stands to reason. But there is still plenty of compromise, especially towards the performance ‘edges’ of road or off-road riding as with any specialty.

weather’s a bit crap. I’ve got a couple of hours spare

options
– miserable road ride
– very boggy mtb ride, probably dodging some of the better bits as too slippery
– or, grab gravel bike. down the road, cut down track around the back of nearby school; 3 or 4 miles of flooded debris and mud covered minor road; bridleway / gravel climb up to the top of downs; bit of road then bridleway down; bridleway across golf course; into the woods; bit of singletrack meandering to the top of the local hills then a few miles spin on the road home. 20 miles ish

if third option appeals, that’s why, imho. yes of course a hardtail mtb would be fine, but gravel bikes just work for this sort of thing

weather’s a bit crap. I’ve got a couple of hours spare

options
– miserable road ride
– very boggy mtb ride, probably dodging some of the better bits as too slippery
– or, grab gravel bike. down the road, cut down track around the back of nearby school; 3 or 4 miles of flooded debris and mud covered minor road; bridleway / gravel climb up to the top of downs; bit of road then bridleway down; bridleway across golf course; into the woods; bit of singletrack meandering to the top of the local hills then a few miles spin on the road home. 20 miles ish

if third option appeals, that’s why, imho. yes of course a hardtail mtb would be fine, but gravel bikes just work for this sort of thing

Exactly this for me.

Option 1 – isn’t even an option
Option 2 – you should see the state of my mtb after just a 12 mile ride in some woods, looks like it’s been dragged out the sea after 10 years
Option 3 – I can do a 10 mile, 45 minute loop from my front door, or a 30 mile loop, or indeed a 100+ mile loop. All with minimal tarmac.

20 minutes from my house

Just fitted some 47mm sendero tyres as my local stuff is now a bit too dodgy to ride on the byways.

Option 3 – I can do a 10 mile, 45 minute loop from my front door, or a 30 mile loop, or indeed a 100+ mile loop. All with minimal tarmac.

20 minutes from my house

(In before):

‘You can do all that on a mountain bike’

Vs

‘Yeah but you can do all that on a gravel bike’

Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Forever. It’s the post-ATB ‘curly bars vs straight bars’ argument, thirty years in the making and fruitful now because we have more choice off the peg.

You’re of course correct Malvern rider, even if you do exclude the gnarr stuff, on a mountain biking forum. 😊

There’s a 4 in that list too, if the mud and mess is all too much, all I had that was dirty this morning were my running shoes. 🤣

Cross bikes for mountain bikers aren’t they? Because cross is a little bit hard core for the. Storm troopers. Roadies were riding Dawes Galaxy’s off road before the mtb crowd were born.

(In before):

‘You can do all that on a mountain bike’

Vs

‘Yeah but you can do all that on a gravel bike’

Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Forever. It’s the post-ATB argument.

You can do all that on a unicycle, or a penny farthing. 😂

It’s just choosing the best tool for the job. And then of course you start straying into the ‘need’ vs ‘want’ argument.

Do I need a 150mm travel FS for most of the mtb riding I do? No. Do it want it? Yes.

Do I need another bike? No. Do I want another bike? Yes! 😁

As someone said earlier, I think they’re more of an alternative to road riding, rather than MTB.

Roads have got a hell of a lot busier, mtb trails haven’t changed much, other than possibly getting a little more gnarr, mibbe that’s it? Gravel is a better option for those that are a bit wary of the tech?.

I certainly know a few folks locally that embraced fatbikes cos it meant they could pootle instead of feeling out their depth on the steep stuff. Fair enough.

You can do all that on a unicycle, or a penny farthing. 😂

Unifarthing ftw.

You’re of course correct Malvern rider, even if you do exclude the gnarr stuff, on a mountain biking forum.

I do get the irony of that 😂

Yet MTBs and ATBs have shared roots and excepting the Repack/clunkers lineage of downhilling (ie gravity-vehicles) the rest of bikes designed to go off-road developed from road bikes with bigger tyres and gears – and so all now sit somewhere in the broad church of ATB/MTB.

I’m glad it’s a broad church and not the be-all of expensively-branded onesies riding MX-with-pedals. Praise it all, from Apps to Peat, from gravel to boulder, from Cambridgeshire to The Karakorams! As long as they take their litter home and restecpuh other stuff around them, then it’s all good in my book 🧐🙂 (sucks gently on big pipe, flicks some dried mud from the downtube of an imaginary Dawes Ranger)

Hallelujah brother. 😊

As someone said earlier, I think they’re more of an alternative to road riding, rather than MTB.

Yeah, I’d say so.
The point above about roadies on Dawes bikes offroad, the RSF or 650B french bikes often comes up but it’s the attitude that’s different. Though there’s some cross-over in use, MTBs as we know it now came from Marin klunker DH attitudes and ATB-MTB has mostly embraced and pushed speed over technical ground whereas gravel, roughstuff etc embraces distance, experience and location at the expense of that technical ability. And

Praise it all, from Apps to Peat, from gravel to boulder, from Cambridgeshire to The Karakorams!

Well said : )

For me the problem is that they’re all so expensive

No more so than MTBs, or indeed road bikes.

TBH If you’ve got a few hundred quid you can own any flavour of pedal motivated niche machine, cost complaints are frankly BS, which is sort of the point, most people who own a gravely bike, whatever their ‘primary’ cycling preference have one as an extra toy… I can’t see what’s wrong with that TBH.

For my own part it keeps the winter mud away from my MTB as well as allowing me to avoid a bit more traffic than my road bike Would during the winter months, I own one (in addition to other bikes) I use it, its all good…