It’s not all about you RS, but don’t let that stop you 😉

I’m having a poke at the general level of pedantry and indignation that gets directed at trivial stuff like this… but every day and practical are subjective terms so they are not much use for describing a specific thing to another person unless you happen to have the same idea of what those terms mean.

Now I’m contributing to the pedantry.

I like the gravel/adventure bike designation. It’s finally freed up “CX” to revert back to something that is used for Cyclocross racing where as for the past few years it’s been hijacked to also mean “that sort of bike I might commute/tour on”, leading to a lot of incorrect buying decisions.

joemmo – Member
It’s not all about you RS, but don’t let that stop you

That’s me told.

Let me know when I’m allowed to comment again.
🙂

10 minutes on the naughty step then you can come back in.

It’s just a step.
🙂

joemmo – Member
10 minutes on the naughty step then you can come back in.

POSTED 1 HOUR AGO #
Rusty Spanner – Member
It’s just a step.

Nice comeback…:-)

Quite an interesting article.

Looks like disk pads wearing out fast were a major problem, plus the odd transmission problem. (Or maybe my school French needs sharpening up 🙂 )

But it sounds like great fun. I wouldn’t mind having a go at that one.

These are just normal, everyday bikes

No they aren’t. Firstly, they are a lot more expensive than most people’s idea of normal everyday, secondly they have drops which your normal everyday rider usually doesn’t want.

Most people would consider a cheap sit-up hybrid to fit that description.

Gravel bikes are now a specific type of bike slightly different to the others. They may not be new, but who the hell cares? Get over yourself*

* Or simply stop trolling 😉

It is a lot easier to walk into a shop and say I want a gravel bike than I want a relaxed geometry all day comfortable bike with wide tyres strong wheels rack and guard mounts etc

That’s a touring bike.

Yeah. My gravel bike is my tourer 🙂

No, touring bikes are more heavily built than gravel bikes.

Yeah. My gravel bike is my tourer

Mind blown!

I can see Scotroutes’ point. My Crosslight is very unlikely to ever go CX racing, but seemed a good compromise for me of off-road toughness and drop bars. It’s done a bunch of touring, commuting and general riding on the road but I had zero desire for a ‘road’ bike. Plus, I liked the look of it and the one I sat on in the shop fitted so perfectly that descriptors stopped being a consideration. It would probably be a poor choice for very long road rides, but that isn’t something that I have any real interest in and would do rarely enough I’m not buying a bike for it – a bit like buying an estate car if you know you will only need the large space once a year or less. I do know several cyclocross racers who get very annoyed at the hijacking of CX bikes by the mainstream though, which makes sense to me of they see very focussed designs becoming more generalised.

When I look at the bikes used by the overlanders in the 1890s- 1910s, I see what I consider to be the proto gravel bike.

Almost all ex-urban roads were gravel then, and some of them were singletrack.

Pic from Jim Fitzpatrick’s “Bicycle and the Bush” – well worth a read. Those lads had just ridden 180km from Sydney to Jenolan Caves.

(Francis Birtles, Warren & Robert Lennie, at Eucla WA, 1907. Lennies attempting Perth-Sydney record)

^ miserable bloody roadies

molgrips – Member
These are just normal, everyday bikes
No they aren’t. Firstly, they are a lot more expensive than most people’s idea of normal everyday,

What’s cost got to do with it?
You can have cheap mountain bikes or expensive ones.
We don’t suddenly start calling them something else when they reach a certain price point.

Gravel bikes are now a specific type of bike slightly different to the others.

No they aren’t.

slowster – Member
That’s a touring bike.

See?

molgrips – Member
No, touring bikes are more heavily built than gravel bikes.

Says who?
You can have touring bikes of any weight. They’re not all designed to carry heaps of luggage.

scotroutes – Member
Yeah. My gravel bike is my tourer

My tourer is my gravel bike.
🙂

I do know several cyclocross racers who get very annoyed at the hijacking of CX bikes by the mainstream though, which makes sense to me of they see very focussed designs becoming more generalised.

So they can’t buy cyclocross bikes anymore?
Sounds a bit snobbish to me.

Get over yourself*

* Or simply stop trolling

I’m not trolling.
So much nastiness, just because I dislike an ugly, inappropriate and unnecessary term dreamt up by marketeers.
🙂

We don’t suddenly start calling them something else when they reach a certain price point.

Yeah we do.

just because I dislike an ugly, inappropriate and unnecessary term dreamt up by marketeers.

It’s not cos you dislike it, it’s cos you’re blithering on about it. It’s a term dreamt up by marketeers to describe bikes that are slightly different to other bikes. Only slightly. But they are different. As has been shown.

You’ve lost this one. Move on. It’s over.

No, touring bikes are more heavily built than gravel bikes.

Some touring bikes are more heavily built than gravel bikes, but they do not define or limit what is a touring bike. Some touring bikes are less heavily built than gravel bikes.

In any case, “a relaxed geometry all day comfortable bike with wide tyres strong wheels rack and guard mounts” is pretty much the very definition of a touring bike.

A gravel bike is just a subset of touring bikes, and what probably defines it most is the clearance to take 32mm tyres at minimum (but probably much more than that, i.e. 40mm or even more) and disc brakes (although ironically discs don’t offer much advantage over cantilevers or mini-V brakes for riding on actual gravel tracks).

The bike trade and it’s marketing people won’t admit that gravel bikes are simply a type of touring bike, because they think it will lose them potential customers, e.g. sportive riders and the like who ride race bikes and don’t want to think of themselves as ‘tourists’, even though ‘touring’ is often what they are doing. So instead they refer to Gravel and Adventure bikes. In reality the likes of Josie Dew have adventures on touring bikes, and the rest of us just do a bit of touring on our ‘adventure’ or ‘gravel’ bikes.

Yeah we do.

Examples please.

It’s not cos you dislike it, it’s cos you’re blithering on about it.

That’s not very nice.

I made a point.
Others responded to it.
I, in turn responded to them.
You know, a discussion. Don’t respond if it offends you.

Only slightly. But they are different. As has been shown.

Where?

You’ve lost this one. Move on. It’s over.

I find it an interesting topic of debate.

And you don’t get to tell me what to do.
Again, a bit rude, especially for you Mol.

A gravel bike is just a subset of touring bikes…what probably defines it most is the clearance to take 32mm tyres at minimum and disc brakes

Id argue this really isn’t true at all.

Tourers are (until you start merging into the audax end of the touring spectrum) designed to take tyres at least that large, often plenty larger, plus mudguards. Gravel bikes often don’t allow for mudguards.

Tourers have much longer chain stays for stability and to allow panniers to be carried without heel strike. Gravel bikes prefer shorter wheelbases for quicker handling, and for this reason often drop to 650b wheels when using larger volume tyres.

They’re really not the same thing. Sure, you can whack some luggage on a gravel bike just as you can a mountain bike or a road bike or a cross bike or whatever, but even though you can do that and go touring on it, it still doesn’t mean it was designed with the same criteria in mind as a dedicated tourer. Likewise, I could take the rack and mudguards off my tourer, fit some smaller tyres and use it as a gravel bike, but it’s still heavier and longer and probably more upright than a bike designed for gravel/allroad/whateveryouwanttocallit. It works, it’s just not optimised for it. And that’s by design.

My “gravel bike” takes 650b/2,1″ off-road tyres, I don’t think that many traditional touring bikes could do this, although currently its set up with 650b/48mm road(gravel) tyres. I waited for a long time before buying the frame for it until drop bar disc brakes had settled into a broadly accepted standard, electronic gears went hydraulic (eTap) and road frames with plenty of clearance came out as I already have a decent road bike (max 23mm tyres) and 2x cx bikes (one custom steel from ’96 which will take 40mm 700x tyres, and one carbon race bike from ’10 which is very limited to 33mm tyres).
The “gravel bike” allows me to ride club runs, do touring holidays, do bikepacking, ride on or off road – basically all round riding.

Some touring bikes are more heavily built than gravel bikes, but they do not define or limit what is a touring bike. Some touring bikes are less heavily built than gravel bikes.

Indeed, touring bikes run the gamut from limited clearance road-oriented frames with very slightly longer chainstays and a couple of eyelets, all the way to full on expedition style tourers that could write off a small car in a crash.

As always, the categories aren’t so well defined, more of a spectrum of shades of grey with rainbows inbetween 🙂

My “gravel bike” takes 650b/2,1″ off-road tyres, I don’t think that many traditional touring bikes could do this, although currently its set up with 650b/48mm road(gravel) tyres

I dunno, depends where you start ‘traditional’ from, have a peek into ~1920s France and that’s almost* exactly what they were riding for cyclotouring and brevets.

That’s pretty much what I lvoe about the modern state of affairs, there is literally something for everyone, with enough overlap that there are some amazingly capable and flexible bikes around, but also some amazingly niche machines too. The problems only start when you try too hard to categorise stuff. The Gravel moniker is a bit weird over here though as we don’t really have ‘Gravel Racing’ like the do in the US, nor the huge network of un-metalled roads they do, (except in bits of Scotland), but it’s been appropriated to mean ‘versatile mixed surface bike for many uses’.

*well, 650B x 38/42mm anyway

A gravel bike is just a subset of touring bikes…what probably defines it most is the clearance to take 32mm tyres at minimum and disc brakes

Id argue this really isn’t true at all.

Tourers are (until you start merging into the audax end of the touring spectrum) designed to take tyres at least that large, often plenty larger, plus mudguards.[/quote]

Gravel bikes often don’t allow for mudguards.

And you don’t get to tell me what to do.
Again, a bit rude, especially for you Mol.

Sorry – I was speaking tongue firmly in cheek, and no rudeness was intended. Apologies if I came over this way.

However I do thin it’s a little silly. It’s just a name and a style of bike. They might be the same as lightweight touring bikes, they might be the same as chunky road bikes, but it’s really not that important. This has been happening in most sports and indeed most technical areas for years.

And I believe it’s a good thing that the spectrum of bikes is now so broad. When I started MTBing there was only one kind of MTB.

I’m now wondering though – I bought my road bike for £1500 nearly 11 years ago. It’s pretty racey, has no mudguard mounts, can’t take tyres any more than 23c, and it weighs (or weighed) about 19.5lbs. What else could I have bought in early 2007 that would have been similarly light but with the ability to take bigger tyres and a slightly more relaxed ride? Spesh Audax type bike?

amedias – Member
..The problems only start when you try too hard to categorise stuff. The Gravel moniker is a bit weird over here though as we don’t really have ‘Gravel Racing’ like the do in the US, nor the huge network of un-metalled roads they do, (except in bits of Scotland), but it’s been appropriated to mean ‘versatile mixed surface bike for many uses’.

That about says it.

I reckon it’s a bit early to argue over the definition of a gravel bike because they have not yet reached their final form which will basically be a plus size tourer/cx hybrid with room for mudguards and attachments for bike packing gear, ie like a 29er with smoother tyres.

Or maybe this is a gravel bike… 🙂

I think once you take a bike of some description and change it (as many/most of us do) so that it blurs some boundaries, you’re definitely in “just a bike” territory 😉

I completely fail to see the difference between what is no termed gravel bikes and the drop bar bikes of 30+ years ago. Bikes like that are still made – Dawes Galaxy anyone?

tjagain – Member
I completely fail to see the difference between what is no termed gravel bikes and the drop bar bikes of 30+ years ago. Bikes like that are still made – Dawes Galaxy anyone?

Bez – Member

Tourers are (until you start merging into the audax end of the touring spectrum) designed to take tyres at least that large, often plenty larger, plus mudguards. Gravel bikes often don’t allow for mudguards.

Tourers have much longer chain stays for stability and to allow panniers to be carried without heel strike. Gravel bikes prefer shorter wheelbases for quicker handling, and for this reason often drop to 650b wheels when using larger volume tyres.

A gravel bike is just a subset of touring bikes…what probably defines it most is the clearance to take 32mm tyres at minimum and disc brakes

Id argue this really isn’t true at all.

Tourers are (until you start merging into the audax end of the touring spectrum) designed to take tyres at least that large, often plenty larger, plus mudguards.[/quote]

I would stand by my fundamental point, which is that gravel bikes are a subset of touring bikes. As you yourself say, it’s a spectrum, and touring bikes cover a very wide range, each of which is optimised for it’s particular variation or niche. Basically, unless a bike is an MTB or a race bike (road, TT or CX) or falls into some special niche like folders, then it’s probably a tourer. For some reason people don’t seem to like to think of themselves as riding touring bikes or touring, despite that being what they are doing.

Gravel bikes often don’t allow for mudguards.

I suspect gravel bikes which don’t accept mudguards will be a fairly short lived/limited genre, especially in the UK. Many people who are esentially using these bikes for touring (as opposed to CX racing), soon get fed up with the lack of guards in winter, and we end up seeing the same threads on here with people asking how to fit them to their On One Pickenflick or similar frame without mudguard fittings. It makes sense for manufacturers to include mudguard fittings since the bikes should/will have the necessary clearance anway, and not including them will reduce their appeal to many potential customers.

I completely fail to see the difference between what is now termed gravel bikes and the drop bar bikes of 30+ years ago. Bikes like that are still made – Dawes Galaxy anyone?

Well the issue there is who is doing the ‘now terming’, and as discussed above, the term is used differently by different people. There are some modern bikes described as ‘Gravel Bikes’ that are very similar intent and exacution to a Dawes Galaxy, and some that are also termed ‘Gravel Bikes’ that are very very different.

Hence the problem, you can’t categorise if you can’t even agree on on how to categorise the category 😉

which is that gravel bikes are a subset of touring bikes

Only for some people, for example there are several one day gravel races in the US, very fast paced, close to ‘XC lite’ in a lot of cases where nobody would dream of using a tourer, they’re using very racy bikes which have more in common with 29er XC race bikes or even CX bikes than tourers.

Likewise there are multi-day stage races which require self sufficiency which are more often ridden on bikepacking/tourer style ‘gravel bikes’, horses for courses and all that…

It’s still being used as a catchall term at the moment and is very much influenced by the geographic market too as to what you think it means.

This reminds me of the old ‘Enduro’ problem when in some circles Enduro bikes meant Marathon style XC machines for 12/24hr racing.

although ironically discs don’t offer much advantage over cantilevers or mini-V brakes for riding on actual gravel tracks

lack of rim wear.

I completely fail to see the difference between what is no termed gravel bikes and the drop bar bikes of 30+ years ago. Bikes like that are still made – Dawes Galaxy anyone?

Not much, disks mainly, but I fail to see why some here seem to dislike the term which most of us understand, its not like a gravel bike has to be much different from a Galaxy or whatever. Its like all these plums getting their knickers in a knot over “Sportive” bikes a few years back. Who cares?

Not much, disks mainly

And geometry, actual gravel racing bikes are very different geometry wise, ‘adventure’ style gravel bikes might be closer to the Galaxy, but then again might not, depends who’s building them and what they think it’s for 😉

I suspect gravel bikes which don’t accept mudguards will be a fairly short lived/limited genre, especially in the UK. Many people who are esentially using these bikes for touring (as opposed to CX racing),

This tickles me too, as these days it seems a lot of people expect a ‘CX’ bike to take guards, where as an actual CX bike would never take guards as you don’t race CX with guards on, nor would you ever really expect a CX bike to take anything over 33mm tyres as there’s no point becasue UCI rules wouldn’t allow you to race it with bigger tyres. I know local rulings are often different but the point being, it’s just a name, it’s the specific (or many) uses it’s intended for that important.

Another example of lines blurred and colloquial use of a term re-defining the meaning.

although ironically discs don’t offer much advantage over cantilevers or mini-V brakes for riding on actual gravel tracks

lack of rim wear.[/quote]

Not in my experience, because the nature of the gravel tracks means you don’t need to brake much (there is no need to brake for traffic and the tracks are fairly flat, since gravel would be washed away on a steeper slope), and the smaller gritty particles don’t tend to get get picked up and embedded in the brake blocks in the way that does happen if the tracks are muddy dirt tracks rather than gravel tracks.

I would stand by my fundamental point, which is that gravel bikes are a subset of touring bikes.

I tend to think of labels as defining a range. For me, “touring” involves carrying a load for anything longer than a day on what most people would consider reasonable cycling surfaces (“bikepacking” covering the same on more difficult terrain), and doing it without unnecessary fatigue (including wet feet, for instance). So any tourer should be focused on a point somewhere in that range, and will likely be tolerable across that entire range. That’s kind of a “touring bike test”, to my mind.

To me, “gravel” simply means being able to ride on a variety of surfaces without feeling cumbersome on what most people would call roads (metalled or not). That means being able to use larger tyres than a tarmac bike, and having geometry that copes better with riding rough surfaces at speed. But it doesn’t mean carrying luggage or spending a fortnight splashing through Welsh roads without subjecting your feet to a constant flow of cold, brown water.

A lot of gravel bikes don’t pass my “touring bike test”: they don’t have rack/lowrider/etc mounts or long chainstays, so they’re not going to be great at loaded touring unless you use bikepacking luggage, which you can do on any bike, but then I assume no-one’s going to argue that a carbon racing bike or a DH bike is a tourer even though you could do some form of touring on either if you wanted to.

It’s all somewhat subjective: if your idea of “touring” includes a day ride round some backroads with a jam sandwich in your back pocket then a lot more things start to look like tourers. Which is fine. But there are still a bunch of differences between bikes which make them more or less suited to certain uses than others. The Galaxy has long been recognised as a tourer because it’s designed to support a wide range of what most people see as touring even though you could merrily go for a day ride on gravel roads with it; whereas, for instance, the Cannondale Slate is wonderfully suited to speeding round gravel trails but not to much of the range of “touring”, so “gravel bike” seems a decent enough term for it.

YMMV 😉

molgrips – Member

Sorry – I was speaking tongue firmly in cheek, and no rudeness was intended. Apologies if I came over this way.

No worries Mol.
🙂

And I believe it’s a good thing that the spectrum of bikes is now so broad. When I started MTBing there was only one kind of MTB.

So do I.

What else could I have bought in early 2007 that would have been similarly light but with the ability to take bigger tyres and a slightly more relaxed ride? Spesh Audax type bike?

There were still a few lighter Audax style bikes about and the Spesh Tricross, Roberts Rough Stuff, Cross Check etc at the heavier end of the spectrum, plus all the actual touring bikes.

amedias – Member
..The problems only start when you try too hard to categorise stuff. The Gravel moniker is a bit weird over here though as we don’t really have ‘Gravel Racing’ like the do in the US, nor the huge network of un-metalled roads they do, (except in bits of Scotland), but it’s been appropriated to mean ‘versatile mixed surface bike for many uses’.

Spot on.

epicyclo – Member
That about says it.
I reckon it’s a bit early to argue over the definition of a gravel bike because they have not yet reached their final form which will basically be a plus size tourer/cx hybrid with room for mudguards and attachments for bike packing gear, ie like a 29er with smoother tyres.

Like an AWOL or Disc Trucker?
Basically an evolved, modern touring bike.

Big tyres have come to the fore with the acceptance of discs – the prototype Spa Wayfarer is limited in tyre size because more traditional customers don’t want discs.
Be interesting to see what spec it has when it finally arrives.

there is no need to brake for traffic and the tracks are fairly flat

Eh?

Is a forest fire-road not a ‘gravel’ track and hence the ideal type of riding for these bikes? Many of those are steep enough to be pretty fast.

I completely fail to see the difference between what is no termed gravel bikes and the drop bar bikes of 30+ years ago.

Apart from more modern tech – I dunno. Have you checked geometry charts? And remember, it’s just a name. It allows you to go into a shop and tell the assistants what you want. Why would you go in and ask for a drop bar bike in the style of 30 years ago (but not a racer) but with modern kit?

TJ: Hi, I’m interested in a new bike.
Sales Assistant: Ok, what sort of bike would you like?
TJ: Like bikes used to be 30 years ago, with drop bars, but not a racer.
SA: Well I’m only 25 so I don’t know, can you describe it?
TJ: Well it had drop bars, but fatter tyres than a road racer.
SA: Oh I see, you are probably interested in these gravel bikes.
TJ: NO! I do NOT want a gravel bike! I want a 30 year old style non-racer.
SA: Yes sir, but we call them gravel bikes these days, it’s a more specific category.
TJ: NO, I refuse to accept that! It’s JUST A BIKE.
SA: But ‘just a bike’ means many different things to many people. Gravel is a useful term to describe what you are after.
TJ: Absolutely not! It’s JUST A BIKE, gravel bikes are just marketing rubbish.
SA: Ok, but we have hybrids with flat bars, and we have road racers with 25c tyre maximum, and we have these in between. They are labelled gravel. They exist and are right here in the shop.
TJ: They are no different to 30 year old bikes! Why can’t you call them ‘just bikes’?
SA: Because whilst they are ‘just bikes’ so is everything else in the shop; we use names to differentiate.
TJ: AAAAARGH!!!!
SA: Get out!

Another example of lines blurred and colloquial use of a term re-defining the meaning.

I think the issue is that a few years ago there was a real swell in demand for bikes that could basically just do more than a road bike could do. Something you could knock out a road century on, check out some nice-looking lanes and bridleways on, get to work on, all that sort of stuff.

Road bikes didn’t have the tyre clearance or the brakes, CX bikes lacked brakes and bottle mounts, neither took mudguards, and the tourer market was kind of asleep with toast crumbs in its beard.

What we ended up with was a whole slew of drop bar bikes with decent tyre clearance disc brakes, light and stiff frames and comfortable but fairly responsive geometry, but with no real name. So we got gravel, all-road, gnarmac and whatever else. Some of it got pushed more by the desire to have a commuter you could have fun on at weekends, some by actual gravel racing, whatever, but it’s just a melting pot where three or four breeds start mixing.

So, it’s just a bike 😉 but, as at least one new breed in its own right, there’s no harm in it having a name.

Or maybe this is a gravel bike

Looks like what I would call “an old man’s bike”

Presumably get a discount if showing bus pass.

Lol at moley

Hi, I’m interested in a new bike

Is this similar to his internal dialogue if he goes to buy a bike online?

“”GRAVEL BIKES” HMPH! I’m not looking on THAT website!”

Bez – Member
I think the issue is that a few years ago there was a real swell in demand for bikes that could basically just do more than a road bike could do. Something you could knock out a road century on, check out some nice-looking lanes and bridleways on, get to work on, all that sort of stuff.

True.
A lot of newbies bought bikes that looked like the ones they saw the pros riding on the telly, then quickly realised how useless they were for everyday cycling.