I’m jumping on the latest Gravel bandwagon 🙄

In a cheapskate way 👍My 2012 Kona Raijin Ti 29er is pretty much identical geo wise to the latest must haves 😉It’s only really used on disused railway lines , local woods and the lanes of the Somerset Levels. I’ve often thought I’d change the tyres to something that doesn’t try and suck all the tarmac off the roads so I’m sticking a pair of Gravelkings in a 50C width on today . Let’s see how that goes, I draw the line at curly wurly bars though 🤔sticking with the X Fusion forks as well , not the plushest but then neither are the roads around here 🙄

I had contemplated selling it but as it’s only one of 250 frames made and the Kona name may well disappear 😔 I’ll give it a new lease of life .

Nice. I’ve thought about this a bit and maybe the reason people of a certain age (45+) take to gravel bikes and the riding they bring as they are basically returning to the first adventures taken on early mtbs.

I’m 52 and my early memories are riding down the canal towpath, through woods, over moorland, dales and general off road rather than gnaarr tastic challenging (by comparison, for bikes and riders) rides of today.

The gravel bikes bring the old rides back as modern bikes are simply too good to bring much pleasure from that type of riding.

Summarising there a tad as there are clearly exceptions in both riding and bikes but by and large I like my gravel bike (Camino) for the reasons above.

Great choice

I went from a cross race bike used as a gravel bike with 35c tyres to an on one Vandal with 50c tyres.

The bigger tires are significantly nicer on anything other than the road.

I don’t miss the drops. I bought it for a Liverpool to Scarborough coast to Coast. Other than that one weekend (113miles and 30 when we cut it short) I think my longest ride on gravel has been 40 miles.

I put these tyres on my rigid Unit –

Terreno XC Race

Tubeless, and now it really flies on gravel roads. Sublime, very well rolling. Thats all I need for gravel riding.

Nice! everyone loves a Frankenbike,

My ‘gravel’ whip is a decade old Genesis CDF that I bought as a super commuter but just so happened to have clearance for a 40c on the back.

A new wide clearance fork, a GRX groupset and some flared bars later, voila!

It ain’t ‘modern’ but it’s mine and it works.

Sounds like a great way to keep an older bike useful.

I thought about suggesting a rigid fork for more of that old school MTB vibe that Twonks is talking about, but gravel bikes are getting suspension forks now so maybe you’re ahead of the curve.

Post a pic of it.

My gravel bike is a rigid 29er.

When you say you’re “jumping on the latest gravel bandwagon”, do you just mean “I’m putting some more suitable tyres on my mountain bike”? From your post, it sounds like that’s the gist of it.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m not sure it’s exactly jumping on a bandwagon. Sounds like a sensible thing to do.
I’ve been using my Inbred with a rigid Exotic Carbon fork & more suitable tyres for general bimbling/laps of Rutland Water for years now. Never thought of it as jumping on a gravel bandwagon.

My Camino however…..🤣

The word you are looking for is Hybrid. You’re riding a hybrid.

When does it stop becoming a bandwagon and just become another variant of bike?

Curly bars are indeed a step too far, it’s a slippery slope to KOMs, gel drinks, chamois butter and watt meters

Now this may not be important to some but for me, the key difference between a dedicated gravel bike and a convertes mountain bike is weight.

My Stooge could easily be converted to a gravel bikes but would weight 14kg+

Where’s my cyclocross bike weighs more like 9kg, so is significantly lighter than a converted mountain bike.

If you just like bimbling around or you want to carry bike bags, weight probably doesn’t matter to you. But if you like to ride easy off road routes at a fair lick then IME a lighter bike is more rewarding and fun.

Sounds good, but need pictures. Ti XC 29er will make a great machine for all terrain riding.

I think a rigid mtb is a superb all-round tool with the right tyres. My main (and most used) bike is a rigid ti 29er. Addressing the point above, using an XC bike doesn’t have to add weight, and they can make for great all-rounders. I don’t like the term flat bar gravel bike when it’s just an mtb with different tyres.

I have a camino too for exposure to curly bars, but I seem to be using it much less now, and the curly bars are basically drop bars for mtbers (Ritchey corralitos).

I’m just waiting to see how they breakdown the gravel bike market like they have for mountain bikes, as the terrain covered on a “gravel bike” is probably more varied than the terrain covered by a mountain bike IMO.

How about:

• All-gravel bike
• Trail gravel bike
• Bikepacking gravel bike
• Race gravel bike

Mountain biking has loads of sub genres so why can’t gravel?

Terrible tyres but great idea!

I’m just waiting to see how they breakdown the gravel bike market like they have for mountain bikes, as the terrain covered on a “gravel bike” is probably more varied than the terrain covered by a mountain bike IMO.

How about:

All-gravel bike

Trail gravel bike

Bikepacking gravel bike

Race gravel bike

There’s definitely a split now to

Gravel race bikes (CX handling, hardly any bottle mounts perfect for the kings cup flat laps of a field “UK championships”) with an aero bar

Big tyre clearance, all the mounts under the sun long tired ride bikepacking geometry

All rounder slacker head angle std mounts and a dropper provision for exploring  unknown XC and blue/red MTB trails

To name but a few

My gravel bike is a rigid 29er.

I thought I wanted a gravel bike, for riding things people tend to ride gravel bikes on.

Tried one, didn’t like it. Got a rigid steel 29er MTB, perfect for the job.

Nice to know I am not the only one. Just repurposed my ?14 year old Scandal, it is one of the original version one 29er frames, by refitting a surly rigid fork and some fairly narrow, by todays standards, mavic wheels with 2 inch tyres after the suspension fork finally gave out and I treated myself to a new cotic for hardtail/MTBO duties. Scandal is fairly lightweight, somewhere around 11-12 kg. Got a Surly corner bar to try out for the full faux gravel experience but not fitted yet.

Sometimes think there are no new ideas, just new ways of repackaging old ones.

I have just put summer tyres on my Stooge ( 2.6 vittoria mezcals). This has made made it much faster on gravel type surfaces but still capable on tougher stuff. I like it but I doubt that it is anywhere near as fast as a proper gravel bike. It just depends what you like.

Hang on OP; flat bars, suspension fork, 2″ tyres?

What you’ve got there is a very nice Mountain bike mate, what’s all this waffle about 29ers being “Gravel bikes”?

I too am struggling to see why you think you’ve got a gravel bike there. You’ve taken a mountain bike and popped some slightly better rolling tyres on it. It’s still a mountain bike. Sounds like a good use of an old bike though & biking is good. So it’s good.

One of my summer projects is to resurrect an old Niner Sir9. Currently sat stripped of paint and unloved. There’s plenty in the parts bin for 90% of the build with a choice of forks. Might go single speed. It’ll be a mountain bike with a unfashionably steep head angle and slicker tyres than it had back in the day…masquerading as a….mountain bike….because it still is.