During the Summer, due to the whole travel ban and furlough I found myself riding my road bike a lot more. 10 year old ribble Audax, now thinking time for a wee upgrade or change of direction.

Few of my mates are getting ton gravel riding.

Roughly a 1k budget,

Looking at the Planet X – London Road, seems like a good buy.

Anything im missing.

Genesis CDA?

Ribble CGR

Merlin Malt G2X (a bit more expensive than £1k but you get a GRX groupset)

Sonder Camino Al Apex 1

Just be aware that there are waiting times on the ordering for some of these

The Boardman gravel bike around £1k looks nice…the ADV something.

Are you curious because you want to or because your mates do it?

As a “mountain biker”, I find “Gravel” riding tedious and only occasionally enjoyable. Just adding my thoughts 🙂

I have a London road, one of the infamous £150, wizards sleeve, “bargain” batch from several years ago, I love it, but I would recommend shopping about more as there are loads of companies flogging an Al framed gravel bike at or under £1k today.

The only thing I would insist on getting if I were buying a new gravel bike today is hydraulic brakes, whatever the group/drivetrain setup hydraulic discs are not an unreasonable expectation for your budget OP…

As a “mountain biker”, I find “Gravel” riding tedious and only occasionally enjoyable. Just adding my thoughts

Why don’t you flog your gravel bike then? There’s certainly a market…

As a Merlin Malt G2P owner, I will tell you about that.

It’s well made, comfortable fork compared to the Boardman CX in our house, much lighter wheels than the Boardman and Giant Invite we have. Takes 45mm tyres easy without guards, snug 38mm tyres under 45mm guards. It’s both nippier to take off and yet more stable at speed. Front is higher than the same size Boardman CX but lower than a full tourer.

There is an issue with them not having the front fork mudguard mount and no bottom steerer hole – I’m about to use velcro and the other stays to hold a front mudguard on.

It’s at the road end of the spectrum. If it’s technical or big days in the hills, I’ve a HT for that. I use it for forest roads, hill tracks and lots of road pootling with mrs_oab.

I’m really, really enjoying it.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/matt_outandabout/C4JU2o

I Love my gravel bike. Living in Suffolk most of the off road stuff around here id bridleways/farm tracks and footpaths. Theres no real need for a mountain bike round here. I’ve got a flat bar (severe wrist problems preclude the use of drops) Sonder Al Camino and find it perfect for the stuff round here.

Boardman ADV 8.9 for £1k or Boardman ADV 9.0 for £1.7k before BC discount.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/touring-bike-riverside-touring-920/_/R-p-306383 for £1.4k if it comes back in stock

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/triban-rc-520-gravel-riding-bike/_/R-p-302303 for £850 it it comes back into stock

It’s not a drop bar, so it will be slower on the road and less technical offroad, but I quite like the look of the £1k On One Whippet and to a lesser extent the Boardman HYB 8.9

What size are you after? My XL Marin might be available for much less than your budget.

Kona Rove looks like a nice bike to then upgrade over time. I’ve got their Sutra LTD and very happy with it.

Tyres matter, I’ve had older ‘cross’ style bikes that could take up to 35c but no more,
I now have a more modern ‘gravel’ style bike that can take 40c and guards, it rides better.
And hydro brakes are just better in every way.
No suggestions as to actual bikes I’m afraid. But those are the 2 things I would regard as priorities as they are expensive to change later.

You might be able to get a CDA quite quickly as Genesis has quite a few bikes in stock with more coming through this month. I ordered an out of stock XL Fugio 10 a couple of days before Christmas and it’s due to arrive at the shop in the next 2-3 weeks.

I have send you a message @chestrockwell.

It will be an xl im after

Cheers.

Will email you mate. If I forget, give me a nudge!

Gravel riding is great so is MTbiking just depends of your routes riding the Byways of Wiltshire cant beat a gravel bike where MTbike there is very slow then again the trails in the Forest of Dean need a MTbike and trails like Dowies/Bluebell/shutcastle are way more fun on a Mtbike horses for courses used my cross bikes and gravel bike more last year than my MTbikes.