Show me your flat bar* gravel bikes

Or alt bar

Currently got standard gravel bars but never ever use the drops!

The brakes are cable disc and not great so thinking about flat bars or alternative bars with normal brakes and 1*11 as it currently is (aware of the brake and shifter technicalities) just wanting ideas for bars

Like riding on the hoods so assume bar ends

Hybrids. The word you’re looking for is hybrids.

It’s OK, there’s nothing to be ashamed about. You can even put a shopping basket on the front and feel like one of the crowd.

Can always rely on you to be really funny ….. ?

Full length flat bars, full 29er tyre clearance, modern xc geometry, sometimes 100mm fork is where it’s at for most of my southern off road needs.

That’s just a short travel xc hard tail surely

I rarely used the drops on my gravel bike, it was more comfortable on the hoods but even that gave me a pain in the neck after a couple of hours! Also drop bars are rubbish off road.
So I bought a rigid 29er MTB and use that instead, which for me is a much better compromise. A bit slower on the road but much more capable off road.

My gravel bike, Pinnacle Ramin.

I only use the gravel bike for fitness rides but my neck ends up hurting lots!  No issue on my mtb on rides of double the length either!

I love the gravel bike for speed and efficiency, the hands on hoods position is good. Main downside is the shit brakes from the hoods!

yep, just my take on riding mild off road terrain. The singular swift above is a rigid 29er with narrow tyres on and no gears, a different approach to the same kind of mild off-road. My local terrain suits this kind of bike best (for me), rather than a genre of bike deciding terrain suitability (tested extensively with a gravel bike and lots of different tyres and 2 wheel sizes). Just covering that point early on 🙂

At what tyre width does a rigid MTB become a flat-barred gravel bike?

These are 2.1″

I think these might be 1.95″

I’ve had that same bike fitted with 700x40c tyres too

This is an El Mariachi with 29×1.75″ tyres

As you can see, I like bar ends with that sort of combination

Main downside is the shit brakes from the hoods!

When I had my Amazon set up with BB7 cable disk brakes, I had them “good enough” for breaking from the hoods. Since I fitted hydraulics, I have no issues whatsoever (and I have wee hands).

Cotic Cascade with Jones bars.

Its not really a gravel bike and its too heavy to be an XC MTB, but its just right  for me.

Gives me confidence on rougher stuff and the jones bars give plenty of positions – I did 90 odd miles on it back in the summer cycling from Grasmere back home to east lancs which involved plenty of road and bridleway and a jaunt over salter fell.

Not sure either of those are gravel bikes

“That’s just a short travel xc hard tail surely”

Wooosshhhhh

Hasn’t stopped me doing 100km on the top one and 100 miles on the bottom on Sustrans trails. They don’t call the bottom one New World Tourist for nothing.

SQ Lab 310 are a good flat(ish) bar option with a comfortable sweep but not super wide and a forward jink so you don’t need a long stem to account for the rearward sweep. SQ also do inner bar ends that give a better flat bar aero position but still able to reach brake levers quickly. I’ve bought a fork and just doing CAD for my next frame build which will be light gravel skinny steel (with those bars and inner bar ends).

These are the 310 bars on my commuter tourer lump.

Previous CX / gravel twin top tube thing with Sturmey hub but designed around drops so a bit too short with flat bars.

No pictures to hand but a bit like failedengineer above, I have an older Croix de Fer with 620mm flat carbon bars, a fairly long, flipped stem and proper bar ends.  3×10 MTB shifter & mechs, 105 road chainset and Hope X2 brakes.  With chunky 40mm tyres, it’s been over the Corrieyairick and last month, with 32mm slicks, I rode 160 miles from home to Kyle of Lochalsh in a day.  It may be a bit old but it’s great, anytime I need to simply get somewhere (and back again).  Reynolds steel frame and a sound set of wheels mean it just rides well.  With a trailer hooked on, I’ve even used it quite a bit to do shopping trips into town.

@mister-p I’m too tired, grumpy, and full of cold to be bothered about middle aged men “whooshing” me

It’s lucky you didn’t take the time to acknowledge it then!

Genesis Longitude. Go anywhere, do anything. I swap the wheels out depending on what I need it to do – from 27.5 with 3″ tyres to 29 with narrowish gravel tyres.

Kona Dew DL bought bargainously about 18 months ago as a general duties bike for my daughter, but since ridden and upgraded a bit by me. Must be the only one out there with Next bar, PDW guards and DT GR1600 wheels but otherwise Deore spec from factory.

OK, it’s a hybrid but I do ride gravel on it. Great all round bike for urban use too. Might rebuild it around a nicer frame but there’s not much out there like this.

It semi replaced a less successful drop bar gravel build, hence some of the upgrades to this. I found the drop bar gravel too close to my existing lighter gravel / allroad bike.

Paint is a bit flaky as befits the budget but otherwise I’m happy.

Here’s mine, a Giant Fastroad AR Advanced. 2×10 (that might change), 40c tyres, it absolutely flies.

I only use the gravel bike for fitness rides but my neck ends up hurting lots!

Wrong size bike maybe mate?

I was apprehensive when buying mine as I can’t do an arse up, head down position.

You know my sort of dimensions long legs, short torso etc, but being a large on all my mtb’s, I followed the Boardman size guide, went for a medium and it’s spot on. On a large, I’d be stretched out too much and ergo end up with a bad neck I reckon

Yeah maybe but it’s what I’ve got now lol. I’m in the middle of the large for the frame and reduced the stem length.

Tbh the neck pain is probs because I don’t ride it enough to get used to it!!

Think I’ll just swap bars to these:

Sonder Bomber

A very old, chromoly steel Marin San Rafael, perfect for tow paths, fire roads, bridleways and shopping!

Is it big gravel or rigid MTB. Either way its great for pootling about the moors and did the Hadrian’s cycleway on it in the summer.

Sonder Frontier with Planetx Geoff bars and 1×10 Deore groupset. Tyres are currently 29×2.25 G One all round and are fine on most stuff except slippy mud. Will be putting bigger treaded tyre on for the winter soon.

Is it 1990 again!?

Not really a flat bar gravel bike. More of a gravelised HT. But, it’s great in this format, light (ish) and fast (ish).

The singular swift above is a rigid 29er with narrow tyres on and no gears,

It’d be a bit rubbish with no gears, I can assure you it has at least one

Plus a rigid 29er with narrow tyres is exactly what a gravel bike is

“Plus a rigid 29er with narrow tyres is exactly what a gravel bike is”

Was kinda the point I was skirting around, that a rigid 29er is probably ideal, and needn’t have skinny tyres…or always be rigid! 🙂 Nice to see lots of very practical, versatile bikes above, none of which would fit the marketing of a ‘gravel’ bike, or even a ‘flat bar gravel’… don’t think the latter is really a category. Also, apart from the actual 90s bike or two, none of the above look at all like one when looking at the geometry etc, but we’ve been down that road in other threads.

About 12 years ago I was riding a Specialized Langster Monaco with flat bars and pedals as a sort of proto-gravel bike. It had heavy duty puncture proof tyres on it and I rode it on all the rough bridleways and paths/tracks I could find in Hertfordshire because there were no hills to ride MTB down. It was great to drift around dirt tracks and very light XC rides. I also enjoyed riding it around places like Ashton Court in Bristol and what would have normally been boring tracks on Dartmoor

Controversial, I’m going to say a gravel bike has to have a 40t+ chainring

Kona Dew DL bought bargainously about 18 months ago as a general duties bike for my daughter, but since ridden and upgraded a bit by me. Must be the only one out there with Next bar, PDW guards and DT GR1600 wheels but otherwise Deore spec from factory.

Pretty similar to what I ended up doing after thinking I wanted a gravel bike.

Kona Unit X, JRA XC wheels, 2.2″ fast rolling tyres, full mudguards (Velo Orange), that same Specialized Pizza Rack, and a high rise handlebar.

My Sonder Camino has flat bars. It’s a gravel bike apparently.

I usually have some inner bar ends fitted.

Genesis Fortitude, sometimes wears 45mm gravel tyres. Rear rack and bags on for upcoming bikepacking trip, usually they’re off the bike. Inny bar ends give you an on the hood roady position. which is nice.

My OnOne FreeRanger.1×11 sram. Nice and light.Built up from frameset when Planet X were selling them off. Was originally gravel flared drop bar but I just prefer flat bar riding. I find it more relaxed and better bike control.
Sorry image won’t load.

big comfy gravel.

comfy touring gravel

Plus a rigid 29er with narrow tyres is exactly what a gravel bike is

No it isn’t. A flat barred gravel bike is where you take a drop barred gravel bike and put flat bars on it. That is not the same as a rigid MTB. The geometry is different, the clearances are different, the fork AC is different, it is probably a bit lighter, the seated position is different and it feels different to ride.

Whether that difference makes any difference to you is up to you but there is a clear difference between the two bikes.