I know it’s a popular niche at the moment(I’ve succumbed) once you realise it’s not for mtb trails it’s ok. But why are they so heavy ? Essentially a slightly beefed up road frame sporting skinnier tyres than a mtb and obviously cheap wheels at a given price point but **** me 10-12kgs 🙁
My Rose DX cross with Alu frame, carbon fork, full Ultegra hydraulic disks and DT Swiss wheels with tubeless 35mm tyres, SPDs and mudguards is just over 9kg.
Seems pretty reasonable to me considering I can ride it off road and year round
Gravel is Gnarly AF it might look the case but it’s actually nothing like or touring potholed uncategorised roads on an old CX bike or a dawes galaxy at all. No way you’d get me trying it
Heavy? My Cutthroat is 9.5kg on uncalibrated scales, my Salsa Marrakesh tourer, now that’s the only bike I know likely to survive a nuclear holocaust…14.5kg, that’s ruddy heavy.
Such a broad spectrum too. Some might be slightly beefed up road, others are marginally slimmed down 29’ers. What price bracket are we talking here? There’s probably a lot being used at lower price points as N+1’s, so will be a bit lardy.
Supposedly 9.8kg here but feels lighter. Super nimble yet bloody strong. Absolutely love it. I don’t buy into the weight thing – if I enjoy riding it then job done.
Gravel is Gnarly AF it might look the case but it’s actually nothing like or touring potholed uncategorised roads on an old CX bike or a dawes galaxy at all.
Beefier frame and wheels than a strictly road bike. Disc brakes too. Chunkier and more PR resistant tyres. Bigger range cassette. Guess it all adds up at each price point.
But similarly, probably lighter than a HT MTB at each price point.
My bottom of the range caad x with tiagra, and upgraded wheels and tyres weighs less than 10 kg with pedals. That’s with absolutely stock finishing kit, a 800 gramme fork, and budget groupset.
The wheels are fit for purpose 1850 gm affairs. Could probably get it to under 9kg with an ultegra groupset, carbon parts, and weight weenie wheels, but I see no point. It’s my favourite bike and I ride it far more than my carbon best bikes costing 3 or 4 times as much, but part of its appeal is that its cheap and chearful, and I don’t go out on it trying to smash pbs on Strava.. It’s for cruising about having fun and getting out in the fresh air.
Just highlighting you can have an11.8kg modern geometry beefy-ish mtb with 120mm travel fork for pretty gnarly mtb action. Yet a road type frame with no suspension/lighter tyres and ok even allowing for a beefier frame is only a couple of lbs lighter ?
Just highlighting you can have an11.8kg modern geometry beefy-ish mtb with 120mm travel fork for pretty gnarly mtb action. Yet a road type frame with no suspension/lighter tyres and ok even allowing for a beefier frame is only a couple of lbs lighter ?
Salsa Vaya here, steel frame carbon fork, tubeless 650b wheelset, Carbon seatpost, full 105 drivetrain and trp/hd brakes, coming in at 22lbs. Not overly concerned with the weight ( I’m not racing) when I was building it. To be honest was more concerned with comfort and durability especially as I’m on and off road and can easily manage sections of local trail centre. Don’t get hung up on weight.
I’ve been posting here about how heavy and slow it feels compared to my 8.3kg road bike. It is heavier, and slower yet much more stable, and of course whisks through “gravel”. Its easy to moan about that but long slow rides during winter will be its forte. Because of the Grey I’ve nicknamed it “the Tank”…
As alluded above though, that was £995 compared to the carbon road bike which was £1500 reduced from £2250… so thats £600 per 1.5kg.
I’ve got an alloy one and with pedals, saddle pack, pump, cages, garmin etc its bang on 10kg. Mates carbon chinese 3T copy is about 500g lighter (heavier wheels mostly). The weight problem on my bike is me.
Essentially a slightly beefed up road frame sporting skinnier tyres than a mtb and obviously cheap wheels at a given price point but **** me 10-12kgs
As just lack of research then? And the weights all make sense unless your comparing an ultralight road bike, WC XC Hard Tail and a steel gravel bike then?
How on earth do you get your caad x to weigh 8kg? Must be a pretty bling build as mine is just under ten with upgraded wheels and 35mm gravel King sks.
My CaadX with alu frame, mid range wheels and 38c tyres is ~8kg.
Are you sure? The CAADX range tends to be just approximately 10kg as standard. My old Sora and canti equipped CAADX is roughly around 10kg, even with lighter wheels and tyres, and the 2018 Ultegra bike was the same according to Cycling Weekly.
I bought this Norco for something like £500 from Ebay. It was a couple of months old & like new.
As standard it’s fitted with TRP Spyre cable discs,Shimano 105,Scwalbe Tyrago 35c tyres & with proper mudguards,Crank Bros candy pedals,lights,pump & saddlepack it comes in at a burly 13.5kg.
Sure it’s a burly beast but for £500 I’m not complaining.As others have pointed out you can get lighter bikes,it just depends on how much you want to spend.
Mikesmith.. No not really. Giant one of the big hitters not shy of turning out a light alloy frame have the £1250 slr tough road at 10.7kgs(no pedals) ? Surely the point of gravel bikes is they are lighter and faster than mtb’s ? Obviously on suitable terrain ? Any £1000 Hardtail with pogostick up front replaced with rigid fork will be similar weight to a gravel rig ? Not just giant look at ns rag-genesis datum-specialized sequoia(ok steel) lots of others
Are you ignoring all the examples of 8-9kg gravel bikes out there in even in the £1k market. Giant may have got theirs a bit out or a bit different there, plenty of others are doing just fine with sub 10kg bikes about halfway between the similar price point road and 29r HT
The weight of my Canyon is spot on the quoted weight.