Gravel Bikes - what exactly are you supposed to do with one?

[Evanivitch]

JuniorD said:

I haven't seen any pictures on route on this thread that I wouldn't do on my full carbon Scott Addict road bike with rim brakes, 28mm tyres and Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels.

I love the term mentioned above "over biked". I can't wait until similar terminology is used in car reviews, for example "driving the daily commute and showing clients around rental flats in a BMW F80 M3 Competition Pack feels slightly "over-carred"

Would you go down a forestry fire road?

There's videos on YouTube of people riding cheap road bikes in mountain bike trails, it's not that you can't do it, it's just a question of where you choose to compromise.

[yellowjack]

Evanivitch said:

JuniorD said:

I haven't seen any pictures on route on this thread that I wouldn't do on my full carbon Scott Addict road bike with rim brakes, 28mm tyres and Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels.

I love the term mentioned above "over biked". I can't wait until similar terminology is used in car reviews, for example "driving the daily commute and showing clients around rental flats in a BMW F80 M3 Competition Pack feels slightly "over-carred"

Would you go down a forestry fire road?

There's videos on YouTube of people riding cheap road bikes in mountain bike trails, it's not that you can't do it, it's just a question of where you choose to compromise.

This is true. Lately I've been doing some "gravel time trials" as part of a daft Strava club. It's a laugh, but can get addictive. There have been several segments (we're on No 8 now) that were so benign that I was much quicker on my road bike. Which is fine, right up to the point where fresh gravel repairs have been made using sharp gravel, not compacted. And you chop a chunk out of a nearly new Conti GP4000 SII. Then it becomes a compromise that's no longer worth making.

I mean, I once rode a Gorrick XC MTB race route on my winter road bike with 23c slicks on it, simply because the infantry officer who designed the course said it couldn't be done. It was slow, but I got round in one piece for Sappers v Grunts bragging rights. But that was a once only thing. It's no fun at all. I've done lots of other 'off piste' exploring on my 'best' road bike, some of it discovered new routes, some of it resulted in 'never again' moments. A 6th overall Strava result on a fast MTB segment was my best result on a £2k carbon road bike. But ultimately a "gravel bike" is far better suited to all that mixed road/off road stuff, and if you have plenty of gentle off road tracks around you, forest roads, byways and bridleways, trail centre blues etc, it's well worth putting one into your wish list as N+1, and see what Santa comes up with...

In the end, the best reason to buy one is because you want one, and because you'll love riding it. And if you don't want one, and don't "get" the hype? No-one is forcing you to buy into the marketing "bull"...

[nofuse22]

dogbucket said:

Thanks for the tip, I have plotted this out and on the list for the spring.

I have tried to map it out but seem to run out of bridleways etc.. do you have it in gpx format (or similar)? Thanks

[Tall_Paul]

nofuse22 said:

dogbucket said:

Thanks for the tip, I have plotted this out and on the list for the spring.

I have tried to map it out but seem to run out of bridleways etc.. do you have it in gpx format (or similar)? Thanks

Here you go, you should be able to download the gpx or save it to your routes etc.

https://www.strava.com/routes/20202541

If not, let me know and I'll send you a .gpx of the route.

Edited by Tall_Paul on Monday 25th November 22:17

[dogbucket]

nofuse22 said:

I have tried to map it out but seem to run out of bridleways etc.. do you have it in gpx format (or similar)? Thanks

This is what I plotted out, which looks the sames as TPs, but in case you dont have Strava.

https://www.plotaroute.com/route/971038

[Captain Raymond Holt]

I've seen some mention of 1x / 2x further up the thread, but not much.

Those of you with a gravel bike - do you have 1x and love it? wish you had 2x?

I keep playing with Sheldon Brown's gear calculator and haven't really arrived at any real conclusion.

[Tall_Paul]

I've got 1x sram force on mine and coming from an mtb with 1x12, for me the front derailleur is dead to me.

If you were doing lots of road miles then the jumps between ratios would be a little annoying I'll admit.


I'm also very tempted to swap out the wtb byway tyres for a set of wtb sendero tyres, on anything not tarmac or dry the byways are... Interesting!

Edited by Tall_Paul on Sunday 1st December 12:09

[ThisInJapanese]

I have a Cannondale Slate. I have no idea what subset of bike it comes under. It's 650b and feels like (I'm told) and old school mountain bike. Around my way, in the summer evenings I don't believe it's possible to have more fun on a bike than hustling this thing down the lanes. It's utterly incredible, no idea how or why, but it just is.

With decent tyres on, it'll hang onto the back of a group of road bikes at a decent lick and then dart off down a bridleway hopping and skipping over the paths. A mate of mine has a Space Chicken, and he says the same. It's also great around town, don't have to worry about the road surface in the way I do on my road bikes, it soaks up a hell of a lot of what town centres have to offer in terms of bad road surfaces. I'd love to do a gravel ride in the US on one, as it somehow comes alive on that sort of surface. I did Paris Roubaix on mine, it's not at endurance bike, but it handles cobbles very well, I misjudged it though and went too hard too early into a nasty headwind for the first 90 miles!

Marketing bks maybe, but for me, they are just fun, plain and simple.

[Fluffsri]

ThisInJapanese said:

Marketing bks maybe, but for me, they are just fun, plain and simple.

Yep, nailed it!

[ArnageWRC]

Captain Raymond Holt said:

I've seen some mention of 1x / 2x further up the thread, but not much.

Those of you with a gravel bike - do you have 1x and love it? wish you had 2x?

I keep playing with Sheldon Brown's gear calculator and haven't really arrived at any real conclusion.

I think it's all about personal choice, and what suits you and your riding requirements. I was all for 1x, and still am - but it's no longer for me. I had a problem with my left knee a few years ago, and after some physio, I was advised to use a higher cadence. While 1x has a great range of gears, there can be quite a jump between gears; so you can go from grinding to spinning too much.

[klootzak]

Captain Raymond Holt said:

I've seen some mention of 1x / 2x further up the thread, but not much.

Those of you with a gravel bike - do you have 1x and love it? wish you had 2x?

I keep playing with Sheldon Brown's gear calculator and haven't really arrived at any real conclusion.

I'm running SRAM Force 1x11 speed. I ride mostly on the road with 44t chainring and an 11-36 cassette.

Some of the jumps can be a bit uncomfortable at first, but you really do get used to it quite quickly.

If you habitually ride with 40km/h+ bunches or get to ~70 km/h downhill you may well find that you don't have enough big gears. That's not my problem though, so I'll probably change to 42t on the front to close up the gaps a touch and give me a lower bail-out gear.

In the end, it's all a bit of a compromise, but not a major unless you're quite serious.

k

[TwistingMyMelon]

Ive got a compact with 2 x and a 32 top gear at the back

At first when I rode mainly off road with chunky tyres I never used the big ring at all and the mech cable snapped twice due to a crash and mud ingress, I wish I went for a 1 x option, in fact when I snapped the front mech shifter I was going to leave it off , but I got it repaired.

I then fitted 28c slick tyres for a few longer road rides and I never came off the big ring on the flat and really needed it

Ideally I would have just 1x but if I did I would probably be moaning about the gaps!! I think if you are going to be riding mainly off road then go 1x, if you want off road and are doing 50 mile + club runs on the road then I would aim for 2 x

I agree with whats being said about being great fun, so much so I rode my rode bike 15 miles this summer instead of 2500 miles plus miles I normally do !

Its nice to get away from traffice and dheads on the road in the woods near me and then be able to ride the 10 miles of road home at a decent pace.

[jesusbuiltmycar]

klootzak said:

I'm running SRAM Force 1x11 speed. I ride mostly on the road with 44t chainring and an 11-36 cassette.

Some of the jumps can be a bit uncomfortable at first, but you really do get used to it quite quickly.

If you habitually ride with 40km/h+ bunches or get to ~70 km/h downhill you may well find that you don't have enough big gears. That's not my problem though, so I'll probably change to 42t on the front to close up the gaps a touch and give me a lower bail-out gear.

In the end, it's all a bit of a compromise, but not a major unless you're quite serious.

k

I'm also running SRAM force 1x11 with 44t chainring and 11-36 cassette on my Pickenflick.

I also use it as a winterbike and I am planning to put some 28mm road tyres on a spare set of wheels for road use... Last winter keeping up with friends friends on road bikes was hard work but did wonders for my fitness.

[yellowjack]

TwistingMyMelon said:

Ive got a compact with 2 x and a 32 top gear at the back

At first when I rode mainly off road with chunky tyres I never used the big ring at all and the mech cable snapped twice due to a crash and mud ingress, I wish I went for a 1 x option, in fact when I snapped the front mech shifter I was going to leave it off , but I got it repaired.

I then fitted 28c slick tyres for a few longer road rides and I never came off the big ring on the flat and really needed it

Ideally I would have just 1x but if I did I would probably be moaning about the gaps!! I think if you are going to be riding mainly off road then go 1x, if you want off road and are doing 50 mile + club runs on the road then I would aim for 2 x

I agree with whats being said about being great fun, so much so I rode my rode bike 15 miles this summer instead of 2500 miles plus miles I normally do !

Its nice to get away from traffice and dheads on the road in the woods near me and then be able to ride the 10 miles of road home at a decent pace.

My old Cannondale Backroads is running a 3 x 9 setup. Old (1990s) Shimano 105 road triple. It's "period correct" but probably not what the bike was built with. It suffers from a 'reluctance to change into the big ring' and is, in many ways, a PITA. But I love it (the bike as a whole, not the gearing specifically). I don't really have the legs to turn a 52/11 gear at any decent cadence, and would probably be a damn sight better off with a compact 2 x 10 setup, but it is what it is and I'm struggling (financially) to keep up with maintenance over three bikes. So any dreams of a new bike or a change of groupset are just that for now. Dreams. This old 'Dale is a joy to ride, in terms of comfort all day. It's just not easy to wind it up for any kind of speed, so it's frustrating at times. But we'll get there - just a while after everyone else in the group is all...

[klootzak]

jesusbuiltmycar said:

I'm also running SRAM force 1x11 with 44t chainring and 11-36 cassette on my Pickenflick.

I also use it as a winterbike and I am planning to put some 28mm road tyres on a spare set of wheels for road use... Last winter keeping up with friends friends on road bikes was hard work but did wonders for my fitness.

The tyres will make a massive difference.

For me, going from squidgy 32mm Schwalbes with a table-tennis bat style tread to Conti GP5000s in 28mm completely transformed the bike (3T Exploro) into something that could reasonably keep up with the roadies.

k

[Barchettaman]

TwistingMyMelon said:

Ive got a compact with 2 x and a 32 top gear at the back.

Its nice to get away from traffic and dheads on the road, into the woods near me and then be able to ride the 10 miles of road home at a decent pace.

This is why my nice road bikes are gathering dust.

I get enough stress with motorists on the weekday bike commute. For fun and fitness riding now it’s forest trails and easy MTB stuff all the way.

[Barchettaman]

In fact, inspired by this thread, I’m going to convert my old commuter bike (currently with a mate who isn’t using it) into a gravel slag.

Started like this:



Currently like this:

[Mr Ted]

My road bike has evolved into an all-terrain / adventure / bikepacking rig and I love it, I wouldn't go back to a pure road bike as they are just too limited, I love diving off the roads onto the byways, bridleways, restricted byways, tracks.

Since this photo was taken I have ditched the 1 X 11 and gone full 'world tour' with a Rohloff Speedhub, I use a Garmin GPSMap64S with 1:25,000 OS maps for navigation, it's handy to be able to show a rambler that, yes I am allowed to cycle along here!!!

[Fluffsri]

This was my first CX bike,
Forks took a hammering and decided it was time for an upgrade. I think this is labelled as a gravel bike but its still my crosser

[anonymous-user]

My Bokeh goes anywhere. You can ride on the road and still get on with it and then just hop onto a bridleway etc. The comfort with 35c tyres is on a different level and with 1x and mtb mech it’s silent and bomb proof. About to fit hope calipers to complete it.

The geometry is good for long rides, allot frame takes a lot of abuse and it’ll go with cx, trails, road and everything.