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This is one of the reasons I love the emergence of the "Gravel" category of bikes. They look and have geometry similar to a road bike, but they have enough clea

• thisisnico 5y ago
  My bike is the best for the city.. got a Specialized Tri-Cross with 32mm tires.. can do everything and handle our horrible roads.
• krono 5y ago
  Yeah, my roady friends are jealous because I get to use my gravelbike off-road, and my mountainbike friends are jealous at me for being able to keep up with roadies. And all that for the price of one bike and an extra set of wheels with slicks! Canyon Grail here, yes the one with the weird cockpit :)
  • photojosh 5y ago
    How off-road do you go? I have a gravel bike too, but I much prefer the MTB for rocky descents.
    • whakim 5y ago
      I also own a Canyon Grail (the alloy one, so no weird handlebar) and it's pretty capable for fire roads and some singletrack. When it gets really rocky and rooty though I find myself having less fun simply because the riding experience becomes so jarring and rattly. It's also way more fun to climb on (as in you actually enjoy the climbs as opposed to just doing them to get to the downhills) compared to a mountain bike. Where I live I have to ride ~7 miles each way to get to the trails so it makes a lot of sense as my one off-road bike.
    • _huayra_ 5y ago
      Yeah some of the gravel bike stuff really amazes me these days. I can't imagine doing some descents on anything but a fireroad with a gravel bike due to the un-slack geometry, but I've seen people bomb green downhill runs at some bike parks!
    • krono 5y ago
      Mostly just normal gravel roads and forest paths. I have done some very light MTB trails (here in the flatter than flat Netherlands), and did some touring through the German Eifel (that was intense!) and the Belgian Ardennes. For me it's al about having the freedom to go where I feel like going in the moment and not having to worry too much about gear. For me this bike is like the golden mean, but there are other gravel bikes with slightly more clearance or better shock absorption if you're looking to take it on slightly more intense trips. Here's a quirky gravel-centric YouTube channel I came across a while back: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV9WtB_q5sJfe3Rev5PWy-Q https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV9WtB_q5sJfe3Rev5PWy-Q
• dharmab 5y ago
  Similarly in the motorcycle world, dual sport and adventure models originally designed for on road/off road mix are now quite popular as commuter machines. Their long suspension makes them quite comfortable over potholes, cracks, curbs and generally poor road surfaces. And many models are narrow enough to filter between lanes with ease.
  • ultrarunner 5y ago
    I would argue that "designed for [off] road mix" is pretty charitable. A 500-pound dirt bike with a comfortable seating position wins the tough-aesthetics competition, but off road performance is meager at best. I built decent off-road skills on a DL1000, but the weight was always such a liability as to make it impracticable. I moved to a smaller and lighter bike and have more fun, but 99% of people I met in Arizona are happy with their big ADV bikes— with zero interest in going off road. I think the most interesting take-away is that there is a segment of people who value being given an excuse for something rugged— I heard lots of "I just like the peace-of-mind that I could go anywhere if I needed to" whether they believe themselves or not.
    • LAC-Tech 5y ago
      Well there's shades of grey between paved tarmac and proper off road. Not a motorcyclists but I assume these adventure/dual sport bikes perform much better over say unsealed roads, and are at least workable on fire roads.
      • dharmab 5y ago
        Fire roads are easy mode on an ADV bike. They can do double track quite well too. They start to struggle in mud, sand and single track.
        • LAC-Tech 5y ago
          I'd presume that pure street motorcycles would fair pretty badly on even double track. So yeah, ADV would seem to be useful for something other than wanting to look rugged.
• plorkyeran 5y ago
  Yeah, when I first got my gravel bike I thought I'd be sacrificing some road performance for better flexibility and comfort, but that didn't happen. The actual result was that my times on smooth segments were unchanged and I've beaten many of my personal bests on rougher roads (and obviously it's much better on dirt). It's not a perfectly fair comparison because I did upgrade to a nicer bike in the process, but my previous bike was already into the territory of significant diminishing returns for someone who doesn't race and doesn't actually care about saving seconds.
  • ehnto 5y ago
    I ended up commuting on my big tire bike because it's so much more comfortable and just as quick.
  • rorykoehler 5y ago
    Don't gravel bikes have much smaller gear ratios? There is no way a strong road cyclist would have the same times on a gravel bike as a road bike purely due to the size of the front chain ring. I run a semi-compact up front on my road bike and I can't go faster than 53kmh on the flat without my cadence getting too high to sustain for longer periods of time.
    • egman_ekki 5y ago
      I don't think the difference is that large, but there is some. I haven't tried myself, but would be interesting to test it against each other. You can compare gearing ratios on 99spokes, e.g. https://99spokes.com/compare?bikes=scott-speedster-gravel-20-2021,scott-speedster-10-2021 https://99spokes.com/compare?bikes=scott-speedster-gravel-20...
      • rorykoehler 5y ago
        I've been road riding with people who switched to gravel bikes and they were suddenly noticeably slower. They also seemed to run out of gas earlier which means they were expending more energy to keep up.
• CalChris 5y ago
  Slicks themselves are under-appreciated.
• jaypeg25 5y ago
  I bought a Specialized Diverge over a year ago. It was mostly to commute to and from work, but also to have the ability to take gravel paths and trails on the weekends. It's been awesome but friends have suggested I take off the stock tires and add some new ones. Is it really worth it? The tires are already fairly fat already, at least compared to road bike tires.
  • haswell 5y ago
    The Diverge was on my shortlist when I got the Topstone. At the time (2019), I think the Diverge defaulted to skinnier smoother tires. Can’t remember which tires specifically. The Topstone shipped with some pretty knobby WTBs that definitely had an impact on rolling resistance. If your tires are knobby/optimized for off-road, putting a slicker tire (the GK slicks are quite popular for good reason), I suspect you’ll notice quite a difference, but I’d look more at the knobbiness than the fatness if you’re considering a change. Also worth noting that some knobby tires have a hard line down the middle that keeps resistance minimal until you start to turn, at which point you hit the high traction portion of the tire. Takeaway: even if it looks knobby, it might not be as slow as it looks. 32mm+ is already getting into “fat” territory for a road bike, and for me personally, 38mm seems to be my sweet spot.
    • jaypeg25 5y ago
      They came with 35mm "roadsport flak jacket" https://www.specialized.com/us/en/roadsport/p/155765?color=228720-155765 https://www.specialized.com/us/en/roadsport/p/155765?color=2.... They're pretty smooth overall, perhaps why I never really had an issue commuting with them, but I'm always looking to go faster!
      • haswell 5y ago
        Found the details - I went from 40mm WTB Nanos [0] to these 38mm GravelKing Slicks [1]. If you look at the product pages, the difference is pretty striking. I don't know much about the RoadSports, but at least when it comes to "slick-ness", it looks like you're already starting from a slicker baseline than I was. - [0] https://www.wtb.com/products/nano-40c https://www.wtb.com/products/nano-40c - [1] https://www.panaracerusa.com/products/gravelking-slick-folding-gravel-tires?variant=34825709551778 https://www.panaracerusa.com/products/gravelking-slick-foldi...
• jasonvorhe 5y ago
  I got my Cannondale CAADX in 2015 right before the gravel hype started. I've put WTB Riddler 37 on it and it's close to a gravel bike but a bit more direct and maneuverable - I love it. If I was in for a new bike right now, I'd be very tempted to get a Canyon Grail with electronic shifting though. After Cannondale's manufacturing error put me in the hospital for a night followed by a broad recall of a lot of their carbon fiber forks and they new minimalist logo I'm just not a fan of Cannondale anymore. But the Topstone is a great bike!
  • aix1 5y ago
    Sorry to hear that you were affected by the fork defect. I hope there were no lasting effects from the injuries. I got Cannondale's recall email as I was flying to Kenya, with my CAADX, for a cycling trip. Was a bit nervous riding the bike, especially given the terrain, but in the end decided to risk it as I didn't want to curtail the trip. At the time I was wondering whether I was overreacting, and decided that I probably was. It is quite shocking to come across someone who personally suffered an accident due to the fault.
• shrimpx 5y ago
  I used to ride thin-tire road bikes but a year ago I bought a Mercier Kilo WT (WT is for "wide tire") which is a light road frame with a fork that allows beefy gravel tires. I don't think I'll go back to thin-tire road bikes.
• jiscariot 5y ago
  My only complaint about the gravel trend is that at the entry (and mid) level they are often using pretty crappy disc brakes when rim brakes would have been a better choice in 90% of cases. When they are hydraulic, they are a dream to use, but with a cable you really lose the brake feel.
  • sam_lowry_ 5y ago
    Ha! I only figured it out after buying Kona Rove NRB, which is not even an entry-level bike, but it turned out to have disk brakes and extremely fragile paintwork. It served me well, but I am still somewhat cautious when descending since then.
    • sirstan 5y ago
      I’m glad to see another Rove owner mention the paint. I swear wiping sweat off the top tube scrapes through the paint.
    • sam_lowry_ 5y ago
      Mechanical disk brakes, I mean.
  • usrusr 5y ago
    Rim brakes on roadbikes are awesome, but they are awesome because the calipers don't have to go far around the tire. If you try to build them for wider tires you suffer far more flex and flex means that you can't pull a high lever transmission ratio before running out of lever movement. Remember "brake boosters" on cantilever brakes? Same problem, the requirement to transfer the counterforce far around the tire. I'm a rim brake die-hard, but for anything wider than 28 go disc.
    • vecinu 5y ago
      The only caveat is carbon wheels. I hate rim brakes on carbon wheels,they legitimately suck and disc is way better for that application. I actually just sold my carbon wheels and downgraded back to aluminium until I buy a disc bike for the long term.
• alistairSH 5y ago
  Dont tell my wife. She’ll want me to sell 3-4 of my bikes! ;)
• germinalphrase 5y ago
  Rumor has it that a very prominent British Tour de France competitor rides a re-badged/stealth gravel bike because he finds it more comfortable.
  • jasonvorhe 5y ago
    Who is that rider?
  • tomglynch 5y ago
    I'm a bit hesitant to believe this. Can we have some more details?
  • gield 5y ago
    Gravel bikes are easy to distinguish from race bikes, even when rebadged. If it was true, many fans and commentators would have noticed already.
• pmontra 5y ago
  Anecdotally my gravel bike is faster with 28 mm slick tires than with 42 mm sawtooth tires. Of course sawtooth vs slick makes a difference in friction. The hubs in the wheels could make a difference too. I use the 28 mm wheels when I go on asphalt roads in the mountains because I don't want the extra weight and friction. 42 mm for everything else.
  • haswell 5y ago
    > Anecdotally my gravel bike is faster with 28 mm slick tires than with 42 mm sawtooth tires. Out of curiosity, do you know this to be true, or believe this to be true? I ask because the perception of speed with skinnier tires is one of the things the article touches on. I felt similarly when I put GP5000 28mm slicks on the gravel bike, but when I looked at my ride history, I couldn’t really back that feeling of speed up with actual data, and evidence shows that at least in my case, there was no major difference between 28mm and 38mm. (Not saying this is the case for you, but I’m just curious).
    • ptmcc 5y ago
      My experience is the same as yours. When I rode the same regular routes on my gravel bike on slick 38s vs my road bike on slick 25s (up from 23s, as big as I could fit!), the road bike felt faster but GPS data didn't really back it up over the course of a whole ride. The road bike is a bit more nimble with twitchier handling sure, but the more jarring ride of the skinny tires gives the illusion of speed. But in the real, non-racing world the data tells a different story. At the limit I have no doubt the road bike is ultimately faster, but that's not most of my riding. I'm not a racer but am an avid and reasonably fit recreational rider, so I ditched the road bike entirely and enjoy my more comfortable and practical gravel bike, with minimal speed penalty. Plus I can ride on dirt roads and broken pavement with ease and comfort, to boot. I think most riders are better served by gravel/endurance bikes than pure road bikes.
      • 8note 5y ago
        You also want to measure the amount of power you're inputting. Could be the same speed, but you need to peddle harder to maintain it
• dheera 5y ago
  TFA: "suspension losses" Who the hell uses suspension on a road bike, or are they talking about something else?
  • alisonkisk 5y ago
    They are talking about vibrations in the wheels, not a big ol suspension fork like on a mountain bike.
• auxym 5y ago
  In many ways, modern gravel bikes are a comeback of the "sport touring" road bikes that were popular from roughly the mid 70s to the mid 90s, then became mostly absent from market. Compared with "racing" bikes, they had wider tires, a more relaxed geometry, and various conveniences such as mounting points for fenders and racks. Thus, they were a much better option for the majority of riders who did not participate in serious road racing. Then for 20 years you couldn't really get a road bike with tires larger than 23 mm, which is totally illogical in places with less than perfect roads such as here in Canada. Really happy that gravel bikes have brought back some sensibility to the sport, and that they provide a nice "all around" option in a market where manufacturers had been using "super specialization" of products to entice customers to buy more products. Now I'm waiting for a similar trend to take over XC skiing!
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • rukuu001 5y ago
    Surly made a couple bike you could put fat tires on - their touring bike and a cyclocross bike. I don’t know if they’re still available but they were selling them in the mid-2000s
    • devb 5y ago
      Every Surly bike takes wide tires. Their Pugsley was the first mass-produced fat bike, starting back in 2005.
    • ehnto 5y ago
      Definitely still available. That segment of the industry has exploded. Another great manufacturer for touring/adventure bikes is Bombtrack. Many touring/adventure bikes will double as way better commuter than a road bike I feel. They are set up for comfort, long hours in the saddle, and usually have with luggage mounts.
      • rukuu001 5y ago
• hellisothers 5y ago
  Amen, 50mm on my Diverge.
• hypnoscripto 5y ago
  Is that different from a "hybrid" bike?
  • gorgoiler 5y ago
    Gravel bikes are more sporty. They come with drop bars and geometry to complement that riding position, and will weigh much less than an upright hybrid. You’ll also find gears to accommodate more speeds and inclines, typically a single chainring with an 11 speed lightweight derailleur vs 3 to 9 speed heavyweight (but clean and easy maintenance) hub gears.
  • antisthenes 5y ago
    It isn't. Gravel bike is just a new marketing term.
• skeeter2020 5y ago
  The geo is actually quite a bit more relaxed than your typical racing bike, which is why I like gravel grinders (at 6'5" and 40+ years old). It's definitely a nicer ride than your typical road tire but not sure I'd go as far as comfy/soft...
• wolrah 5y ago
  The second most annoying thing to me about cyclists are the number of them who complain about the quality of the road or path while riding what is more or less a race bike. Shockingly, road race vehicles of any variety generally are not built for comfort or ability to handle less than ideal conditions. Stop acting like you think you're in the TdF and get a bike that makes sense for where you ride.
  • supersrdjan 5y ago
    Ah yes I am a cyclist and I approve this message. Reminds me of this saying from an Indian monk: Where would I find enough leather To cover the entire surface of the earth? But with leather soles beneath my feet,It’s as if the whole world has been covered. Just replace leather soles with sufficiently wide rubber tires
    • xcambar 5y ago
      Thanks for the very sensible quote.
  • gield 5y ago
    If the quality of the road is bad, gravel bikes are equally as uncomfortable as race bikes. Not talking about non-asphalted roads as race bikes are of course not made for those.
    • namdnay 5y ago
      The fatter tyres do cushion it a bit. And most "cycle to work" bikes I've seen (especially ebikes) will have a small front shock
    • wolrah 5y ago
      I'm not talking about comfort, I'm talking about ability to handle the surface properly. Skinny nonsense race bike tires get swallowed up by cracks in the road that reasonable tires just go right over. They're more fragile to debris and simply have less traction on less than ideal surfaces because there's just less tread to work with. That said the idea that more air cushion space doesn't lead to greater comfort is absurd. A tire that has room to compress doesn't bottom out.
• rorykoehler 5y ago
  The geometry of gravel bikes is much closer to 90s cross country mountain bikes than modern road bikes.
  • nchi3 5y ago
    That's not really true. Gravel bikes have geometries ranging from aero race bike geometriea to hardtail MTBs. I'd say most have very similar geometries to endurance road bikes though (similar stack/reach, 71ish HT angle, 425-430mm chainstays)
• vishnugupta 5y ago
  In this part of the world they are called "hybrid" bikes[1]. Fast and sleek enough for regular city commute and rugged enough for occasional off-road cycling. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLwm_SOzaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfLwm_SOzaI
  • tomgp 5y ago
    hybrid bikes are a bit different from gravel bikes. the latter tend to have drop bars, more mountain bike-ish gearing and a more road bike like sitting position compare: kona dew (a pretty traditional hybrid) https://www.konaworld.com/dew.cfm https://www.konaworld.com/dew.cfm kona rove (firmly in the gravel/ adventure category) https://www.konaworld.com/rove_dl.cfm https://www.konaworld.com/rove_dl.cfm
• vladvasiliu 5y ago
  I'm very happy with this trend, too. I've always had full-on road-bikes (skinny tyres, etc). While those are great for a ride out on the hills around my parents' house, I now live in the city where the roads are in a pretty bad shape, and more importantly they're very often paved with cobblestones (probably the very same ones laid down by the Romans). I'm looking to buy an electric bike for my commute, and most bikes have the "upright" geometry. Maybe it's because of my habits, but I don't feel as safe on those, I find them less manoeuvrable and less efficient if I need to pedal hard (though with the electric motor that last point might be less important). I'm happy those new "all-track" as they're called here exist, with disk brakes and all the creature comforts of regular "city bikes" but with a more familiar-to-me riding position. I'm less happy with those bikes always having a suspended fork, which I've always seen as useless for road bikes, but oh well...
• jamil7 5y ago
  This, plus my group and solo rides are now mostly on forest paths, single track and dirt paths, away from traffic and cars and the stress that brings. The riding is slower but more enjoyable and technical than road riding for me. It seems to wear me out quicker though, I think because of so much vibration and stabilizing of the bike.
• nxpnsv 5y ago
  Ditching my hardtail mtb for a gravel bike was life changing. I was mostly riding gravel paths anyway, combining roads and gravel my range increased a lot, and commutes are much more fun. In retrospect, it could be that the 4x more expensive gravel bike just is a better bike :)
• jbluepolarbear 5y ago
  I use to live in Boulder CO and I would see a lot of people riding the fat tire bikes because they go over poor roads easy. Even see a bunch of people use them in the winter.