A proposal for Gravel Bikes (TM)

[Ben98]

So I spend far too much time thinking about what bikes are refered to as what and why, and for once this has led me to what I think is a somewhat interesting (and mostly personally amusing) idea.

Traditionally a road bike is a head down, arse up, skinny tires smooth surfaces 'racing' bike, right? And an endurance road bike is a more relaxed, lower bottom bracket, larger tyred, higher front end road bike for well, endurance riding, right?

A cyclocross bike is traditionally a head down, arse up, skinny tires (relative), flat out for an hour or 2 'racing' bike right? So if a gravel bike is like a more relaxed, lower bottom bracket, larger tyred, higher front end cyclocross bike for more endurance focussed riding....

I hereby propose that we start calling gravel bikes "Endurance Cyclocross" bikes.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I think I might have had a long week...

[RIP]

Which of those sorts of bikes would suit Reg do you think, who doesn't know his up or down arse from his elbow half the time?

Enjoyed the talk with my breakfast anyway!

[voodoo_simon]

Drop Bar ATB isn’t it…?

[psling]

Mmmm...? Where does an Audax (Randonnée, Brévet) bike fit in? Or my Monstercross bike? Or indeed my Light Tourer bike? Life was so simple before Gravel bikes...
What was that term (I think it was) Colin from Scotland came up with? Gradventure Bike if I remember rightly

[PaulB2]

I think it was Gradventourer. I don't think ScotRoutes has commented in a long while, not sure where he got to.

[johnnystorm]

Fear not. The UCI will be along soon to crush you under the weight of their definitions and regulations.

[jameso]

"I like it. But it needs running by the Marketing Dept..

..EnduroCross...

Ok thanks guys, will touch base with the copyright lawyers before close of play"

[Pirahna]

Traditionally a road bike is a head down, arse up, skinny tires smooth surfaces 'racing' bike, right? And an endurance road bike is a more relaxed, lower bottom bracket, larger tyred, higher front end road bike for well, endurance riding, right?

A cyclocross bike is traditionally a head down, arse up, skinny tires (relative), flat out for an hour or 2 'racing' bike right? So if a gravel bike is like a more relaxed, lower bottom bracket, larger tyred, higher front end cyclocross bike for more endurance focussed riding....

Road bike tyre sizes have got bigger the last few years, these days you'll find roadies that consider 28mm skinny. Don't forget that last year's inaugural gravel world championship was won by a bloke on a road bike.

[jameso]

I think All Road always covered these bikes well, personally. Drop Bar ATB.. not really imo because they're just not all-terrain, only some terrain - I stand by my personal opinion that they're a bit crap off road esp when loaded and compared to a good rigid 29er.
But there are unpaved roads (Pave, doubletracks, etc) where they're perfect and I love them for light-loaded road touring. Audax Touring. Voyage d'audace.

PS I was in a classic bikes shop in France yesterday, looking at some of Jo Routens bikes. Not to get all Jan Heine but.. yeah the French were right about so much of this stuff ages ago.

[Lazarus]

- I stand by my personal opinion that they're a bit crap off road esp when loaded

.depends how off road the terrain is for actual gravel ( smoothish) they are great but past a certain point of roughness its just MTB the wrong way round ( fast uphill and slow downhill)
My local long loop 50 miles ish is about the same time mtb v gravel.

[jameso]

- I stand by my personal opinion that they're a bit crap off road esp when loaded

.depends how off road the terrain is for actual gravel ( smoothish) they are great but past a certain point of roughness its just MTB the wrong way round ( fast uphill and slow downhill)
My local long loop 50 miles ish is about the same time mtb v gravel.

True. I think either speed or time on the bike makes a gravel bike a bad off-roader on average byways onwards but it's subjective. And also part of that whole topic on over-selling of gravel bike capability/suitability by the bike industry.

[Lazarus]

It's just a gateway bike...roadies got one as an off roader and mtbers as a first drop bar bike that is not full road / drop bar.

I do own one but I reckon 5 % of it's miles are off road

a bad off-roader on average byways onwards

.yes our trails tend to be a bit rougher tha fire road / canal towpath.

[fatbikephil]

Cheers Ben, fair cheered up my already cheery friday!

Now about those ATB's that bikepacking.com is going on about...

[RIP]

Not seen "ATB" for a while but I'm probably not paying attention. My very first MT... er ATB.. in 1985 was indeed an ATB because it had "ATB" stencilled on it. What goes around..

[voodoo_simon]

Not seen "ATB" for a while but I'm probably not paying attention. My very first MT... er ATB.. in 1985 was indeed an ATB because it had "ATB" stencilled on it. What goes around..

Seems popular over the pond/bikepacking.com etc

I said drop bar ATB with a hint of irony

It's just a gateway bike...roadies got one as an off roader and mtbers as a first drop bar bike that is not full road / drop bar.

Nail - head

Although for me I was getting frustrated riding out places in my road bike and then not being able to explore where some paths went to, so the gravel bike works well for this.

Rides from the house = gravel bike
Rides from the car = mountain bike*

*although this isn’t a set rule….

[ripio]

Can't we just call them Gravel Bikes?

[Alpinum]

Where I live we use a couple of French words. Bicycle is one of them.

Englisch: Bicycle
German: Fahrrad
Swissgerman: Velo
French: Vélo

Here, squeezed in between cows, chocolate and mountains, we call everything velöle (cycling). From über tech along precipituos mountain ridges to exped type fatbike winter traverses. From the daily commute to the speed focused drop bar aero gravel ride.

Simples.

As you were

[whitestone]

It's not just that gravel biking is popular in the States they've a lot of gravel roads:

"Of the 4.1 million miles of federal and state highways in the U.S., 2.2 million miles (or 54%) are unpaved, gravel roads. "

Here in the UK we've basically none. There are forestry fire roads and the like but they aren't "public" in the sense that say the M6 is. There's a few unclassified roads such as Walna Scar and Garburn Pass but they are few and far between. The closest public rights of way that we have are the green lanes and BOATs but they are often grass/mud rather than gravel.

Gravel bikes are just the modern incarnation of what we used to call "a bike", probably the biggest difference is in tyre width.

[ripio]

Here in the UK we've basically none. There are forestry fire roads and the like but they aren't "public" in the sense that say the M6 is.

In Scotland they are, at least for cyclists anyway, and there are loads of them.

[whitestone]

Not quite what I meant.

While you can ride/walk on forestry roads they are permissive rather than public (unless a BW or FP is aligned with them). They aren't actually public thoroughfares maintained by the local highways authority.

[ripio]

Not quite what I meant.

While you can ride/walk on forestry roads they are permissive rather than public (unless a BW or FP is aligned with them). They aren't actually public thoroughfares maintained by the local highways authority.

Does it matter who maintains them?
And it's not just forestry roads in Scotland, there are miles and miles of estate roads and tracks, all of which the cycling and walking public have a right to access, so not "permissive" as such.

[Lazarus]

I think we all know that Scottish access laws are different from the rest of the UK just as we know the right to use a highway/right of way is different from the right to roam

Ie no one can apply to court to stop you using a FP or BW where as they can on land v right to roam , for a variety of reasons. IANAL and think both are rights but one can be removed[roam] and one cannot [ public right of way]

Either way[ and i suspect we get thread divergence now] the point remains the US has a mass network of maintained gravel tracks[public roads] everyone can legally use for transport purposes where as the UK does not have this gravel network [ even though Scotland has the right to roam]

[psling]

Who actually came up with the term "gravel bike" in the first place? I mean, those repack boys were riding gravel before they introduced the "mountain bike".
Anyway, I'm just off out to drive a couple of hundred miles to my nearest mountain. Guess which bike I'm taking...?

[Lazarus]

There are no mountains in the UK only hills

[whitestone]

There are no mountains in the UK only hills

Crikey, and you thought defining "Gravel bike" was opening a can of worms

A quick search comes up with three definitions in the first five hits!

Most geologists classify a mountain as a landform that rises at least 1,000 feet (300 meters) or more above its surrounding area

There's no globally accepted definition of a mountain, but in the British Isles it's generally accepted to be any peak with a height of at least 600m above sea levels. Some people go with 610m because that's 2,000 feet.

The most complete and specific definition of a mountain comes from the United Nations Environment Programme.

Their topographical criteria for mountains are any of the following landmasses:

• An outcrop with a peak above 8,200 feet (2,500m).
• An outcrop with a peak between 4,900-8,200 feet (1,500-2,500m) with a slope of at least 2°.
• An outcrop with a peak between 3,300-4,900 feet (1,000-1,500m) with a slope greater than 5°.
• A local elevation range that rises at least 300m above the surrounding area within a 7 km radius.

Therefore, under these definitions of a mountain, even a hill that’s a mere 1,000 feet high can be called a mountain if the surrounding land is completely flat.

Weren't mountain bikes called "All Terrain Bikes" to begin with? Before I became interested in them if they were. Then the name changed because it wasn't cool enough? The French still refer to them as VTT (Velo Tout Terrain) which is the direct translation. Of course they weren't (aren't) truly "all terrain" which is why we've ended up with fat bikes