That's right, this is simply an observation and not any form of dig, moan or complaint .... I received an email from Wiggle today telling me how I could enjoy bikepacking if I bought from stuff from them. Now, obviously nothing unusual there but what did strike me was that all the images in the email were of drop barred gravel bikes and not a single mountainbike to be seen.

Is this the way things are now? Is bikepacking now a gravel / road based activity*?




*not here obviously but we're perhaps odd

Bonkers stu.....

Yeah but that is a mountainbike with drop bars Steve ... you're just trying to muddy the water.

Agreed... besides. If a gravel bike did ever have added Fox36 with 130ish of travel then it'd become an mtb regardless (Steve.. )...

Is this the way things are now? Is bikepacking now a gravel / road based activity*?

The marketing manager at a large bike company seeking to reach as many customers who might be persuaded to try something / buy new stuff would present it as so. Google trends and other search-term marketing SEO optimising methods also, turns all this stuff into an echo chamber.

I do think it's at least 50-50 and may be tipping towards more drop bar bikes though, yes. Load a bike up and the weight's really not helpful for the kind of mountain biking most like to do, technical riding while loaded up is either slow or needs strength and technique. But take those nasty bumps away and present it as something you can do on a drop-bar bike = more appeal. There's also the idea that doing it on a drop bar bike makes it easier 'cos drop bar bikes are faster, right? Not when you load them up and go off-road they're generally not, we know that. But, going back to marketing ..

Sounds about right! When I worked in the bicycle trade, increasingly people wanting to go bikepacking were after ‘adventure bikes’

After much prodding and poking, they wanted a drop bar bike with a slightly knobbly tyre and wouldn’t entertain a mountain bike for this (as the mountain bike wasn’t marketed as such!)

New riders to bikepacking seemed to come from either the road side and wanted a more versatile bike, hence the drop bar, gravel type of bike or a new rider looking at riding a bit of road/bit of canal/bit of NCN/bit of a group ride etc and the gravel bikes fell into this market.

Most who bikepacked on mountain bikes were either 1) there before it was trendy 2) bought their kit on line and didn’t hassle us

I blame marketing for most of this, as well as the increasing coverage of the trans whatever races too. S’all good though seeing people dipping their toes into something different

.. oh and don't forget the lineage of the Fixed>CX-Gravel>Bikepacking trend progression. Evolving from the less mainstream parts of cycling, all drop-bar based and all coming from bike culture and history, alongside rejection of mainstream road race, Enduro etc trends. I'm not explaining that well but it's where the main uptake in bikepacking is coming from, less from the XC MTB go-further Revelate (Epic Designs) approach that some of us know bikepacking from.

(edit to add, my first lightweight bike touring trips were on road staying in BnBs booked along the way, then the climbing gear got used for MTB bivi trips. May as well since I wasn't likely to be using that bivi gear on a big mountain, not with my climbing ability )

I'm not explaining that well but it's where the main uptake in bikepacking is coming from, less from the XC MTB go-further Revelate (Epic Designs) approach that some of us know bikepacking from.

On the contrary. You set me on a line of thought in that arriving from 'XC go further' school and thinking that carrying your bike up and over a large mountain is a good idea is really the same as coming from a road background and wishing to ride down a gravel track ... it's just a matter of degrees I suppose but the motivation and reasoning is largely the same.

Bearbonesnorm wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 6:48 pm Is this the way things are now? Is bikepacking now a gravel / road based activity?

What would the guy with the knee-high socks and bobble hat say? The RSF image of idyllic adventures into the mountains is powerful and I recognize that in a lot of marketing.
Add to that the probable likelihood that hike-a-bike and tussock-bashing doesn't register with many micro-adventurers whose first item on the kit-list is the go-pro and the idea of the adventure-bike aka gravel-bike appears higher on the list of desirability.

Personally, I blame the hyphen

You are right Stu, but if it gives the market more choice of kit then it’s all good. I’ve lost count of the number of people who are looking for a gravel/adventure bike as their next purchase. I can’t see the point really when a CX bike does all that and is more racey.

I’ve just seen a colleague on Facebook who’s bought all the gear and is now off on his first bivvy. Could have stayed in a top hotel for what he’s spent, but the shops are doing well out of people like him, so the marketing is working

slarge wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:30 pm You are right Stu, but if it gives the market more choice of kit then it’s all good. I’ve lost count of the number of people who are looking for a gravel/adventure bike as their next purchase. I can’t see the point really when a CX bike does all that and is more racey.

I’ve just seen a colleague on Facebook who’s bought all the gear and is now off on his first bivvy. Could have stayed in a top hotel for what he’s spent, but the shops are doing well out of people like him, so the marketing is working

I'm trying to convert my steel commuter thing into a graveller... or at least it can handle a bit more easier and not need new tires each time. 32mm tires and possibly the Salsa cowchipper bars and maybe a gravity dropper (ie. A Hope seatpin quick release)...

Any other suggestions also welcome. Once the 32mm are in there I can asses for if owt thicker can fit...

Seems I have it all wrong
Bought a gravel bike before they were particularly trendy
Rode a few bikepacking events on it
Swore a lot
Saw the error of my ways and bought a mountain bike
Broke said gravel bike; ironically the mountain bike was in the shop ready to be collected.
Specialized gave a 35% discount
Buying a less-gravel gravel bike as it’s replacement.
N+1 comes to mind.

Another thought - road touring is back and accepted by younger riders again, that's what a lot of drop bar bike packing is about. MTB touring didn't have such a wide cultural base in cycling to build on. It's always been a smaller percentage of touring.

I'm now thinking this is why many of us are of a certain age given that we likely cut out teeth on all day XC type rides. Perhaps the off-road biased, mountainbike riding bikepacker is a dying breed?

Social media seems to be of the consensus that bikepacking is synonymous with touring. I’ve been credit card touring on my gravel bike with my bikepacking luggage which it seems pretty ideal for.

PaulB2 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2020 9:29 pm Social media seems to be of the consensus that bikepacking is synonymous with touring. I’ve been credit card touring on my gravel bike with my bikepacking luggage which it seems pretty ideal for.

Done LeJog and Jogle on a gravel bike with bikepacking gear, was ideal

Had a tourer look at my bike and ask “how can you have so little?” to which I looked at his bike and replied “why do you need so much?”

Isn't bikepacking just strapping lightweight luggage onto whatever type of bike you fancy riding? I bikepack on a fat bike, a gravel bike or a hardtail 29er depending on where I'm going, I see it as more about the minimalist packing than what type of bike I choose to hang the bags on. Gravel bikes will boom and bust just like fat bikes did when people realise that they're not a one bike solution to all cycling needs. Then the marketing people will jump on another bandwagon and leave us to get on with doing what we do on whatever type of bike best suits our individual needs.

Now I’m running jones loops again, does that make my rigid MTB more like a slightly burlier but heavier, multi hand position off-road bike, a bit like an adventure bike...

(I saw that wiggle email too, more people bikepacking can only be better it they LNT)

Let's just remember what I said at the start

this is simply an observation and not any form of dig, moan or complaint

If people are out there doing things and not leaving any damage or signs of their passing, then yes, that's obviously a good thing. I suppose the observation is of how much power the industry have to steer and control something. I'm sure bikepacking is already partly down the road that mountainbiking took and will develop many subsets within it.

I find all types of cycling goes through trends. 90% of "mountain biking" is actually done in trail centres, there the trend is to ride an e-bike for the marketeers.

The trend for gravel/ adventure bikes has come along, nice marketable package, where you can put good looking people in plaid shirts and showing them having "instagram adventures" easily,

So the marketeers are currently trying to sell he middle-aged trail centre crowd motors, and the younger hipster generation gravel bikes and the bags to take them into the woods for some good photos.

I know that is a mass generalisation, and i am a middle aged bloke who rides around mostly on a singlespeed Singular Peregrine drop bar bike due to where i live neither being very hilly or much cop for proper mountain biking, but the truth be told is that with the state of British roads, the wealth of bridleways and other tracks away from the trail centres and the development going into them, a lot of gravel bikes are actually pretty capable, and you can ride routes from your door (important in a pandemic) linking up 100 miles of all surfaces and it handle pretty well on everything from tarmac to red runs.

*not here obviously but we're perhaps odd

I sincerely hope so - have you seen what passes for 'normal', nowadays.

90% of "mountain biking" is actually done in trail centres,

Is it ?
Have you a source or some evidence to support this ?

I suppose the observation is of how much power the industry have to steer and control something.

This observation always interests me. From the industry side I'd say there is little power to steer or control. More that they just react to try to build. Specialized, prob the biggest bike co with the biggest budgets, have never really started any trends. They've just been very good at taking ideas from the grass roots and running with them. 'The Industry' ie as a whole jumps on trends once they get scale.
Case in point - Shimano Japan guys at the Madison show 2010, scratching heads and talking among themselves around the Croix de Fer on display. Now Shimano Gravel is a thing and they're championing this new way of riding with groupsets along the lines of what a number of product managers have been asking for for many years. It's the same in music and anything creative isn't it. The direction comes from the underground or those who are directly involved and experimenting (who in turn all have their influences), only in hindsight when something becomes popular can you trace it back to a number of start points and see that the marketeers only reflect what riders are demanding. At that point the marketeers are influential but they're only building on something already in motion. (edit to add, since creating a trend from scratch is commercially so risky for a company, why do it vs jump on the bandwagon early?)
There's certainly cases when marketeers have been very influential but I'm struggling to think of many examples in the bike industry, compared to eg 50s car advertising or Coca-Cola and Marlboro. I'm sure there are some, just none coming to mind at the moment. I guess the reason is that genuinely influential marketing is really expensive and the bike industry has far more modest budgets and few great marketeers.

Lazarus wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:37 am

90% of "mountain biking" is actually done in trail centres,

Is it ?
Have you a source or some evidence to support this ?

I bet if you included any bit of woodland with made trails, formal, locals or full on trail centre, it probably wouldn't be far off. I really don't often see other mountainbikes when I'm out in the hills but loads whenever I pass through a forest with trails in it.....

Strava heat maps are not exactly barren things except at trail centres so I would need some evidence to agree with that statement.

SSUK was my last trail centre exprience - though I did also ride two of the Staines when I was up there. Dont recall when I last went to trail centre before that.