Things You Might Not Have Known About Gravel Bikes
Cycling Weekly takes a look at Gravel bikes.
As the discipline as boomed, it seems as though the tech hasn't been able to keep up with the level of popularity and it's left the bikes feeling a bit confused. We've rounded up all of those flaws and told you everything that we hate about gravel bikes. They are by no means perfect and there's a few things you should know before buying a gravel bike.
As the discipline as boomed, it seems as though the tech hasn't been able to keep up with the level of popularity and it's left the bikes feeling a bit confused. We've rounded up all of those flaws and told you everything that we hate about gravel bikes. They are by no means perfect and there's a few things you should know before buying a gravel bike.
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00:00Gravel bikes. What's not to like about them? They're incredibly versatile, they're good for
00:04both evening blasts and multi-day treks, and capable of handling a whole spectrum of terrain,
00:11from pan-flat double track to swooping single track. Gravel bikes even make for a pretty handy
00:17urban utility steed, with their plethora of mounts and chunky tyres. Of course, there are plenty of
00:23reasons to buy a different style of bike, whether you're racing on the roads or hitting up gnarlier
00:28trails, but you can't really criticise gravel bikes for not performing in spheres that they
00:34simply weren't designed for. That's not really very fair. Still, despite being the cycling
00:39industry's current golden child, there are still some pervasive problems that the overwhelming
00:44majority of bike brands could do with addressing. So, without further ado, here are some things that
00:51really annoy us about gravel bikes. Gravel bikes are really over-geared. Even with the
01:00gravel-specific group sets currently on the market, the gears offered on gravel bikes
01:05simply don't go low enough for a huge swathe of their intended use. Sure, gravel riding on open,
01:11double track is perfectly well catered for, but when riding off-road with a full set of
01:16bikepacking bags, the gears simply don't go low enough. Let's put things into perspective with
01:22Trek's XE racing machine, the Supercaliber. In the top-level racing spec, it comes with a 34-tooth
01:29chainring and a 10-52 cassette. So as not to overstuff this section with numbers, I'll use
01:36the Supercaliber setup as a reference point and then relay everything back to that. And do remember
01:41that the Supercaliber is set up for racing. XE courses can be very steep, but so too can the
01:48trails that you find yourself on with a gravel bike. And racers don't have to contend with all
01:53the kit that you would be carrying if you were bikepacking. Sure, with SRAM AXS and Shimano Di2,
01:59you can set up road shifters to work with mountain bike cassettes and get similar ranges, but let's
02:05keep this to setups that have single-tooth jumps in the cassette progression for smoother riding
02:10on the roads. With those as the rules, SRAM offers the lowest gearing with a 43-30 crankset
02:17and a 12-speed 10-36 cassette. Then comes Campagnolo, pairing a 13-speed 10-44 cassette
02:26to a 38-tooth chainring, followed by Shimano, which boasts only a 46-30 crankset and an 11-speed
02:3311-36 cassette. But all three of those options give a bottom gear that falls in between the
02:39second and third easiest ratios on the Trek Supercaliber. A cross-country mountain bike
02:45has two gears lower than the lowest gravel bike, and in the case of SRAM and Campagnolo,
02:51both those options are seriously expensive. You only need to look at the Trek 520 Touring
02:57bike and its 26-36 bottom gear to see that gravel bikes have remained hopelessly overgeared
03:02for a large amount of the segment of the riding that they're supposed to be designed for.
03:104. Traditional Rack Mounts Are Disappearing
03:13The versatility of gravel bikes is one of their major selling points. Yes,
03:17aesthetics can be divisive. Surly's bottle-boss heavy approach gave rise to the term
03:23fork warts, but there are options for mitigating their visual impact,
03:26from zip bits to plain simple grub screws. But with that in mind, it's more of a shame that
03:32more and more gravel bike brands are removing more and more traditional mounting points,
03:36at the same time as decking out the fork legs, top tube, and down tube.
03:41The humble rear rack and mudguard mounts don't cause any problems with cross-compatibility,
03:46and their usefulness as a cheap and easy way of boosting your luggage carrying capacity
03:51and ability to stay dry is unquestionable. We would hazard a guess that the bike industry
03:57doesn't want to dilute the gravel look of saddlepack, frame bag, and bar bag,
04:02and other bikepacking paraphernalia with that of an old-fashioned set of panniers and mudguards.
04:09But, we say, if there's no good reason for taking those mounts away,
04:13why impose this arbitrary limitation of what people can and can't do with their own bike?
04:24The vast choice of tyres is a blessing and a curse.
04:28Much like road and mountain biking, there's a whole load of different tyre options out there
04:32to riders. However, unlike both road and mountain biking, the gravel tyre has the very tough job
04:38of trying to perform well on multiple terrains. This means that there's a whole lot of options
04:44out there, but it does create a bit of a double-edged sword situation. On one hand,
04:49you've got plenty of choice for whatever parkour you'd want to ride on, but on the other hand,
04:54you're left wondering what part of the ride you want your tyres to perform best on. Do you choose
04:59something that works for all the muddy trails around you, or do you opt for something that
05:04works really well for all the fast riding that you do, or do you opt for some sort of halfway
05:08house that only kind of works on both? Tyre choice can be a really tough one to navigate,
05:15and it often results in a lot of trial and error before you find something that works really well
05:19for your local area. But we do wish that the process of choosing a tyre
05:24was a little simpler, and actually, this takes me quite nicely onto my next point.
05:33There aren't enough aggressive tyre options for gravel bikes. This is less one for the
05:37frame manufacturers and probably one for the manufacturers of tyres. Why can't a decent mud
05:43tyre for gravel bikes be produced? It really doesn't make any sense why this segment of the
05:49market is just so barren. Of course, there are 33mm wide tyres which are directed at the cyclocross
05:57market, and these models are excellent in deep and sloppy mud, but in being so narrow, it makes
06:03it hard for them to be used anywhere else, especially where they may be subject to impacts
06:08on the rim from rocks and roots. At the other end, the mountain bike sphere is absolutely jam-packed
06:14with as many mud-specific models that you could shake a stick at, but they all typically come in
06:20at 2.3 inches in their smallest size, so they just don't fit the overwhelming majority of gravel bikes.
06:28Quite simply, what's needed is a tyre that comes in a width from 40mm to 56mm that has widely spaced
06:35and tall knobs so as to dig into the slop and then quickly shed any of the mud that gets picked up.
06:41There are some models, like the Schwalbe Ultra bikes, which get close,
06:46but these could do with slightly taller knobs, and ones that aren't quite so thin
06:51in lateral direction. Squares are generally better than rectangles.
06:56For some riders in desert-y conditions, the need for such a tyre won't even register,
07:01but for riders whose trails turn into mush in the winter,
07:04well, we would be very grateful for more aggressive gravel tyres.
07:112. Gravel bikes are quite expensive
07:15Aren't gravel bikes just expensive drop-bar mountain bikes or hybrid bikes? Well, we'll
07:20happily talk for hours about the nuances between them, but doesn't that kind of cut to the heart
07:26of the issue? Many of the differences are indeed nuances. Yes, there are cases when a gravel bike
07:33is best, when the need for speed and off-road capability is balanced just so that either a road
07:39bike or a mountain bike simply won't cut it. But for long rides that are more about the adventure
07:45rather than speed, is a gravel bike really that much better? Really.
07:51With a strong road background, there is much to be said about the familiarity of drop-bar
07:56shifters and the position that you adopt on the bike, but in terms of the roads that you'll be
08:00able to cover and the sights you'll be able to see, you'll do just as well on a hybrid bike,
08:05but with the gear range, the tyre clearance and all the mounting points that you could ever need.
08:11The Cube Travel is an excellent example of this. It combines a dynamo front light,
08:16full-length mudguards, a pannier rack, a robust kickstand and clearance for tyres
08:21up to 2.15 inches in size. It does have a 3x9 drivetrain, but the jumps between the gears
08:28are hardly any bigger than you'd find on a 10-speed 1136 cassette that you'd get with
08:33any entry-level Shimano GRX, and the absolute range is much greater at both ends compared to
08:39any of the other gravel group sets. And all of that for about a grand. It's a struggle
08:44to even get hydraulic disc brakes on a gravel bike for that price, let alone anything else.
08:53Gravel bikes can be a bit of a halfway house. When you look at a gravel bike,
08:58it may be easy to see them as a glorified parts bin from a big bike manufacturer.
09:02You've got drop bars paired with big burly tyres that are generally mated to 700c wheels,
09:08and more often than not, a fully rigid frame but with a group set which is just as confused.
09:13You'll have shifters that look like they've come from a road bike and gearing as if from an XC bike.
09:19While this slightly bizarre combination of components may seem haphazard,
09:23it does culminate in a machine that will allow you to power over rough terrain. As we all know
09:28though, rough terrain can encompass a hugely wide variety of parkours. So while you can set
09:33your gravel rig up to take on what most may potentially opt for a hardtail mountain bike,
09:38you can also create a build that's streamlined for fast rolling gravel roads. The result is
09:44something that may never be the ideal weapon of choice, but does work the majority of the time.
09:50We've seen the pros take to gravel at the Tour de France aboard the same bikes that they race on
09:54the road with. We've also seen Mathieu van der Poel adapt a Canyon Ultimate to run gravel tyres,
10:00which he then went on to pilot to third place at the Gravel World Championships,
10:04with his teammate going on to win the race. So while it is annoying that in many circumstances
10:10there will be another bike that will do the job better, we can't also deny the sheer versatility
10:16that a gravel bike provides. Well, there we have it. That's everything that annoys me about gravel
10:21bikes, so far. Is there anything else that you think I've missed out? Let me know down in the
10:26comments below. If you enjoyed the video, then please do drop it a like, subscribe to the channel
10:31for more content, and I'll see you again very soon.