I've read quite a few articles and reviews from varying places lately where comments are made about the future of gravel bikes. I found it interesting, because from my perspective they aren't what the majority of gravel riders are actually looking for. They are:
1. Larger 700c tires (2.0 and greater) will be normal. 40c tires are going to be considered small.
2. 650b is going to die off. Because of the larger 700c tires no one will need to use 650b to get bigger volume.
3. Long top tubes and short stems.
4. Suspension.
Overall it sounds like people are predicting gravel bikes will all turn into drop bar mountain bikes. While I do believe there is a place for such bikes, I don't really see that as being what most people want from a gravel bike. It seems to me that most people would prefer a gravel bike that handles more like a road bike than a mountain bike. In fact, in seems to me that most people want a gravel bike that can also be their road bike with a wheel swap.
So what do you think? Does this future sound good to you?
Maybe gravel bikes for niche areas like out west will become like that, but probably not here in the midwest. The current crop of all-road bikes with 40's is near optimal IMO.
Agreed. If you don't live in a mountainous area, a bike with 40mm tires and road like geometry is ideal for me.
However, if you are doing long knarly downhills - some of those options are useful (although that is becoming a drop bar mountain bike - not sure if that is really needed (although it is fun)).
Mountain bikes have done all of these things, so its not surprising that gravel bikes would push in that direction (just look at what happened with 27.5 in mountainbikes - it was popular for a while, but then went back to 29).
I have a long top tube and short stem - works fine for me for what that is worth.
I do have enough "mud clearance" where I can run a 50mm or 54mm on the front, and that can be fun - but anything above 50mm really has a huge overlap with a mountain bike, just a different form factor.
I think we are pretty much at the limit of tire size with current gravel frame designs. It is getting pretty hard to squeeze much more between the chainstays without moving to a wider 73mm BB.
GRX and SRAM Wide are practically there now with their wider Q factors anyways.
I keep thinking how a 73mm BB and "normal" frame design would probably be alot cheaper than all the dropped chainstays, plate stays, etc. being used now just to squeeze in a few more mm's of tire clearance into a 68mm BB frame.
I’m currently building up a drop bar 29er as I found that I really do prefer running the larger 29x2.0-2.2 tires and I really didn’t like the toe overlap I was getting with my current gravel bike running those tires. I don’t race or do a lot of road riding so I like riding the most comfortable and supple tires I can get away with, which so happens to be 29er. My other gravel bike however I have switched it to 27.5 tires which actually improved handling for me and removed the toe overlap.
I decided that if I ever start doing more dedicated road riding however, my bike of choice would be a gravel bike with 40-45mm tire clearance. Again I prefer the larger tire diameter, and since slicks exists in those sizes I see no problem.
@ljsmith - You have put your finger on an example of convergent optimization in a design space. Different forms evolve to fill every niche resulting in, e.g., bats, ostriches and blind fish.
Most 'gravel; bikes are little more than a marketing effort that seeks to exploit consumer ignorance.
Trek's line of 'gravel' offerings is a good example of non-gravel bikes being sold to people that want to be part of a movement by who have little idea what the movement is really all about.
650b is not going to die off but instead is going to be a standard.
They might separate into classes of gravel bikes. I have two, a Lynskey with 700x48s, 52cm bars, and a ton of headset spacers and a carbon one with 44cm bars, a more aggressive position, and 700x40s. They both kinda do the same thing but I ride them differently.
I've always said 650b is for shorter riders and I hate that frames trade off to try to fit both wheel sizes. Their geometries should be entirely different.
Hopefully better yokes and t47 bottom brackets let us continue to use road cranks with big tires.
Most 'gravel; bikes are little more than a marketing effort that seeks to exploit consumer ignorance.
I know that's the popular refrain by people "in the know", but I couldn't disagree more. It's not that gravel bikes invented a new place to ride a bike, but rather are a significant evolution of the road bike.
Disc brakes and the clearance for wide tires and varying wheel diameters that they accommodate are part of the value proposition that "gravel bikes" have brought to on-road cycling. The Trek Domane is probably a poster child for how gravel bikes have made bikes more versatile.
Could you ride on gravel roads before there was a gravel bike? Sure. But you can say that about any of the ways a bike has evolved in the past 200 years.
Shurlock wrote:Trek's line of 'gravel' offerings is a good example of non-gravel bikes being sold to people that want to be part of a movement by who have little idea what the movement is really all about.
I'd propose that wanting to be part of a gravel movement is in fact exactly what the gravel movement is about. What is gravel really about? And why do people that buy Treks not get to have a say in that?
Shurlock wrote:650b is not going to die off but instead is going to be a standard.
I agree that 29er/700c wheels can be problematic for us vertically challenged.
With the physique of a wrestler (or baboon to some) the combination of stubby legs, long torso and grotesquely long arms makes it hard to find a long enough / short enough top tube / seat tube combo. I had to slam the stem to get my bars where I wanted them.
I live 'out west' (Eugene Oregon) and ride road, gravel, and single track on my road bike, gravel bike, mountain bike respectively. We've got tons of fire roads out here in the mountains with a mix of 3/4", 3", and mud infused with leaves and fir needles. While I have taken my mountain bike out on those fire roads, the gravel bike is just way more optimized for it. I typically run 40-45's on 700c wheels, but could go as high as 50 (haven't needed to so far). Since most of our 'gravel' will contain muck and be a bit rutty, I'm not sure I'd ever go smaller than 40. I am very much going for a road bike 'like' experience but on gravel and the gravel bike achieves that perfectly for me, and it's particularly useful given that lots of the fire road rides I do require me to trek 5-10 miles (or more sometimes) on the road to reach the gravel. I will point out that I'm not a frequent mountain biker, but ride road (or gravel) very frequently. I don't have suspension on my mountain bike (I just run larger tires with low pressure) and I'm not sure I'd ever buy a gravel bike with suspension (but never say never I suppose). Perhaps like mountain bikes (with full suspension, hard tail and rigid, and enduro and DH etc), gravel will end up with sub-categories? I think there's truth to the theory that to an extent the bike industry is looking for ways to increase engagement and broaden the market size (by attracting more riders or enticing existing riders to buy more bikes: n+1) but I also think that by optimizing bikes for particular kinds of use, it enhances the enjoyment and performance for those of us who obsess over things like that. Yes I could ride my mountain bike on fire roads, I could probably ride my road bike on fire roads since it can take 32's, but man, on my Niner RLT 9, fire roads are just amazing, fun, fast, and I think optimized around that kind of use.
Most 'gravel; bikes are little more than a marketing effort that seeks to exploit consumer ignorance.
Trek's line of 'gravel' offerings is a good example of non-gravel bikes being sold to people that want to be part of a movement by who have little idea what the movement is really all about.
650b is not going to die off but instead is going to be a standard.
Agree with your comments about Trek's version of 'gravel' aka. checkpoint. It's a half arsed attempt at gravel - more to please the roadie crowd wanting to dip their toes into some gravel. I remember listening to a podcast with a trek product manager about the design/requirements of this ground breaking Trek gravel bike - Checkpoint......sure sounded like they had put a lot of input into it....but the checkpoint was quite a disappointment to me - so it was probably marketing BS. I'll probably have to talk it up if i was in the same position. I think Trek (and most of the bike brands) is dictated more by what their supplier can supply and make than what the market (and the product manager) want in a gravel bike. I probably came out too hard on the Trek - it's a handsome bike for what it is (good cabling - no big hole in the bottom bracket/downtube....but surely Trek could have done a lot more with it to deserve it being called a true gravel bike. Again it's probably what the supplier could provide at that period.
One of the big fails of a gravel bike is toe overlap. you can get away with toe overlap for a road bike because a road design needs to be nimbler (twitcher ??) and generally not making super tight turns. A gravel bike needs more stability and on tight single tracks can be a pain to ride with toe overlaps. Neo sayers say we all should have the skill to overcome toe overlap in a turn - it's a skill nevertheless some of us just don't have.
I ended up getting a Merida Silex 400. It turned out to be a wonderful handling bike - i shouldn't be surprised as i did choose it based on the design specs - long top tube - short stem....NO TOE OVERLAP !!!!!!. It ain't the best looker but it works well. Could be lighter but i am on a budget and didn't really want a carbon gravel bike - so to me it was the best in it's category.
Coming back on track to this thread - the Focus Atlas !!! That's the future of gravel bikes.
Most 'gravel; bikes are little more than a marketing effort that seeks to exploit consumer ignorance.
Trek's line of 'gravel' offerings is a good example of non-gravel bikes being sold to people that want to be part of a movement by who have little idea what the movement is really all about.
650b is not going to die off but instead is going to be a standard.
Can you please explain why you consider the Checkpoint, non gravel? I started out with a Cyclocross Bike. Then went to a drop bar hybrid. And finally ended up with the checkpoint. So I've been a part of your so called movement for some time.
Can you please explain why you consider the Checkpoint, non gravel? I started out with a Cyclocross Bike. Then went to a drop bar hybrid. And finally ended up with the checkpoint. So I've been a part of your so called movement for some time.
A lot of it has to do with the fact that the big manufacturers, including Trek, tried to create allroad bikes and then tell the gravel community that they were gravel bikes. Basically they were afraid to get into the gravel market and decided just to trick consumers into thinking their road bikes were gravel bikes. Specialized did this with the Diverge and Trek with the Domane. These bikes could only fit 35c tires and had road bike geometry. Those who knew better realized these weren't gravel bikes, but many who didn't know better were duped into buying bikes that weren't really optimized for gravel. So I think there is still a lot of animosity there for some people. Now the Diverge has been turned into a real gravel bike now. And I think the Checkpoint really is a gravel bike now, but I think Trek really missed the boat on it. First is the geometry is still more allroad than gravel. Second, they only used the rear isospeed, when their allroad bike Domane has it front and rear. Third, it apparently cant fit the claimed tire size when using a front derailleur (they have since lowered the max tire size in their marketing). Its not to say the Checkpoint can't make a fine gravel bike, but it really is a lackluster effort from a big player that has a lot of technology and money they could put into it to make it awesome.
The vision of gravel bikes as solely XC mountain bikes with drop bars sounds rather terrible and useless to me, but I'm not too worried because it seems highly unlikely that there will be one dominant design of what a gravel bike should be. Instead, as in all things bicycle, we're more likely to see a diverse bifurcation into myriad micro-niches including but not limited to: all-road bikes, lightly to moderately modified CX bike designs, backpacking-touring bikes, 650b randonneur bikes, stripped down racing bikes, and yes pseudo-XC bikes with drop bars and suspension. And endless combinations thereof. Let's not forget e-bikes, although I'd like to personally. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as Spock would say. Bikes for every purpose and intent.
Just a few comments to add. With regards to the original post I think 700x40-45 will be the standard for the foreseeable future with various types of dampening systems being the “trend”. Personally, I enjoy seeing companies push traditional boundaries if only to make the “purist” cringe.
Which brings me to Shurlock. Perhaps your comments are warranted but we will never know as you fail to expand upon them when asked. I own the checkpoint (it fits 45s with room to spare) which I selected because of price and fit. Although the geometry may fall into the more traditional “all-road” category I can assure you I can ride anywhere your “gravel” bike will go. The mindset that if you “aren’t riding a velocipede then you aren’t really into cycling” is poison to what should be a welcoming community.
As for big bike marketing like what trek did with the checkpoint. I agree with you that trek and a lot of the other companies pushed their bikes out to get in on the action but they are in the business of making money. But look at what specialized has done with the diverge since entering the gravel market. I can almost guarantee we will see trek do the same with the checkpoint (or nomade for the sake of the name game) with both dampening, gravel geo, and a new BB.
I stopped by a dealer yesterday to look at a “carbon blue smoke” 2021 Checkpoint w/ GRX in my size (in stock!) but couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger due to the BB90 bottom bracket*.
I would’ve thought this year’s Checkpoint would have been due for a T47 upgrade, similar to the 2020/21 Domane and 2021 Emonda, but not to be. Probably also due for additional tire clearance to better set it apart from the Domane, and maybe some geometry tweaks and a more airfoil frame shape (it also still has the old seat mast).
Also disappointed that this year‘s SL7 is still AXS-only, no 2x or 1x GRX Di2 to be found.
Compared to the updated Diverge, it seems like the Checkpoint project manager has been sleepwalking through this year’s updates.
*Disclosure, I’ve personally had good luck with BB90 by swapping out the bearings every few years, but I’m aware that’s not been true for everyone.
I wouldn't really know the difference if I had a real gravel bike anyways. Thirty years ago, I had a Schwinn touring bike that I rode on dirt roads. If I was on my race bike, I would still ride dirt roads, if I needed to, to get where I was going. When I had a couple friends doing the Dirty Lands. It seemed like a cool thing to get into. At that time, most of the participants were riding Mountain Bikes or cross bikes. I originally got a cross bike, then I got a Crossrip. Which turned out to be an FX with drop bars. I moved out of Michigan fifteen years ago to North Carolina. The area I live in doesn't have a lot of continuous dirt roads like Michigan did. So, it was probably a good thing I got a Checkpoint. I would rather ride to dirt, then haul my bike somewhere, where the real movement is.
