I am looking to buy this Specialized mountain bike Pitch 650b. Is it a good choice, if I also want some gravel riding? I am a regular city rider and go for mountain ride once or twice a month. I have a Cannondale trail, which I am planning to replace after using it for 6 years. I am willing to try some gravel riding as well and if the new ride is good for it, great! The particular model I have mentioned isn't too expensive and I don't want to go too far in terms of cost. So if you guys can suggest some other model, please consider the price factor as well.
I rode a Cdale trail for awhile and liked it, but comparing the trail mtb bike to an actual purpose built gravel bike is no comparison. Shop around there are lots of good gravel bikes out there under a grand. In a nutshell gravel bikes are pretty much comfortable road bikes that can take wide tires.
Thank you guys! I will definitely look around for gravel bikes. Can you suggest any other models that does well in gravel riding? I haven't seen any Cannondale models. Is there one?
Cannondale has the Slate. Their line of CX bikes work well too but have a racier geometry so they might not be quite as comfortable for long rides. The Synapse lineup can also do great and I believe they will fit 32c maybe 35c tires now...which is good for gravel.
Yeah...Slate isn't cheap. The suspension fork is supposed to pretty pretty sweet but otherwise you can get more bike for less money elsewhere. While on gravel there's only been very few times I thought that a little front squish would be nice. But not enough to justify the cost of the Slate for what you get. 40c tires IMO do enough to smooth things out that you can get a nice bike for 1/2 the cost or even less.
Yeah, sure! If you just want to give gravel a try & you're looking for something that will go pretty well on gravel the Pitch will do the trick. Of course, if you really want to get into gravel you might pick something else but just to give gravel a try that dog will definitely hunt.
