Another thing we noticed was that all the "gravel bikes" have short head tubes, aka road bikes, making them too uncomfortable for distance or more importantly the older rider! Also im no fan of drops, so without fiddling that rules out a huge bunch of bikes.
But if you jump to the bikes coming from the 29er straight bar end of the scale, they are just that.....rigid 29ers! With all that slack geometry, tiresome massively oversized tyres and ponderous nature.
Theres also a lack of anything steel.....(unless you go marin 4 corners....which was made from lead as far as we could tell or possibly a soma Wolverine). Which seems odd, as for rigid off road its an ideal material for comfort and longevity.
In 2 days and hours of internet searching we found nothing interesting.....well i liked the 853 crois de fer, but even that has very limited tyre sizing and a small headtube length.
Tbh, we ended up back at the beginning with a specialized sirrus X3.0. Bigger headtube, clearance for 45mm tyres, sloping top tube for bail outs ( many have almost horizontal top tubes still....why i have no idea on an all road bike), deore kit, alluminium frame AND fork. Sale Ā£650.
Seems expensive to me, but it fits his bill and will do it all.....as well as a " do it all " bike can....
But is that the point....are we asking too much of one bike, when we have become so accustomed to bikes tailored to individual tasks? When you boil it down in a perfect gravel bike, we want road performance, long ride comfort, touring ability for packing a few bags, off road prowess, grip but no rolling resistance, agility, hill climbing and tyres that are wide enough but not too wide.
