Gravel bike with flat bar now "invented"

[CassidyAce]

Re:

A pretty fair attempt to explain the rise of gravel bikes: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/prod ... ter-456315.

"Gravel riding really exploded in the US, where riders (I’m told) have miles and miles of unpaved, gravel littered roads at their disposal. Exploring my own stomping ground, the make-up often feels to be 10 per cent road (to get to the trails), 30 per cent ‘ideal gravel conditions’ and 60 per cent ‘honestly mate, a hardtail mountain bike would do this job better’ – as repeatedly demonstrated by my other-half on his aeons old Stumpjumper (from the days when the Stumpy had no rear suspension)."

 

[Woz]

Re: Re:

A pretty fair attempt to explain the rise of gravel bikes: https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/prod ... ter-456315.

"Gravel riding really exploded in the US, where riders (I’m told) have miles and miles of unpaved, gravel littered roads at their disposal. Exploring my own stomping ground, the make-up often feels to be 10 per cent road (to get to the trails), 30 per cent ‘ideal gravel conditions’ and 60 per cent ‘honestly mate, a hardtail mountain bike would do this job better’ – as repeatedly demonstrated by my other-half on his aeons old Stumpjumper (from the days when the Stumpy had no rear suspension)."

Very good read. Didn't learn much new, but it was well put together.

 

[reindeer]

Gravel: I don't think that "gravel" was an innovation by the bike industry, they picked up a trend like they did with mountain biking. Jan Heine called it "all-road", Rivendell "country" bike, the Salsa Vaya ("adventure") is around since 2010. Some people just fitted drop bars to their 90ies hybrids and changed the gearing from 3x7 to 2x9 with 46/30 chainrings what Shimano now adopted with the GRX groupset (after decades of useless gear ratios for most people). I do think "gravel" was much more driven by the community or enthusiasts than other developments in recent years. Maybe that's why they are a success and the concept makes much more sense for my kind of riding, than a road bike, which actually is a racing bike.

Future shock: You need a stiffer (carbon) fork with disc brakes. A softer, but more comfortable (metal) fork has too much flex, vibrations cause infernal noise when braking. I had this with two forks, it was killing my nerves until I switched to a carbon one. To compensate for the loss of comfort I fitted a redshift stem, which works like a flexstem. It's somehow stupid (rigid fork+shocks), but a little damping makes sense for an all road bike, where a suspension fork is too much and too heavy.

 

[Woz]

Flat-bar full suspension gravel bike for the retro Spesh fan-boys out there.

https://www.leboncoin.fr/velos/1987293697.htm?ac=206978287

 

[jimo746]

That's a Hybrid...