That’s a HY, happy to hear it.
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I kind of feel like gravel bikes (with 35mm-ish 700c tires) are the road bikes that most enthusiastic but casual recreational riders (people who enjoy riding enough to ride for fun, but are not particularly interested in the equipment) actually wanted this whole time. They’re comfortable without precluding you from getting into an efficient riding position, feel a lot faster than they hybrid they are coming from, ride a fucking lot better than most of the cross bikes everyone was buying 10 years ago, and don’t beat you up like road bikes, especially if your roads are rough.
Thinking back to my shoprat days, pretty much everyone walking in the door was buying “comfort road bikes” like the Cannondale Synapse or Felt Z and then almost immediately buying super padded gloves, gel pads to go under the bar tape, raising the handlebars as high as they could, etc. “Gravel” bikes basically get them all of those things and they probably aren’t really meaningfully slower than they were before.
I mostly ride my Coffee Grinder on the road and I never wish for a skinny tire road bike.
Of course, I am thinking more about bikes like the Coffee Grinder and others that are more on the road side of the gravel spectrum.
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I have seen this elocuted a few times, but I also feel like “gravel” bikes respond well to the fucking weird shitty environment that urban roads and trails present. Around here anyway, the pavement is frequently uneven and potholed, there is broken glass and sand and gravel and construction debris all over the bike lanes, a nice shortcut might involve unpaved, unmaintained trails, and then you may end up on some nice MUP that turns into a park sidewalk and now you’re riding off piste for 50 yards to get around dogs and strollers.
A cocky go-fast roadie can deal with all of that on 25s or 28s certainly, but I feel like my LHT is much better equipped to tackle anything I may run into around town, even if it isn’t as fast or flexy. Every time I ride my road bike here, even with 32s, there’s always some moment that it feels like a bad choice.
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Give them all jamis codas and let god sort them out
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some of y’all have never laid your junk on the stem for a fat skid on your 23’s pumped to 120psi and it shows
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Yeah, I mean all this sensible talk and it’s still likely that the next bike project I take on will be a ridiculous tarck bike that I can’t ride for more than a few miles without my blood hurting.
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i love tandems but i think i know which direction it will accelerate my marriage.
BUT i’ve captained twice and both times have involved mtb trails and i didn’t kill my dad a single time!
2021 will be the year I finally commission a custom full-fat minivelo bmx yadda yadda. Need to experiment on the current bike a bit more before I lock in geo, etc.
TBH i was looking forward to seeing the weird shit Crust was gonna come out with, but sounds like it’s gonna get more norm-core from here on out.
I wonder if we’ll see other companies step in to push the creative category-bending bike scene. I’d love to see a productionized zenga bros-esque semi-tall cargo undercarriage type thing.
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Does this mean you’d sell the burro?
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Straight to the point! Ha yeah probably. Part of me wants to sell it ahead of time so i’m more motivated to build the real thing. I finally mocked it up in bikeCAD and its not even that weird looking
OK it’s pretty weird looking
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Haaha yeah sorry. Mock up looks awesome
Does that mean you killed him twice?
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This. The best short wheelbase “gravel” bikes are indeed endurance road bikes but better. Especially at the lower end of the spectrum. Back when I was a young shop rat we sold an absurd amount of the $700 Bianch Brava that was 531 and had Sora on it. It was great. These days the $700 Marin Nicasio “gravel” bike is the same thing but better in ever possible way. Better fit, better brakes, better bars, better shifters, bigger tires.
This coupled with actual good road tires in the 28-35mm range makes racing bikes pretty darn pointless for everyone with a FTP below what @rabbi is pushing. I raced my Coffee Grinder on 32s. It was fine. I can say with a good bit of certainty I won’t ride a tire smaller than 28 (maybe 32) ever again.
I think the industry may have missed the mark a bit by not really going hard at creating the distinction between “gravel” and “all road” and just nixing “endurance” but whatever.
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how donyou think he’s still alive? i killed him an even number of times. and zero is even and odd right?
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Aww shucks
And you BARELY justify it. Haha.
Lol I was just admiring @rabbi’s z2 endurance ride at 243 watts…
I’d think he’s the only one here that doesn’t need all the help he can get.
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That’s the thing though (and I know we all know this)… a whole lot of that “help” really isn’t doing much for someone fartin along at 16mph. Marginal gains are further marginalized by “slow” riders. Anyone not regularly pinning on a number is truly better served by choosing ride quality over theoretical improvements to velocity.
Of course, there’s some middle ground to be had. But a zippy bike that clears 32s and has chainstays at about 41.8mm does that really well.
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I like hearing this. I’ve been really excited about service-oriented shops and good community/exp. building around them.