👍 thanks for the feedback.

Tightened the chain and changed oil - seems to have fixed it!

Not sure whether one or both solved it though..

Since I mostly ride the road bike, I didn't want to spend the money -- or effort -- getting a Rohloff setup.  Boy, do I now regret that!  After just 8 months -- not much more than 1,000 miles -- I already had to spend $200 for a new Shimano GPX shifter!  What freaking garbage!  So, any ideas for a Rohloff equipped gravel bike?

The gravel bikes I see advertised are generally drop bar bikes with moderately wide tyres, no mudguards and derailleur gears. In my opinion, drop bars depend on personal preference, at 69 years old I still prefer them for longish rides, even off road. Fairly wide tyres are sensible.

The other two features may be OK in a mostly dry climate but are not suitable where I live (near the coast in South Brittany) for what I reckon is the purpose of a "gravel" bike - riding on both tarmac roads and unsurfaced tracks and paths that aren't quite rough enough to warrant a mountain bike.

In the 1970's, when I lived either in Devon or Lancashire, we called it "rough stuff" and used touring bikes with 27" tyres in the 32 mm which was the widest easily available at the time. And derailleur gears, because the only reliable hub gear readily available was the Sturmey Archer 3-speed.

Then and now, for that kind of riding, I need mudguards, as if I want to use the bike reasonably often I am not going to wait until the rain stops and the road surface dries out.

The same goes for derailleur gears now that medium and wide range hub gears are availble. I don't want to have to clean the drivetrain after every other ride just because the track was wet. So a Rohloff and Chainglider works well for me. For most of my rides a Shimano Alfine or Nexus Premium eight speed hub would be sufficient, but it is nice to have the very low gears of the Rohloff for the occasional very steep hill.

I suppose a belt drive would be just as good, but none of my existing bikes are belt compatible, so not worth trying unless/until I need to get a purpose-built electric bike with advancing age.

Obviously just me, but I can still not understand why drop bars are used when riding off road.  But then I have never tried.

On motorbikes, lower handlebars (eg clip ons) are used on faster naked road bikes while higher and wider bars are used on off road bikes.  A lot is to do with getting the ‘best’ riding position.  Lower clip ons work well at speed as the airflow supports the rider’s weight on their chest.   More upright bars off road allow the rider the move their weight around and stand up on the pegs if required.

Maybe most ‘gravel’ bikes are only used on fairly fast trails and roads?  I can think of some steep tracks that I sometimes ride on where my expectation would be that drop bars would put too much of my weight forwards……and braking would be more difficult.  My personal favourite road / trail bars are something like the Thorn Touring bar which is cranked and fairly wide.  Obviously not as aero as a dropped bar, but they give good control in all situations.

Drop bars on gravel bikes, I am sure some of that is a regional thing.  In USA, drop bars are more often the norm for bikes that are intended to go fast.  Most riders never use the drops, but they need drops to look like everybody else.  (I use the drops about a third of the time, but I am not normal in that regard.)  I think a lot of the riders that actually use drop bars want to fit time trial bars to their bikes instead of using the drops, as time trial bars are even more aero than using the drops. 

Gravel bikes, the drop bars are usually much wider in the drops, for the extra width and leverage for steering that you were talking about.

A couple of times I fitted a suspension fork to my Nomad Mk II, used that like a mountain bike.  The narrower drop bars did not bother me at all.  But I am not an aggressive rider.  That said, when I am pedaling into a headwind, I want the drops no matter what the road surface is.  I have used the drops on single track.

When I think of a gravel bike, I think of a bike like used on the Trail Divide Race.  Two links, one for drop bar bikes and one for flat bar bikes if you want to check them out.
https://bikepacking.com/bikes/2025-tour-divide-rigs-part-1/
https://bikepacking.com/bikes/2025-tour-divide-rigs-part-2/
https://bikepacking.com/bikes/rigs-of-the-2025-tour-divide-stats/

The above bikes clearly were used for competition, not an afternoon ride on a bike trail or tow path.  But still you see a huge variation in personal preference in those bikes.

I think most gravel bikes are sold with tires about 40mm wide, plus or minus 5mm.  But almost no bikes shown in the above links have tires that narrow.  That is a race so they want what they think is best for the conditions, not afternoon tow path conditions.

In my previous post, I showed some photos of my light touring bike.  But for my 2024 tour, I chose to add suspension, Redshift suspension seatpost and Kinekt suspension stem.  Attached photos.  The Redshift seatpost was not compatible with my Conquest saddle, I swapped in a Brooks Pro off my road bike instead, the Conquest went to the road bike.

I would never consider my Nomad Mk II to be a gravel bike, but maybe some would think so, third attached photo.  I had 57mm Extremes on the wheels, which I learned were not as grippy as the more knobby mountain bike tires.

Obviously just me, but I can still not understand why drop bars are used when riding off road.  But then I have never tried.

On motorbikes, lower handlebars (eg clip ons) are used on faster naked road bikes while higher and wider bars are used on off road bikes.  A lot is to do with getting the ‘best’ riding position.  Lower clip ons work well at speed as the airflow supports the rider’s weight on their chest.   More upright bars off road allow the rider the move their weight around and stand up on the pegs if required.

Maybe most ‘gravel’ bikes are only used on fairly fast trails and roads?  I can think of some steep tracks that I sometimes ride on where my expectation would be that drop bars would put too much of my weight forwards……and braking would be more difficult.  My personal favourite road / trail bars are something like the Thorn Touring bar which is cranked and fairly wide.  Obviously not as aero as a dropped bar, but they give good control in all situations.