What is a "Gravel" bike really ?

[PH]

Is there really any genuine confusion?  These names are not intended to be definitive, just general labels so people have an idea about what sort of bike is being talked about and an idea for the retailer of where to display it and who to market it to. 
I've already referred to audax bikes, I know several people who have a better idea about what sort of bike that is than they do about what Audax itself. Then what about Hybrids?  it's a classification that covers anything with straight bars that doesn't fit in another category, from straight bar road bikes to smooth tyred MTB's.
I'm much in the mindset of a bike being a bike, ultimately defined by the use the rider puts it to. That can lead to further confusion - I have 4 Audax bike, 5 tourers, 7 shopping bikes, 2 delivery bikes and 1 that fits under the desk.  Yet I'll still use the readily available labels so I don't have to make full explanations every time I refer to one.

There is nothing new about bikes being used on unsurfaced roads and tracks, bikes were around before most roads were surfaced and in some parts of the World it's still not unusual for that to be commonplace. What's new is that there's a type of bike easily available in the mainstream that has certain attributes and features that weren't commonplace a few years ago.

[PH]

I inherited my late father's mid-'80s tourer, identical to mine which is setup for road touring. I assembled his in a way that favors riding on gravel so it is my new "gravel" bike. It is the same bike, but the difference is different wheels, wider tires, fewer racks and lighter weight as a result. These differences have made for a really noticeable difference between the bikes and the gravel bike is better suited for riding on loose, rougher surfaces unladen.

Yes, I'm sometimes surprised how much changing a few components can radically change the bike, even though I'm sometimes at a loss to explain or understand.  It makes me cautious about making recommendations beyond my specific experience.  I was out on my Alfine Mercury in the brief spell of fine weather last weekend, it is a different ride to the other Mercury, partly the gearing which makes you work harder, then rewards you for doing so, but something else that I can't define.
I have a bike more than I have space for and this seems to obvious one to go, then i ride it...

[JohnR]

Then what about Hybrids?  it's a classification that covers anything with straight bars that doesn't fit in another category, from straight bar road bikes to smooth tyred MTB's.

I was thinking how to classify the bike I recently put together: Road bike frame with Ergotec AHS handlebars and fitted with 40-622 GravelKing SK tyres (plus Rohloff gears). It's neither a proper road bike nor a proper gravel bike but would do both functions quite well so I decided it's a hybrid. Some of my local roads feel as rough as gravel surfaces because of repeated pothole filling and patching.

[Moronic]

The best summation of what makes a gravel bike (versus road bike) I've found is here...
https://www.theproscloset.com/blogs/news/road-bikes-vs-gravel-bikes-6-key-differences?utm_content=tribikes300&gclid=CjwKCAjwur-SBhB6EiwA5sKtjgGwJHQ_FlY9qVWf4gtT3sM0Y6PkWMH119fidbxpzUIYE6i2gb06GxoC7VUQAvD_BwE

As a hobbyist framebuilder, I'm interested in the geometry used for gravel bikes, particularly trail. Some makers (Salsa with the Warbird series) favor high trail (high 60mms-low 70mms) while other makers prefer to end up with more neutral figures in the upper 50s. IT seems to be all over the map and so far "unsettled law" with one exception: From that I can see, there are very few gravel bikes made with low-trail geometry for obvious reasons*.

Since the topic of luggage was mentioned, this article has an interesting take on gravel vs bikepacking bikes...
https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2021/01/08/bikepacking-bikes-the-difference-between-gravel-and-proper-bikepacking/

Finally got around to looking at the links. Great choices, and superbly relevant. Thanks Dan.

The first was even funny.  It sets out to explore with the reader new to cycling whether they would enjoy a road bike or a gravel bike purchase more. And concludes with ... drum roll!!! ... be like me and buy one of each. 

So it's less about bike and more about tyres. Having the clearance in the frame / forks to fit suitable tyres may be the key feature.

Pretty much.

I prefer Heine's term "all-road bike" as less dishonest than "gravel bike" and less off-putting than "comfort bike", which is what all these wider tyres, under whatever name, are aimed at.

Or Safety Bike. But that's been used.

As I imagine you're well aware, Andre, what's different about the new-generation tyres is their ability to combine speed with comfort. If you live somewhere with real gravel roads though, there's another aspect again: flotation. The gravel layer doesn't need to be deep for that to matter.

Is there really any genuine confusion?  These names are not intended to be definitive, just general labels so people have an idea about what sort of bike is being talked about and an idea for the retailer of where to display it and who to market it to. 

Genuine? 

I don't think the confusion matters much, if that's what you're asking rhetorically. But I think there is confusion, from people outside the scene, as evidenced in the original post.

It is easy to imagine that a gravel bike must be especially good to ride on gravel. As in, better on gravel than any other kind of bike. Just like a touring bike is the best kind for touring and a road racing bike is the best kind for road racing.

And yet as various comments here point out, mountain bikes and wide-tyred expedition tourers are more versatile on gravel than gravel bikes.

You offered a handy reminder up thread where you said the US holds gravel races. Many of which, interestingly, have paved sections. What's marketed as a gravel bike might be represented more accurately as a gravel racing bike, just as many bikes marketed as road bikes are road racing bikes.

And here we meet again the other sort of confusion potential, as attested to by mickeg: road racing in cycle jargon means paved road racing, but the "paved" is silent.

When marketers talk about road racing bikes and gravel racing bikes, the "racing" is also silent. They wouldn't want their customers to think that these were only for racers. 

Jan Heine's all-road bikes are nearer to all-road touring bikes, in so far as he doesn't race on them and they are built to carry bags (albeit, at the front):



He's a fan of mudguards, too.

Over here it's mid-autumn and soon we'll be getting some rain. On the route I mainly ride, there is a fair bit of gravel and on weekends lots of gravel bikes, almost universally not wearing mudguards. When it gets a bit wet, their riders all have sloppy slicks of mud running up their backs.

The most recent Thorn megabrochure touts the 650b Mercury on wide tyres as a superb gravel bike. That made sense to me, and was part of what led me to purchase one. I think it is not quite a superb gravel racer. But it is a superb gravel tourer.

[Andre Jute]

As I imagine you're well aware, Andre, what's different about the new-generation tyres is their ability to combine speed with comfort. If you live somewhere with real gravel roads though, there's another aspect again: flotation. The gravel layer doesn't need to be deep for that to matter.

I'm not embarrassed about admitting to choosing my bicycle's tyres for comfort -- it's my enemies who claim that demanding speed as well is undignified. You've probably read  "In praise of riding low pressure tyres fast" at http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=3798.msg16360#msg16360, so I add it merely to keep the record straight for those who come after us.

I grew up in South Africa where there were still some gravel roads, superbly well made and kept. I remember them fondly for teaching me the fluid style of the miles-long tail-out controlled slide in a bakkie (British light delivery truck, Australian ute, American truck, Japanese Hi-Lux) as the fastest point-to-point progress across the countryside, which was superb training for Porsche rallying on much rougher "roads". I chuckled at "floatation" and confidently predict that the next big thing will be electric-powered smooth- but fat-tyred "gravel" bikes which will look suspiciously like the twenty-niners that the marketers ruined for themselves by bullying ERTRO into sanctioning thin rims with fat tyres, an engineering perversion. As long as they don't call the electric gravel bikes "floaters"*.

*For those without the benefit of a louche Australian episode in their education, a floater is a dish served by the only street stall open in Melbourne when the pubs close. It consists of a meat pie of uncertain origin floating in a thick pea soup of exemplary sliminess, and you were said not to be a man until you could hold it down.

[Matt2matt2002]

For those without the benefit of a louche London episode in their education, a floater is something unsightly spotted in the can/ John/ head/ loo/powder room .
But we digress.

[mickeg]

...
It is easy to imagine that a gravel bike must be especially good to ride on gravel. As in, better on gravel than any other kind of bike. Just like a touring bike is the best kind for touring and a road racing bike is the best kind for road racing.

And yet as various comments here point out, mountain bikes and wide-tyred expedition tourers are more versatile on gravel than gravel bikes.

You offered a handy reminder up thread where you said the US holds gravel races. Many of which, interestingly, have paved sections. What's marketed as a gravel bike might be represented more accurately as a gravel racing bike, just as many bikes marketed as road bikes are road racing bikes.

And here we meet again the other sort of confusion potential, as attested to by mickeg: road racing in cycle jargon means paved road racing, but the "paved" is silent.

When marketers talk about road racing bikes and gravel racing bikes, the "racing" is also silent. They wouldn't want their customers to think that these were only for racers. 
...

I now realize in my previous post that one thing I neglected to mention is that a bike that is marketed as a gravel bike needs to be light weight for the racing crowd.

I am in terrible shape after not getting much exercise during the winter, did a 53 mile (~~ 85km) ride yesterday on my Nomad Mk II, trying to expedite getting in better shape faster, and was pretty sore at the end.  Most of that ride was on a gravel trail.  Chose the Nomad for its 57 mm tires, as we have had a lot of rain in the past week, expected some mud.  And was not sure if there was any remaining frost in the ground that can make for a hard bumpy ride.  And the Nomad Mk II is not light weight.  If it was drier and the ground less soft from water saturation, my Lynskey (titanium light touring) bike with 37 mm tires would be preferred for the lighter weight. 

In USA the bikes that are marketed as gravel bikes usually have brifters and drop bars, often with flared bars that have wider drops than the upper part of the bars.  And my Nomad Mk II has drop bars, thus visually my Nomad would look like a lot of other "gravel" bikes if I removed the fenders and rear rack.  (The Nomadk Mk II has a Rohloff shifter, but you have to look closer in comparing the bikes to notice that.) 

My point is that my Nomad Mk II might look similar to a gravel bike, but because it is much heavier, I would not consider it to be a gravel bike.  If someone saw the bike and asked if that is a gravel bike, I would say no, it is more of an expedition touring bike.

The racers on gravel bikes are likely to use time trial bars too, as there might be some fast sections where they can ride in straight lines on a good surface.  But if I was a bike manufacturer, I would never sell a bike to an amateur with time trial bars, I can understand why you do not see that on new gravel bikes in stores.  I usually do not think of a gravel bike as having a suspension, but this one does.  Note the 1X drivetrain that I mentioned in my previous post that is common on gravel bikes.
https://bikepacking.com/plan/lael-wilcox-2019-tour-divide-gear-list/

[Moronic]

*For those without the benefit of a louche Australian episode in their education, a floater is a dish served by the only street stall open in Melbourne when the pubs close. It consists of a meat pie of uncertain origin floating in a thick pea soup of exemplary sliminess, and you were said not to be a man until you could hold it down.

Almost, Andre, but not quite. I grew up in Melbourne, and the only time I saw a pie floater was on a TV magazine segment about the peculiarities of Adelaide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_floater

As for the bike front, there the battle is already lost.

Trek proudly touts the benefits of its rear suspension deisign, to which it attaches the description Full Floater.

https://www.trekbikes.com/au/en_AU/inside_trek/full_floater/

No doubt it's the shit.

[Mike Ayling]

Yep,

The pie floater is definitely an Adelaide delicacy!

Mike

[John Saxby]

Wellll, at the risk of trivializing/tangentializing a Very Serious Conversation, I can say I encountered a floater long before gravel bikes were a Thing.  The variant I came to know--but not embrace, as you'll see--seems to have been a contemporary of the Melbourne floater described by the 'Strayan Tendency. 

But hey, maybe it's just a Southern Hemisphere thing:  In the early 1980s, I was living in Lusaka, Zambia, just as the most obvious effects of the IMF's structural adjustment programs began to make themselves felt in daily life.  One of the topics of the day was the SAP's effect on the quality of SAB's Castle and Lion beers (the former renamed Mosi-oa-Tunya but the latter not Simba, that being a Zairois brew and hence déclassé.)  The problem was that "floaters" had now appeared in the beer -- small, barely-discernible items of uncertain composition, colour and provenance, but definitely Not A Good Thing, no matter how thirsty you were.  Zambians have a way with words, so "floaters" they became in daily parlance, the object of mockery and despairing raised eyebrows.

I've steered clear of them ever since.

And as a PS:  Here's more on the subject of "gravel bikes" from Jan Heine on an evidently A-grade bike for the gravelly Oregon Outback, one with 26" wheels, no less: https://www.renehersecycles.com/journal/

[Andre Jute]

All right, you guys, I give over. You've all eaten more floaters in more Australian (and African! and British!) cities than me. I admit, I ate only a bite of the disgusting thing in Melbourne.

Out for a ride on my gravel bike, because The Crane, having belatedly heard that it is a gravel bike, now insists that for its twelfth birthday I show it some actual gravel -- which will be difficult because even the smallest lane around here is decades-old blacktop. Maybe I can find some loose gravel on top of tarmacadam repairs.

Digging down into the topic "What is a "Gravel" bike really ?" it occurs to me that defining the thing negatively, it surely isn't a bike on which irreplaceable historic coachwork* can be chipped by flying gravel, or any steel bike for that matter, especially these days when manufacturers misled by environmental propaganda cover even steel bikes with soft water-based paints. By extension then, a gravel bike is best made of some corrosion-resisting material: aluminium, titanium, carbon fibre (and I'm not so sure about any resin/fibre composite because it is brittle and small pointed impacts can crack it).

* See the last three pages of the photo essay at http://coolmainpress.com/AndreJute'sUtopiaKranich.pdf

[jimi84]

thankyou so much guys, I have read all the discussion of gravel and road bikes here.
I kinda hit the wall contemplating which type of bike to buy. So will need your views on this.
Maybe I share with you guys my cycling habits.
I do mostly PCN/pavement cycling (~90%) and sometimes road (~10% of the time)
Most of the time I go around 20-40km on east coast PCN on rented bikes.So I have been looking for hybrid bikes. Another reason is from what I read here, hybrid bikes hit a higher speed than mtb (i'm looking to do longer distance in the future)

So far I have short listed 2 bikes that are within my budget and looks good on the spec. In fact on the verge of buying this weekend.
1) Diamondback Insight 2
2) Polygon Helios F300 (the shop told me its hybrid? seems like flat bar road bike)