Rohloff Gravel bike recommendations?

[swayzak]

I (simplistically perhaps) thought a gravel bike is basically a road-style bike (eg drop handle bars) which is made to cope with a larger variety of surfaces (and the transition between)

eg smooth(ish) tarmac roads, pavements, cycle paths, gravel tracks

Higher clearance, slightly wider tyres etc than road bike

So allowing a more flexible ride (surface-wise)

I might be wrong though!

[PH]

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

I don't get it either, though I'm usually of the opinion that things I don't get are probably not aimed at me.  It isn't just the drop bars, the other common elements of the sorts of Gravel bikes I come across - steep seat tube, short chainstays, short headtube, fast steering - wouldn't suit me either, on or off road.  However, there's a long tradition of drop bars off road, it's always been the default for cyclocross and it's the norm in all the nostalgic Rough Stuff Fellowship photos.

[Moronic]

Late entry to this one and mainly to say that 650B versions of the Thorn Mercury Mk 3 or Mercury 40 will do excellent duty as gravel bikes for certain purposes, and possibly for most purposes, and have the advantage that the frames are Rohloff specific (but maybe cost more than the OP wants to spend).

I've no personal experience of the 40 but the Merc Mk 3 650B can be a very comfortable ride on gravel, with a compliant steel frame and optionally a compliant steel fork (for those happy to use a rim brake up front). It handles 48mm tyres very comfortably and the specs say it can mount 54s.

It's what I'd pick for a mixed-surface multi-day tourer, which I would say since that's what I got it for. It's also superb on the mix of sealed and gravel cycle paths I do day trips on. I run straight handlebars.

But I ride mainly by myself and at a pace that despite my best efforts remains leisurely. Here in Oz anyway, quite a few people seem to participate in a quicker, more competitive form of gravel riding that's usually undertaken in small groups or as part of organised competitions.

Essentially it undertakes the sort of day trip you might do in a group with a road bike, but on gravel roads. A part of the point is to maximise pace.

I suspect a good rider could do pretty well in such a group on a Mercury, but the preferred steed seems to be a a few pounds lighter, rolling on wide 700C tyres and with drop bars that help you maximise speeds (and draft your friends) on descents. Part of the point of having such a bike is that you know you're not giving up anything to your mates on equipment, because theirs is the same. The gear set-up is always derailleur.

IMO once you go to Rohloff you may as well go all the way and get a Mercury. You could still use drop "gravel" bars if you think that's important, and the Rohloff shifter will be no harder to manage on a drop-bar Merc than on anything else with drop 'bars. You could fit an 853 fork, if you could find one in the right offset, which would shave weight and maximise comfort. And for the sake of 600g you could emphasise your non-conformity and run mudguards.

There would be a fair bit of satisfaction in staying with the gravel-bike pack on a Merc set up light, IMO, and I doubt you'd be giving away much.

[Andre Jute]

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

I don't get it either, though I'm usually of the opinion that things I don't get are probably not aimed at me.

Oh, they're aimed at both of you, in the hope that you will accepting, compliant fashion victims. Bike marketers are not keen on rational analysis of what you'll use the bike for, nor on informed consideration of a detailed optimized specification. Instead they want you to consider first and foremost and only how you'll look on the bike.

It's just another example of how high-level road-racing bikes have perverted common commuter and other bikes with non-racing functions.

I have an outrageous example. You'd think a firm as big as Trek, which operates in virtually all the bicycle market segments, would get the pretty uncomplicated match between consumer, function and outfitting spot-on every time. Not so. Posit an upmarket bike for rich executives to commute on in societies where bicycling is expected. Trek designed and built it for the Benelux: automatic gears, active electrical suspension, and of course luxurious full outfitting. (In real life it was such a thief magnet it was more often saved as a holiday bike, a vakansiefiets.) Then their designer, who obviously had no idea of who the bike was aimed at, set the handlebars for a flat back rather than a middle-aged paunch, cut all the cables, including the computer controls for the electronic gearbox and the electronic active suspension short to preserve the sporting profile, and topped it all off a saddle that so much resembled an ax that I felt violated after riding the ten pace I went on it before throwing it off. Check the photo of the bike on the showroom floor in Belgium. Trek Benelux went the extra mile in supplying me with longer cables and other parts to reengineer the bike to be fit for purpose, and for me. http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLINGsmover.html

It's part of what sets Thorn bikes apart: they'll give you whichever boutique parts you've fallen in love with, but their default spec is usually well suited to the bike's declared purpose and the rider's comfort -- and very pleasingly economical besides. I can't imagine a Benthamite designer like Andy Blance making the dumb mistakes that Trek designer made.