Disc brakes are dead

100%. i will never get it

I had a look on strava. You're right - very me. Exactly the kind of thing I'd like to replace some of my road rides with.

My assumption is that anything truly technical is going to be fucking awful on the drops or tops. But like you say, would be hard to keep up with anyone on a cross or gravel bike on a mtb

Gravel bikes are basically retro mtbs with drops and discs, right?

Dunno about off road but the vast majority of people riding a gravel bike wouldn't notice/get any noticeable benefit from a road bike over a gravel bike on road.

Guess you must be in the minority that can tell they ride shit in comparison.

Nope, they are faster on non-technical terrain, like most bridleways, and significantly faster on the road sections in between them.

have a go on one @dan .. Oli said flared drops made a diff, I am just a low skilled roadie

Amazing that more people don't notice geometry on the road. I hate bikes with slack headtubes etc on road rides. Yuk

At some point in the long ago past I used to race dh - doubt I have any of those skills left :)

I guess you don't know until you've ridden different geometry bikes a fair bit. I always used to choose a frame on stack and reach alone...

Gravel riding is just a less shitty version of road riding.

oh yeah you will be fine on drops for sure, I didnt even exercise before the age of 22 and all I have done is road riding. #fatamey

Gravel Bikes: Doing Everything a Little Worser

I've had one, and it's fun to be confident on the the off-road and the on-road and that's what skooshy tyred slack bikes do. It can be fun to go lots of places not quite fast. Amey on a XC bike is beautiful.
The appropriate collection is:
1) Fast road bike (2/3 season)
2) Winter Fixed (all year tho, for The Scene)
3) MTB / XC (all terrain)
4) CX / Track (for racing only)
5) Gravel bike (for road, bridleways and the 'gram)
6) Cargo bike (Zone 2 Metropolitan elite sourdough collection duties)

And a Brompton

Bouncy bike for proper MTB?

Yeah and brompton too.

Full sus if you wanna get super rad and eventually break a bone I guess. Downhill bikes - NO. If you want to go down you have to ride up. Go home cheaters.

Nah I've wrapped myself round enough enough trees in my life already.

I'd like a full suss trail bike for singletrack fun... But until I have a new ACL and 10-12months of rehab under my belt I'm sticking to gravel/blacktop

7) dBaD

Gravel bikes are due to road bikes became mainstream / mamil after Wiggins and the increase of shitty road quality: potholes etc. doubt I could go back to 23mm after going up even only slightly in tyre thickness now. US has been pretty hot on Gravel for a long time. Isn't that where the nineties MTB craze originated too? I remember buying MTB magazines as a nipper and it all looked so exotic and enticing... RockShox and chunky Panaracers.

Wiggo caused shitty roads?

And shitty haircuts.

Gravel bikes make sense in the U.S. Not in the UK, where there are no true gravel roads. But because the vast majority of the big manufacturers are U.S. based, the UK gets whatever they put out.

@dan - not just about a HTA though is it. My bike has a 71• HTA (slacker than any HTA on a Trek Checkpoint as an example) but a 50mm rake fork. Handles beautifully on the road and absolutely nothing like a ‘gravel bike’.

Edit: I appreciate you’re talking about geo in general, but some numbers are deceptive, especially to someone who doesn’t know what it means. They’re just gonna ride whatever the bike shop suggests.

Gravel bikes make sense in the U.S. Not in the UK, where there are no true gravel roads. But because the vast majority of the big manufacturers are U.S. based, the UK gets whatever they put out.

@dan - not just about a HTA though is it. My bike has a 71• HTA (slacker than any HTA on a Trek Checkpoint as an example) but a 50mm rake fork. Handles beautifully on the road and absolutely nothing like a ‘gravel bike’.

Edit: I appreciate you’re talking about geo in general, but some numbers are deceptive, especially to someone who doesn’t know what it means. They’re just gonna ride whatever the bike shop suggests.

Sorry, just too easy.

Oh yeah totally. I was using my broad brush. I just have a dislike of 'endurance' road geo generally.

What bike are talking about? (I'm so.out of the loop on what people are riding this month/year)

Just buy a trek Crockett.