Gravel / Gravé / Gnarmac / Groad / ATB

Sonder were good for me via cycle to work, Camino Al has been solid

It's a nice bike to be locking up outside the pub/station. Should definitely get it if you want it, but might want to keep the old one

Interesting! Plus the "being cool" thing obviously.

I'm getting more unhealthy thoughts about moving my road bike on and going for something gravel-y instead. I think I've ridden the road bike properly once so far this year. I'm so busy that I rarely have time to get out on a bike at all at the weekend and the last few times I've had the chance, I've gone for a pootle on my mountain bike for a couple of hours.
The vast majority of my riding is commuting (currently 30km a day, soon to increase to 40km a day). I much prefer my upright, fat tyred Genesis Day One fixed gear for that. I'm thinking that a geared version of the same thing might get more use than a road bike for commuting during the week and pissing about on bridleways at the weekend. I had a Cotic a couple of years ago that was basically the same thing I'm describing but it was really heavy and slow so I didn't enjoy it all that much. Is it possible to build a flat bar gravel thing with big tyres, mudguards (would take off for any actual gravel) etc that'll actually be fast and fun on and off road or am I deluded? Cotic below for reference.

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fast and fun on and off road

I think the answer is slick-ish tyres, accepting they don't work in mud and being prepared to sometimes pump them up and let them down. But not messing about with taking mudguards on and off.

IMO / experience, taking mudguards off and on for gravel or commuting is a fallacy. Unless you can have such big guards / clearance for mud / stones (or they detach super easy) that you don't need to remove them for gravel and slop rides.
Dedicated commuter and then a fun / fast gravel bike to replace the roadie and do bridleways seems like a good solution to me.

Edit: didn't read the post too well. But basically I'd suggest, keep full mudguards off the gravel bike (maybe use one of those new sturdy ass saver Win Wings) and make the commuter more commutery? Hub gear if the new commute has any major hills?

The vast majority of my riding is commuting (currently 30km a day, soon to increase to 40km a day). I much prefer my upright, fat tyred Genesis Day One fixed gear for that. I'm thinking that a geared version of the same thing might get more use than a road bike for commuting during the week and pissing about on bridleways at the weekend.

Same boat, only really commuting and want to enjoy my rides more. Dart has got big tyres on it atm and I've just flat barred my Arkose to see how i get on with it. Probably limited to 35's with guards but maybe 42's without and would be a lot zippier then the Cotic.

I’ve flat barred my Sequoia, it’s quite peppy and that’s with it not being very light.

my commute is 2km a day so i am basically not riding, but i will my flatbar setup from my genesis cdf ( early generation that i built for tag-along pulling last summer ), to an arkose for this coming summer. the arkose has quite slack forks, i might try and find something with less rake and a-c to make the geo more sporty.

Yeah, I think you're right. The likelihood of actually being bothered to take mudguards off and put them back on before and after a "fun" ride is pretty slim.
I don't actually have a gravel bike at the moment, just my fixed gear commuter, a road bike and a mountain bike. I'm talking about moving on the road bike to create a gravel/commuter combo but I think that's likely to be the worst of both worlds.
I think what I really want is a geared version of my fixed gear to commute and tart about town on. Then I could just use my mountain bike to try and keep up with my brother on his new Ti gravel thing.
Maybe I'll jump on the second wave Arkose band wagon at some point. I should probably just ride my road bike more and see if I actually still enjoy road riding or not before I make any decisions.

I had the gravel/commuter combo for a few years. Installing/removing mudguards was a pain, swapping wheels as well. 40c slicks and long mudguards were so good in crap UK weather tho

If someone could invent a system of attaching nice full length mudguards (for the commute/winter road ride), that can be removed/reattached in 60 seconds to facilitate slop rides, I'd really love to buy a set.

Flat bar mk1 before it went groad bike. Tyres measure up around 38mm and felt there was enough clearance on the guards for loose surface crap. Mk2 will have GRX cranks with some sort of 11 speed hack. Only downside to the Arkose for me is the the lack of front rack mounts but might try a jack the rack.

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Such a banger. I'd probably just use my Carradice or a rear pannier rack so not bothered about lack of rack mounts at the front. I'll keep an eye out for a cheap Arkose in my size. Suggestions for other saved searches that would fit similar or bigger tyres + guards also welcome! Definitely disc brakes, ideally thru mount. Obviously a CdF (in 853 ideally) is on the list but I'm not sure whether I'd prefer steel or aluminium. Brother Kepler is out of the window because I'm not a giant so would have a tiny head tube.

I ran FendOffs all winter on the Bokeh for commute / road / gravel and never took them off for gravel...had no clogging issues even in the worst of it (38mm Pathfinders / 40mm G-Ones / 40mm CinturatoM's)

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Seems like either good fortune or ur not riding bridleways.

Bridleways be like

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Pretty much all been on variations of Giro Belgie / Lovelace routes....nothing as 'gelatinous' as that out here though @PhilDAS !

This is west Sussex! Not too far away from Surrey

You lot would save a fortune in bike parts and the paths would be a lot less fucked if you just bathed in mud in the comfort of your own home / local spa facility like normal women.

A lot harder to bother horses / Tories from there though.

If you're into horse bothering you should probably be reporting yourselves to RSPCA. Tories are more likely to be bothered on the roads - that's where all the stupid 4x4s are anyway.

The beauty is, is that you gotta use the roads to get to the bridleways anyway. Win / win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEImD_r6D8o

Is this the "hybrids, dad bikes thread"??

Loving it.

Shades of SFAB are browner and more liquid than that on my routes, luckily