Call yourself a cyclist?

[Arrowfoot]

It's a proper winter bike that has gone a little further than expected. Good when your winter commute or ride often goes into footpath, byways and the like and it gets soggy and wet. The wider tyres are a blessing on these rides.

 

[chriswoody]

Cross bikes are actually different from adventure/gravel bikes. Cross bikes are designed for racing and generally have more road bike geometry. Gravel/adventure bikes are more like touring bikes in there more laid back geometry including longer chainstays and they have the ability to take really big tyres, in the main, a true gravel bike would be ineligible for CX races.

As for distance, well I've toured off-road on several long distance tours, Slovenia last year was my biggest, over 440km and 8000m of ascent, including the wonderful descent of Mount Stol:

I've popped several travelogues into the touring section of my various off-road adventures if you are bored!

Germany has thousands of kilometres of forest tracks, where I live is very sandy and loose soil so it's the ideal domain for a good fat tired gravel bike. I currently run a Kona Sutra LTD with 44mm tires, disc brakes and 1x11 groupset. It's an ideal multi purpose bike and a super comfy off-road touring machine.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

There's about 32000 km of bridleways across the UK and back in the day (30 years before the 'gravel' bike was invented) it was pretty easy to map out multi-day trips that incorporated back roads, bridleways, byways and the odd footpath. I think folks have also successfully completed LEJOG's mostly offroad. So you can go very far wild/adventure camping.

Many years ago our Sunday club run usually included some off road, some of the best club rides I did.

 

[Cathryn]

I joined a wonderful women's social ride in the New Forest at the weekend - it was off-road. Of the 12 of us (two groups of 6), I'd say only 3 or 4 had MTB, everyone else had gravel bikes. I was so surprised. I'd also say that generally (not entirely), the younger women had gravel bikes, the more 'senior' had MTB.

 

[ClichéGuevara]

I didn't know until quite recently that there was such a thing as a gravel bike. Admittedly, I don't read cycle mags/press these days so I'm undoubtedly out of touch. They look/seem quite cool really but I won't be buying one (not even as an N+1) as my rare hankering for off-road is adequately met by my MTB.

Is adventure off-roading where it's at these days? You know, light camping and bivvies etc becoming increasingly popular or whatever. Or are UK roads becoming increasingly daunting and discouraging old school cyclo-touring?

I think gravel bikes are what those of us of a certain age called a 'bike' as opposed to a 'racer' in the days before fashion trends and marketing bods encouraged us all to get specific bikes for specific purposes.

 

[Teamfixed]

Does a Raleigh Randonnuer with schwalbe marathon tyres count?
You rarely hear the term "rough stuff" any more. There was an organisation called the rough stuff fellowship, don't know if they still exist.

 

[bagpuss]

Its does in my book . Mine has been across fields today .

 

[yello]

I've no problem with them being marketing inspired renames (or otherwise) of what we already had (if that is the case) Goes around and comes around or whatever.

It's the adventure camping thing that's sort of surprised me. I genuinely didn't know you could travel for any length of time/distance off road in the UK (without a farmer hollering 'oi! ged'orffa my land!' ) So thanks to the post earlier that clarified that one for me

In Europe, yes, I can see there's more scope to get well off the beaten track. That said, here in my part of France, despite the rurality I can't go that far off-road without coming out onto a road again.

 

[chriswoody]

In Europe, yes, I can see there's more scope to get well off the beaten track. That said, here in my part of France, despite the rurality I can't go that far off-road without coming out onto a road again.

And that's were these bikes really come into there own on mixed terrain rides, most of my rides have roads involved as well and I really love the fact that my bike is really capable no matter the surface and just doesn't feel that tiring to ride.

I have used an old touring bike off-road for a year, but it just wasn't as capable as a more modern bike. I can ride much further on more demanding terrain and in much greater comfort on my Kona.

 

[Ian H]

Does a Raleigh Randonnuer with schwalbe marathon tyres count?
You rarely hear the term "rough stuff" any more. There was an organisation called the rough stuff fellowship, don't know if they still exist.

They are still very much around.
Most of this is just marketing bollocks. I have a 650B tourer which is quite competent on gravel & swift enough to keep up on club-runs. What trendy name could it be sold under?

 

[pjd57]

My cross is pretty much my go-to for most rides. I use the local canal towpath a lot , it's mostly decent with some fairly rough bits.
Trips in and around Glasgow on the roads , I still use it. I keep my roadbike for trips out of the city onto slightly better road surfaces.

The Hybrid mainly gets used for shopping trips now.

 

[PaulB]

You'll need a grit bike over the next couple of days. While it was unseasonably hot for a while a couple of weeks ago, today, they were gritting the roads I was riding on! All the hills around me had white hats on and there's snow forecast while Manchester City last night had their green grass replaced with slush.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

They are still very much around.
Most of this is just marketing bollocks. I have a 650B tourer which is quite competent on gravel & swift enough to keep up on club-runs. What trendy name could it be sold under?

The Gravel Club 2020

 

[Hover Fly]

Does a Raleigh Randonnuer with schwalbe marathon tyres count?
You rarely hear the term "rough stuff" any more. There was an organisation called the rough stuff fellowship, don't know if they still exist.

https://www.rsf.org.uk/

 

[Arrowfoot]

I pulled together some general differences from road bike. Would be this be right for those who have gravel bikes?

• 650 wheels
• tyres wider - 37 to 42
• Drive train - 1x1
• Groupset - MTB series
• Casette - 11- 42
• Flared drops
• higher bottom bracket drop
• longer wheelbase