Gravel Bike with Road wheels

[LCC08]

Hi All,
Wondered if anyone had any advice on the best gravel bike to get that would also be suitable to swap the wheels for road cycling.
I have a young child and want to be able to ride along cycle paths and some more rough terrain with him but also be able to go on long rides on the road. My current road bike has been written off but thought that it would be good to be able to just buy one bike that may work for both. Also advice on width of forks and size of wheels etc.

 

[StuAff]

Absolutely every gravel (or whatever else you want to call them) bike will take tyres in excess of 35mm width. The vast majority will take considerably wider, even with 700C wheels, and the vast majority will also take 650B wheels for even more options and even more width. So you're going to have to give us a bit more to work with:
Budget?
Frame material preference?
What kind of off-road riding? If it's dry trails and smoother surfaces one tyre type might do for all your riding.

 

[vickster]

Hi All,
Wondered if anyone had any advice on the best gravel bike to get that would also be suitable to swap the wheels for road cycling.
I have a young child and want to be able to ride along cycle paths and some more rough terrain with him but also be able to go on long rides on the road. My current road bike has been written off but thought that it would be good to be able to just buy one bike that may work for both. Also advice on width of forks and size of wheels etc.

You could also swap the tyres for the road, otherwise you’ll need the wheels, rotors, cassette, tyres

 

[Cycleops]

No real reason to swap wheels or even tyres specially for the road. You could go for a medium of say around 35c which would do both. Just reduce the pressures for trails and rougher stuff. Go wider if you want but remember there will be a weight penalty.
700c wheels would offer the most options on tyres.

 

[biggs682]

Or just buy an old steel mtb for when you go out with your offspring

 

[T4tomo]

Hi All,
Wondered if anyone had any advice on the best gravel bike to get that would also be suitable to swap the wheels for road cycling.
I have a young child and want to be able to ride along cycle paths and some more rough terrain with him but also be able to go on long rides on the road. My current road bike has been written off but thought that it would be good to be able to just buy one bike that may work for both. Also advice on width of forks and size of wheels etc.

Absolutely any gravel bike will do this.

Yes you can just swap tyres, but doing a full wheel swap is easier and quicker, but more expensive to set up to start with - I have a "two wheel system" on my gravel bike as it takes mudguards for winter road bike duties and its one of the bikes I use if I need some luggage capacity for day / longer touring (I don't strap luggage to my best bike).

Hydraulic discs are a bit better at self adjusting between what will end up being slightly different level of "worn" rotors. its also helps to have similar sized cassettes, but if you have say an 11-32 for the road and an 11-34 for the off road, just make sure you size chain length for the 11-34. (rim brakes are even easier but if you are buying new I doubt rim brakes will be an option).

There are a lot of semi slick / similar tyres with a central fairly smooth section that actually roll pretty well on the road, and have decent grip for dryish off road. Its only really muddy gnarly off road (which you probably dont want to do with your son anyway ) that you need proper knobbly off road tyres in any event. I would probably start with one set of wheels with such tyres and then work out whether do indeed need super dedicated road tyres.

 

[Hacienda71]

Not a gravel bike but my CaadX which is a CX bike is fast with road tyres on or fully capable with off road tyres on.

 

[cougie uk]

Hi All,
Wondered if anyone had any advice on the best gravel bike to get that would also be suitable to swap the wheels for road cycling.
I have a young child and want to be able to ride along cycle paths and some more rough terrain with him but also be able to go on long rides on the road. My current road bike has been written off but thought that it would be good to be able to just buy one bike that may work for both. Also advice on width of forks and size of wheels etc.

Don't overthink it. Unless your child is a budding Steve Peat - something like 32mm tyres can cope happily off-road and be decent on road too.

I just use gatorskins all year round on my gravel bike.

No need for two sets of wheels unless you really want to ride through a slippy muddy winter.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Hi All,
Wondered if anyone had any advice on the best gravel bike to get that would also be suitable to swap the wheels for road cycling.
I have a young child and want to be able to ride along cycle paths and some more rough terrain with him but also be able to go on long rides on the road. My current road bike has been written off but thought that it would be good to be able to just buy one bike that may work for both. Also advice on width of forks and size of wheels etc.

As others have said, you may be overthinking this. I use a rebuilt MTB frame with Schwalbe Marathon+ road tyres for everything; commuting, shopping, and touring on a variety of surfaces. It works for all that and riding with my children, so I don't think you'll have any trouble using the same tyres.

 

[DRM]

Just fit some Vittoria Terrano Dry tyres, and ride the bike, really good and punch above their weight off road, not too draggy on road
https://www.vittoria.com/ww/en/tyres/gravel-cross/terreno-dry