Road Bike vs Gravel Bike

[Obtunded]

How are you getting on with the Carrera ? Or have I missed something ?
Keep an eye out for Specialized Tricross as loads available and can be picked up at way under the budget mentioned

I just picked up a specialized tricross. Frame is very light. 24sp. Just needed some work on the rear wheel and now it's worth a lot more. Great bike. Swapped the brakes out. Live it

 

[kalniel]

And if you're still trying to decide between the two, you can split the difference and go for an 'adventure' bike, which is either a gravel bike on very slightly more road biased tyres or a road bike on more gravel bike like tyres

I got a 2015 'adventure' bike, and it's just a fairly upright geometry tough road bike with 32 tyres (and space for bigger) and disc brakes. Seems most road bikes are going the same way now, though they're not as heavy..

Either way, it's super comfy on the terrible back roads I use it for, and it's survived a heap of abuse both in the commute and at the hands of other people knocking it over etc.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

All these supposedly different categories of bike are mostly all marketing spiel anyway. Bikes essentially can be divided into tight clearance racers with twitchy handling, and everything else with more clearance and more stable handling. The "everything else" categories of bike are capable of being used for pretty much any purpose, given the right tyres.