Up next in 10
Gravel bikes are more capable than ever before but can a gravel bike really replace a road bike, a gravel bike and a mountain bike? To find out we set Ed the challenge of riding nothing but a gravel bike for 3 months to find out whether a gravel bike is the only bike you need.
During this time Ed used the gravel bike on a bike packing trip, time trial up Alp d'Huez, commuting by bike and of course for gravel cycling. In this video we look at a gravel bike vs a road bike and see whether a gravel bike simply has too many compromises to be one bike for all your cycling needs including road cycling.
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0:00
Should we go and find another, put you in another sticky situation
0:03
That sounds really weird. We're not dogging. This is a gravel bike
0:16
Not my gravel bike. Doesn't even have the right pedals on for my shoes
0:20
This is videographer Ed's gravel bike, or the one that he's been using for the last three months after
0:26
well, he was bigging up gravel bikes a lot. And so we banned him from riding literally anything else
0:33
In that time, Ed has ridden it seemingly over most of Europe
0:38
up Alpe d'Huez, over the Dolomites. He's done commutes on it. He's done plenty of road riding on it
0:45
Countless gravel rides, which might surprise you given they're gravel bikes. So in this video, we're going to find out how we got on
0:52
and whether a gravel bike really can be a one bike to do it all
0:56
Or are the compromises just too big? This is Cycling Weekly. Let's get into it
1:05
Right, Ed, this bike. I know you've been loving it. And fair play for riding nothing else for, let's be honest, quite varied riding for the last three months
1:17
However, I have noticed a difference because last time you were riding this bike, it looked nothing like this
1:23
It had a different wheelset on it and it had a different set of tyres on it. So you basically cheated
1:28
Well, I haven't really cheated. I think I've succeeded in showing that a gravel bike can do a lot more than just gravel
1:34
And that's not like, I don't think that's news to anyone. I think it's important to say at this point, the kind of the parameters of what do it all
1:42
what the all part of that actually is. So for me personally, that is everything that sits in between road racing
1:49
I don't do that. And what you'd be using a hardtail mountain bike for
1:54
So general road riding, touring, commuting, obviously gravel riding, kind of using this frame as a starting point for all those things
2:02
And then seeing how swapping out the wheels and tyres can accommodate that. I mean, if we just start with the tyres, not even just wheels and tyres, just tyres
2:09
Yeah. So this bike comes with 40mm tyres as standard and it's got clearance for up to 45mm tyres
2:14
So these are 45mm tyres. And I've taken it all the way down to a 25mm road tyre, then did a big trip earlier in the year on my 32mm touring tyres
2:22
and then oh not those brown things the brown they are brilliant tires how many i've got a question
2:27
for you how many punctures did you get cycling down outdoors on those 25 mil tires the ones that
2:33
cost about 100 quid a tire yeah i had a few how many three three okay i did 750 miles from croatia
2:41
to switzerland on those tires i didn't get a single puncture yeah that's because they're they're plastic no not rubber no they're great another point which i think is important when
2:50
it comes to the tyres is that wider tyres are these days being more generally accepted as not
2:55
actually slowing you down that much a 23 millimeter tyre is no longer the standard on the road like
3:01
it's 28 in the pro peloton but a lot of like i'm not racing on 30s training on 32s so i would
3:08
say that for me also 32 mil slick tyre is kind of like optimum and the industry seems to think
3:14
so as well so bikes even road bikes racing bikes are allowing for more tyre clearance and to allow
3:20
for more tyre clearance wheelbases are getting slightly longer so gravel bikes and road bikes
3:25
or especially endurance bikes are converging for example the specialised roubaix now has clearance
3:30
for up to 40 millimetre tyres yeah i do agree with miles apart from what we have here there is a
3:36
difference but then with the wider tyre clearance this bike offers a lot more versatility than
3:40
something like the roubaix does there's actually only like a 200 gram weight difference between
3:45
them where it gets a little bit convoluted is that i'd have this frame but then i would want
3:49
to have two different sets of wheels with you know gravel tires and road tires mounted so that
3:54
if i'm like one day i want to go for a gravel ride i'm not like then getting the tire levers out and
3:58
swapping them out but i would say that that is potentially more wallet friendly and more space
4:02
friendly than having a fleet of four different bikes where there probably a lot of crossover between them anyway and using each one for very specific types of riding I think you can cover both spaces with one bike
4:20
Tyres aside, I still think if we go on a road ride, I'm dropping you if you ride this
4:26
But I mean, you're dropping me anyway, because you're like a racer and you're younger than me. That's not what I mean
4:30
I mean, like, surely this is slowing you down. It's got wider bars
4:33
It's not an aerodynamic frame, let's be honest. Don't get me wrong, I love gravel bikes. I think they're great for gravel
4:40
But they are great for gravel, as the name was suggesting. But I think it depends on the gravel bike
4:44
So your gravel bike, you've got a Lauf Segler, and I'd say your bike is an out-and-out gravel bike
4:51
It's got the lee spring front suspension, much slacker angles, and, well, 55mm tyres on there at the moment
4:58
It's pretty much knocking on the door of being like a kind of drop-bar hardtail mountain bike
5:03
mine has basically made my hardtail mountain bike redundant okay i haven't used it in in years to be
5:09
honest well again that's kind of my point though with your bike it's like it's very much intended
5:13
for off-road use and would be completely wasted out on the road like i know this is called a gravel
5:19
adventure frame but 45 mil is the max as they say so the wheelbase is going to be that much shorter
5:25
than your one you've got the front suspension which is mandatory you can't you can't get without
5:31
oh you can't lock it out but what i mean is with the suspension you have you can't lock it out like
5:35
you just have suspension i would have to change the fork yeah yeah so that in itself is kind of
5:40
pigeonholing it it's actually pretty niche to be honest i'd say you're one oh gets enough hate in
5:44
the comments for being pink don't you start as well i think it comes down to what width are these
5:54
handlebars these are i think they're 40 between the hoods and they're flared i think they're maybe
5:58
a 43 or 44 that's actually fairly narrow for a gravel bike well you see i legal but i would i
6:05
think i'd struggle to have the handlebars that i want on the road and the handlebars that i want
6:10
on the gravel are two different things they don't happen on one bike i mean to be fair that is one
6:15
good thing with like flared handlebars for example you can go very tight in between the hoods and
6:20
then you can flare out something that if you're descending off-road for example something a lot
6:24
more stable we're not making video which is can one handlebar do it all but like it's a pretty
6:30
good feature that you get on gravel bike which has a double benefit on the road as well yeah so obviously an issue that you might find would be that gearing off-road to the gearing that
6:43
you'd want on the road might differ the chain rings sizes are smaller than the compact or
6:48
semi-compact road for example yeah the only time though that i actually found that i was like
6:52
starting to spin out at the top end would be on full-blown mountain descents to be fair i got up
6:57
to well the fastest i've had the balls to go on a road bike which is 40 miles an hour
7:01
on a road bike on a what on this on a well the fastest i've gone on any on any bike right yeah
7:07
and also i had to get up all of those climbs as well the gear range there was more than adequate
7:13
and bearing in mind that is with a bike system which weighed 25 kilos with all the stuff and some
7:19
of the you know some of the inclines were ridiculous so it managed everything for someone
7:24
who's a lot more powerful than me and isn't scared of going fast than 40 miles an hour
7:27
the gearing at the top end I think I don't think would be sufficient I don't think it'd be sufficient for you I think you would start to spin out and obviously I know we're saying that we're
7:34
not using it for racing but if you just like riding at those sort of speeds when you're riding
7:38
on your own getting that right might be difficult and if you are even if you are swapping a different
7:42
set of wheels in which has you know your road tires on it and your gravel tires on it you would
7:46
run into difficulty with like your chain length if you're swapping between different cassettes
7:51
I feel like that is an area which would have to be a compromise a caveat that I'm not saying
7:57
there aren't any caveats I'm saying that they potentially outweigh owning two or three different
8:01
bikes you have actually annoyingly nullified my next point as well was going to say about the
8:13
geometry and for descending or cornering on the road and things like that It got a slacker head tube angle it got a slacker seat tube angle much longer wheelbase to fit those wider tyres and I was going to say that surely that makes it less
8:32
fun out on the road and on a descent but actually you're saying you've gone faster on this bike than
8:40
you ever have on a road bike it's confidence because of that stability I'm a bit of a nervous
8:44
descender the more confident I feel pays like dividends because I could be on a short wheelbase
8:52
aero bike which has the capability to go really fast and go slower because I don't feel safe
8:56
because in that context again once you take racing out of the equation once you take kind
9:01
of performance out of the equation and replace it with versatility comfort and stability I feel like
9:07
that is where the benefit is obviously for that to make sense then those things have to be more
9:13
important to you than performance and it is for me i can't speak for everyone in fairness for me
9:19
versatility means more to me for a lot of people i do agree that comfort and confidence will far
9:28
outweigh any tiny performance benefit from a bike whether that's integrated cabling or a slightly
9:37
more aerodynamic seat tube or something like that a slightly skinnier seat post that's everyone's
9:43
every brand's favorite thing to do at the moment yeah and that is going to make minuscule wattages
9:48
of difference even at 50 kilometers per hour yeah when most people's club rides most people's solo
9:55
rides going out at the weekend average 25 kilometers an hour and i'm not saying that
10:01
aerodynamics isn't important to those people but what i am saying is your body is almost
10:08
the entirety of your aerodynamic drag yeah and if you are more comfortable on your bike
10:14
and not at the cafe going oh god yeah look how cool and light my race bike is
10:22
then you probably are going to have a better time one of my main points with using a gravel bike or trying to use a gravel bike for everything is
10:34
It kind of depends what your relationship with cycling actually is and what you want to get out of it
10:39
Because for me, I want to get enjoyment out of it. And a byproduct of that is that it's good for fitness and it's really good exercise
10:45
But because I don't race, that is all secondary to just enjoying myself
10:49
So, for example, this bike has currently got 45 mil tyres on it
10:54
We've been riding mountain bike trails on it. and that is the same frame which has delivered me to a 30 an irritating 31 seconds off climbing
11:04
out due to under an hour up up up that's a pretty good range of things that you can do on it and i
11:11
enjoyed both of them thoroughly i was comfortable in both situations i mean i was comfortable ish
11:17
doing the mountain biking stuff like my wrists are killing me but outside of that it did pretty
11:22
well another point i'd make about this bike which is a big positive kind of to do with the mounting
11:26
points is that it's like a modern tourer you know what i mean it can do everything that like your
11:31
classic steel tourer can do they're fantastic they can take massive loads and you can you know
11:37
attach everything to it and take all your stuff you could ride it around the world very slow this can more or less do that but then take all that stuff off just a lightweight bike
11:45
again three hours later you know you could ride that around the world if you wanted to
11:49
find a pitfall in having a bike that you can ride around the world on Jamie
11:54
Are you done? I think the other thing that you need to bear in mind is that you've been enjoying riding this
12:03
everywhere. It's not a cheap bike. It's a sizable investment. Yeah it's not a cheap bike. Like
12:10
this is not my bike. I asked Pearson if I could use it and they very kindly said yes and I need
12:15
give it back but it's got di2 on it's got carbon everything so it's a it's at the premium end of
12:20
gravel bikes of this kind so going up out duez for example probably wouldn't have been as fun
12:26
if i was doing it on an entry gravel bike that weighs i know 11 kilos or something like that yeah easily could so yeah i have certainly been spoiled with that the lightweight of this even though it got the longer wheelbase to me it still i mean also i don ride these like 9 10 grand racing bikes i don know what they feel
12:42
like so to me this felt extremely responsive more so than my actual bike which is heavier than this
12:47
and i think that goes a long way to counteract like the longer wheelbase you know when you're
12:51
using a slimmer road tire because it's so much lighter it still to me felt extremely responsive
12:56
but you wouldn't get that if you're on a more entry-level aluminium or steel framed gravel bike
13:03
so unfortunately cost does potentially play into it quite a lot and i think it adds to the
13:08
versatility i mean to be fair what annoys me with the way that brands structure their sort of pricing
13:15
structure is that they introduce electronic group sets before they start giving carbon wheels because
13:20
i'm interested in carbon wheels i'm not interested really in electronic group sets okay it was very
13:25
nice to use and nothing went wrong with it but as far as i'm concerned mechanical doesn't run out
13:29
of batteries so the sort of riding i do doesn't run out touring it's yet another thing to charge
13:34
up it you could end up in a sticky situation if you're in the middle of nowhere you find yourself
13:39
at the bottom of the mountain and you're stranded in your hardest gear that's not a great situation
13:43
to be in i'm not saying that mechanical is perfect but it's a lot easier to like improvise a hack
13:47
if something goes wrong with mechanical than it is on something that's you know like software based
13:52
if you know what i mean yeah so in conclusion the last three months you've been banned from riding any other bikes yeah
14:03
that ban is now is now lifted yeah will you be riding other bikes or will you be
14:11
continue to use a gravel bike for everything well i'm going to have to because pearson are
14:15
gonna want this back but if this was my bike yeah I would still ride so I've got a 2008 specialized
14:25
tarmac which I built up so that is my road bike and yeah I would still ride it but I kind of feel
14:31
like that's more to do with the fact that you know I happen to own that bike and I like it and it has
14:37
sentimental value for me but if this was the only bike that I owned then I just don't think I'd find
14:42
myself logging for a 2008 specialized tarmac because like I say this bike can do everything
14:47
that I need it to do. When I got into bikes about five or six years ago this flight is starting to
14:52
really piss me off. When I got into cycling about five or six years ago I kind of inherited one bike
14:58
more of an endurance bike then I saved up got another bike which is like my road bike now then
15:03
I decided to get a single speed for riding around town and commute to work and the thing that's
15:07
missing from my like inventory is a gravel bike i mean i'm going to get a gravel bike because i want
15:13
one but i haven't really got much space for one whereas if i'd started with the gravel bike
15:18
you can make a gravel bike into a road bike however it'd be a lot more difficult to make
15:23
a road bike into a gravel bike so if we are choosing one bike to kind of cover everything
15:27
there is only kind of one direction you can do that in so my point is if you're new to cycling
15:32
i feel like you're better off starting with the bike that offers the most versatility and stability
15:37
and stability exactly more confidence is borrowing if you're a newbie and then kind of thinking yeah
15:43
i'm now going to save up and get myself a lightweight fast handling racing bike and it
15:48
brings to my mind that new canyon as well the thousand pound one from canyon something like
15:54
that as a as an entry level bike but yeah no matter what your budget is i think if you're
16:01
just starting out cycling get a gravel bike use it on the road decide if you actually you love
16:07
gravel cycling and you don't want to ride on the road maybe you fall in love with road riding find
16:11
a really good group ride and then decide actually gravel isn't necessarily what i'm doing most of the
16:18
time yeah and choose your bike based on that yeah well there we go an actual conclusion please do
16:25
feel free to continue our debate down in the comment section i'm sure we will continue this
16:30
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16:34
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