Would This Be The Only Road Bike You Need?

Endurance bikes have been a staple of the road bike market for about 20 years

following the release of the Specialized Roubaix back in 2004, a bike which is still very much a

fan favorite even today. This corner of the market is changing though, just without the usual great

big fanfare that the industry likes to create. The presence of all-road bikes is certainly being

felt more strongly and the term keeps on creeping up, but it's left me questioning. What is an

all-road bike? What is an all-road bike for? And what does this mean for the future of the beloved

endurance bike? I think a good place to start is, what is an all-road bike? Well, annoyingly

that in itself is a bit of a tough question, but you could sum them up as 80% road and 20

everything else. It's a very hard category to define and this lack of a clear definition

has resulted in a mishmash of wishy-washy bikes that are also trying to figure themselves out

Brands that do have dedicated all-road bikes will usually claim that they embody a few different

characteristics, those being a slightly more relaxed geometry over and above their endurance

counterparts, more tire clearance and potentially more mounting points. Not forgetting of course

more forgiving gear ratios and wider tyres. Now, while those seem like a set of pretty clear and

understandable criteria, things get slightly more muddled when you go a little deeper

For example, the Cannondale Synapse LTD is offered in an all-road build. So what we have here is

clearly an endurance bike, but one which has been decked out with a 2x GRX groupset and 30mm wide

tires. So is an all-road bike just a different specification? And the answer to that is, in some

cases, yes. Some may define an all-road bike as just being for terrible roads, like gravel

or perhaps they just the perfect winter bike I think one thing is clear This newfangled all category can to some extent be left to the consumer to categorise themselves It could be an endurance

bike with slightly more forgiving gear ratios and tyres which take advantage of modern day

clearances, which when you look at the Synapse is up to a claim 35mm. It could also be a dedicated

all-road build, much like this brand new Vitas Venom that you can see behind me, which does have

a slightly altered geometry compared to the Xenium, which is the brand's endurance offering

The key thing with this new Venom is that Vitas do offer the bike in a couple of different builds

We have the road-going 105 Di2 build and we also have a 1x SRAM Force build

Another example is the Ridley Griffin. Now, the Belgian brand says that the Griffin can be used

as a road and as a gravel bike, with the geometry sitting between the road-going Fenix and the

gravel going kanso fast. When you look at it, all that really needs to change is the tyres to truly

optimise how the bike feels on the surfaces you want to take it on. With something that is so vague

and lacking in definitions, sometimes it's easier to look at what something certainly isn't. So in

this case an all-road bike would likely never have suspension, dropper posts or 650B wheels

The former is the only one on that list that might change. If Specialized ever decided to go into the

all-road space I'm sure it would incorporate a future shock in the same way that the Diverge

and the Roubaix does but that is just pure speculation. Dropper posts and 650B wheels

will be reserved for gravel bikes and other off-road bikes. Now that's not to say that you

can't fit them retrospectively, it just wouldn't make too much sense to do so

So, what is an all-road bike actually for? The obvious answer is that it's for riding

but going a little deeper once more it again clear that we as the consumers can dictate what we want the bike for It could be anything from velvet like tarmac to fairly loose gravel My recommendation

would be that these bikes are reserved for either longer days in the saddle, roads of a poor quality

or for riders who genuinely love to mix it up and do a little bit of everything including some gravel

with the severity of what you can tackle being dependent on the tyres that you're running

You also cannot ignore that an all-road bike would make for a pretty wicked winter bike

With big, comfy, confidence-inspiring tyres, big gear ratios for the ultimate zone 2 rides

and mounting points galore for all the mugguards and racks that you could ever want

they really are very well suited to taking on a pretty harsh winter

From everything I've said so far, the term jack-of-all-trades comes to mind. But

As the full saying goes, a jack of all trades is a master of none, but often better than a master of

one. So if you're after pure versatility, then a bike which does attach itself to the all-road

category may be what you're after. If a bike like this allows you to consolidate and run just a one

bike garage, then maybe that would enable you to get something with a higher specification and also

create a little space at the same time. What does this mean for the long-standing trusty endurance bike though? Well, I believe that we'll

see brands go a number of different ways. First being that they continue to make endurance bikes

with more claims about compliance and reductions on rider fatigue. We could see pure endurance

bikes continue to open up tire clearances, although I don't think it'll get much wider than 35

millimeters. There's also a very strong possibility that endurance bikes will now start to come in more

all-road build specifications, much like the LTD version of the Synapse. When I look at Pinarello

that recently released its X-Series range of bikes, it was very quick to say that the new

range is certainly not an all bike and that it is a performance endurance bike So it likely that some brands will continue to stay true to what an endurance bike is at its very core without

any dilution. Secondly, I think we could see some bikes which have historically been endurance bikes

morph into all-road bikes, leaving exclusively paved surfaces behind them. All-road bikes are

here to stay and that is no bad thing. They offer incredible versatility and given how many bikes

seemingly fall into the category and the breadth of ability they cover with some more tailored for

the road and others for off it, there really will be something for everyone. As a consumer, when

looking to purchase a bike in this space, we just have to consider what terrain we want to ride on

and from there you'll be able to find a bike that fits your requirements. Since an all-road bike can

just be a change of an endurance bike specification, they really aren't a world apart from what we

already have. You may even already own an all-road bike in the form of a modern-day endurance bike

which is just waiting for a change of tires and gear ratios. Perhaps in this modern-day world of

cycling, we no longer have hard boundaries on what category a bike really falls into. Maybe

we need to think about drop-bar bikes as a spectrum rather than three or four hard categories

at one end you'd have aero bikes followed by do-it-all race bikes followed by climbing bikes

then endurance bikes then all-road bikes then racy gravel bikes and then adventure gravel bikes

which is probably when you'd then move towards hybrids and other straight barb bikes the nice

thing is that no matter what type of cycling you enjoy doing most in theory it means there will be

a bike out there which exactly fits your requirements the flip side to that though is

it may take some time to track it down given the vast selection of options what are your thoughts

on all road bikes if you have any questions about them then please do drop them down below if you

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will see you again very soon