Before I buy gravel bike...

[jj2908]

... I have two questions:

IS it possible - and what would you recommend to have a second set of wheels and tyres to fit a 2016 Specialized Allez for a bit of gravel'tow path work - just to see if I enjoy the off road stuff

The second question .... what gravel bike for sub / around £750 would you recommend

Cheers

[rastapasta]

1. i cannot answer as i went out and bought the gravel bike to tow a chariot. I use continental cyclcross tyres.
2. Trek Crocket disc.

[moonigan]

jj2908 said:

... I have two questions:

IS it possible - and what would you recommend to have a second set of wheels and tyres to fit a 2016 Specialized Allez for a bit of gravel'tow path work - just to see if I enjoy the off road stuff

The second question .... what gravel bike for sub / around £750 would you recommend

Cheers

No point with wheels for the Allez as tyres will be the limiting factor and I suspect you'll struggle to get anything wider than 28mm on a 2016 Allez and you really need to be looking at 35mm+

The next thing is what kind of terrain do you plan to use the bike on and more importantly how bumpy is the surface because for £750 you are going to be limited to a heavy lump with non-hydraulic brakes that will be just OK off road but hard work on. You might be better looking for a short travel hard tail like a Grand Canyon AL or one with rigid forks because then at least you have the off road comfort. Also a lot of "gravel bikes" don't have the right kind of geometry for riding off road. The front end needs to be higher and slacker and most just keep the normal road geo which is wrong.

I have a s-works Diverge with 40mm off road tyres on carbon rims and on slightly rough surfaces it flies, you can climb pretty much anything and its allowed me to get off the main roads. However, if the surface is really rough then you feel it. That said I've hardly been out on the road bike this year and have racked up over 1000 miles on my Diverge but that's because its just about OK on the road.

[jj2908]

thanks.. some great succinct advice here

[lufbramatt]

Agree with Moonigan

I feel like gravel bikes make a lot more sense in America where they have miles and miles of unmade roads (look up Dirty Kanza on youtube).

Over here unless you live near one of the long ex-railway line bike paths I think it's just all marketing gumpf and you'd be better off with a hardtail 29" MTB that you can take on proper trails in the woods but is still light enough and rolls well enough to handle road riding to link the trails up.

I find it quite interesting though that gravel bikes seem to be filling the same niche that XC mountain bikes did 20+ years ago, but the MTB's morphed into something a bit different which is more bike than a lot of people need, so they just invented a new genre of bike to fill the hole.

Edited by lufbramatt on Monday 2nd July 09:02

[Audicab]

I bought a 2nd hand Boardman CX bike a few weeks ago as I was fed up using mull full suspension MTB for a commute. I have to say I am really impressed with it. I know it's not a gravel bike but they are very similar, I guess a CX is slightly more road biased.

It is fast on road and for my commute that takes in a few rutted paths, private road, canal and river tow paths it is perfect. I used to use a hard tail with road tyres but it just became a faff and a lot harder than my new one.

As has been said above it depend on what type of riding you are doing but I think they are great.