Relative newbie

[Pothole]

As a kid I cycled thousands of miles on a succession of crappy, cheap, second-hand bikes, then bought my first new one for myself in about 1985. A Dawes Mountain Bike - one of the first wave to appear in English bike shops. I've only ever really been a commuter, not a sports cyclist. I cycled on and off through the nineties, loving mixing it up with London Traffic...A layoff of about 10 years saw me take up a long distance challenge in 2009, going from zero to 100+ mile days in 16 weeks attempting to cycle from Istanbul to Damascus to raise funds for the kidney unit at Malta's main hospital (long story and not super relevant) I still have that bike, a Trek mountain bike, but it's knackered and was never very comfortable.

I'm now thinking about the cycle to work scheme to get something decent/better/new.

Is a gravel bike what I need? It'll be for general fitness on a mixture of surfaces - I live near Cannock Chase, surrounded by canals and the odd trail on a former railbed, but will do plenty on roads as well.

[TheDrownedApe]

Yes, gravel

Merry Christmas.

Oh get a suspension stem, rip those trails

[jimmy156]

There now exists a bike for every need between road racer and mountain bike.

The term “gravel bike” can mean a road bike with wider slightly knobbly tyres, or what is basically a drop bar short travel full suspension mountain bike!

But something under the “gravel” banner definitely seems right for you. Just be honest with yourself about the likely uses of it when researching it, and get something that beats suits your use case

[loskie]

Or a Hybrid which in itself is what's been reinvented as gravel

[defblade]

When I started way back when, I bought a second hand hybrid and rode as I fancied for a while.
I found myself doing far more on-road than off-, so bought a second hand road bike to see if I'd keep at it, and to learn what I did and didn't like in a bike.
Then, when I did keep riding, I finally bought myself a new one.
20 years on, I've relegated that one to Zwift and bought another new one

It's a route that seems to have worked for me, hybrids are compromised for pretty much all types of riding but will be able to have a reasonable bash at them; and I've sold the second hand ones on for about what I paid, give or take a few quid, so it's a cheap way of narrowing down what is relevant and important to you.

[numtumfutunch]

Gravel bike sounds like the sweet spot for you

I have one with 2 sets of wheels running slicks and nobblies

Off road its very versatile and will happily munch towpaths and decent bridleways, Ive even taken mine round the easier bits of a couple of MTB trail centres

With slicks it does a decent job of being a road bike too however this assumes you have roadie mates to keep pace with. If you dont just stick to nobblies and enjoy the extra workout when youre on tarmac

For completeness Im a life long club cyclist and have a road bike for 'proper' road rides, the slick shod gravel bike is fine but a lot more upright - not a disaster if your a beginner - and just that little bit slower and less efficient

Enjoy!!

[Pothole]

Thanks, all. Some good ideas here. I think a trip to my indie LBS is in order. It's only half a mile away and I like to shop local and independent when I can.