"It" May Never Happen

Once again, due to circumstances and the way things played out yesterday, I was doing a bunch of thinking. Which is never a good thing for you blog readers because that means I am about to download an opinion piece on something or another. So, here I go with the standard disclaimer.....

NOTE: Large doses of "my opinion" will be handed out in gloppy dollops today. You've been forewarned.....

Gotta have room for fatties and mud.

 What Is "It"?

The world of cycling may never quite understand, but there is room for a gravel specific bike or two from the bigger brands. The thing is, "it" may never happen, and here are some reasons why....

Tire Clearances: The gravel cyclist should have options to account for different conditions and to mitigate the rougher ride a cyclist experiences on gravel. There is one really great way to do that, and that is to allow for bigger, fatter tires than a cyclocross bike uses. My observations have shown me that tire size is somewhere between 35mm-45mm which covers most gravel grinder's needs. Not all- but most.

That means chain stays need to be a lot more accommodating than many rigs I have seen out there. The thing is, manufacturers are loathe to go big on the stays for reasons I am not really clear on. At one time I was actually told that "it wasn't possible" to make for bigger tire clearances without using stupid-long chain stays. Which was funny, because I have a bike that actually fits bigger tires than I am indicating here and has reasonably short chain stays, within what was being told to me was "acceptable".  Anyway.....

Lively, Lightweight Frames: (That aren't waaaay expensive!)

Some companies get this, but the thing is, due to over-reaching safety tests and worries about litigation, a lot of companies just plain can not offer a steel frame that would have a sweet ride and be light. So, aluminum, right? Maybe, but nice riding aluminum frames get into the same territory here with regard to "safety" and what not. An over-built aluminum frame is going to ride.....well, not as well as gravel riders would like. (Assuming gravel riders know the differences here.) So, you end up having to look at titanium and carbon, which I have no quibbles about, but they are expensive alternatives.

Too bad. I remember nice, lively steel mountain bike frames, and those will never happen again from the bigger companies either, due to similar reasons. Gravel riders may never know how good it could be unless they go custom. Again- pretty expensive.

 Geometry That Works Better For Gravel:

Head tube angles and bottom bracket drop. Those two things never quite come together for the betterment of gravel riders. Cyclocross rigs often come in with a pretty good number on the head angle, (typically 72° is commonplace), and that gets within a half a degree of what I would like to see, but you never see those bikes with a road bike-like lower bottom bracket, which would add all sorts of stability.

Loose, fast descents just really call out for a stable, easy to control handling package which the slacker head angle/lower bottom bracket would give riders. Gravel riders don't need to lean over hard and pedal through corners, so the higher bottom bracket that cyclocross rigs use is worthless on gravel. Manufacturers don't get that a road bike with a slack geometry, wide tire clearances, and a nice, shock absorbing tire are what gravel riders need. That bike seems to be too weird to contemplate. Then add in the brake thing, and well.......

A Word On Brakes:

In my opinion, gobs of power in a brake is not what gravel grinders need. You're essentially braking on a surface littered with marbles.  Locking up a wheel, (and remember kiddos- a locked up wheel is an out of control wheel), is super-easy to do on gravel. Rim brakes are lighter. Set up well they work wonders on gravel. Rim brakes can modulate for days. Adverse conditions are not a big deal with cantilevers. Plus, (and this is the biggest reason I like cantis), the frame and fork do not have to be beefed up to accommodate a disc brake mount. This is especially true on the fork, where a good, steel fork design would be totally screwed up by adding disc brake mounts. Sure....you could design a carbon fork to take care of that, and charge us accordingly. Not necessary. Not in my opinion.

And the industry has a different agenda here, where the perception is that riders "want" disc brakes, so that's where the designs and R&D will go. Too bad. It doesn't have to be so complicated, nor so expensive to work well.

So, for all those reasons and more, we may not ever see a really great design purpose built for gravel riding being sold by the mainstream companies. But then again.....

I could be all wrong about that.