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| The first gravel-marketed tires I ever tried. March 2012 |
In 2011, things in terms of gravel cycling were still based in the experimental phase. There were no- up through the end of 2011- "gravel" oriented bits, accessories, or bicycles that you could readily purchase at retail. Nothing. Nada.....zilch!
But the end of 2011 marked the start of the new era of cycling in terms of manufacturers and eventually, the riders, events, and cycling culture. Without the cycling industry's support, and belief in the promise of a return on investment, I seriously doubt that gravel cycling would exist as we know it today. Certainly, it would have remained mostly an odd-ball Mid-Western based activity. But by the end of 2011, there were things headed to market that would eventually aid in gravel cycling's growth and acceptance. Today, I want to talk a bit about this and how it eventually changed what I saw at the GTDRI over the years.
I wrote recently about tires and how this one component of a bicycle can engender a near religious fervor amongst certain cyclists. Obviously, we can look at a few tire introductions and see that, without these important rubber and fabric hoops, certain segments of cycling may never have happened at all. One great example is mountain biking. Early pioneers of the MTB were using cruiser tires which were heavy and less than good in many situations. Once true 26" MTB tread designs were made, the segment of MTB took off. In a similar way, 29 inch wheeled MTB's would never have seen the light of day without a few passionate folks that pushed for what became known as "The Tire". The 29" WTB Nanoraptor. Think about fat biking. Would that segment of cycling exist without the venerable Surly Endomorph?
Gravel cycling also has a "genesis tire" in the Clement, (now Donnelly) MSO 700 X 40mm tire. I first laid eyes on this gem of a tire in a box I opened in my "Lab" in 2012. (Read my post about that here) As stated in that linked post, I heard about this tire at the 2012 Frostbike show. I overheard conversations that Joe Meiser, an engineer at that time for QBP, was having with Donn Kellogg, the owner of the Clement tire brand. Through that eavesdropping I understood that Clement and Joe, along with a few others, had been testing prototype tires for Clement to be marketed toward gravel riders. That tire ended up being the 700c X 40mm Clement MSO.
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| The Salsa Cycles 2012 Warbird gravel bike |
Of course, those tires were destined for the upcoming Salsa Cycles Warbird, the first, purpose-built gravel racing bike. Both the bicycle and tires had been battle-tested in Trans Iowa and the Dirty Kanza 200, plus at other venues. I'm sure that the GTDRI was also a minor influence here as Jason Boucher was Salsa's brand director at that time, and he'd been on a couple GTDRI's by this point.
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| 2011 Raleigh RX 10 |
But as exciting as all these developments were, it would be several years before the GTDRI would be mostly gravel bikes. Up through 2014, the mainstays of the gravel scene continued to be drop bar MTB, 29"ers, and cyclo-cross bikes. There were still "gravel mutts" aplenty as well, which made things even more interesting out there.
Part of the reason for this latency for the "gravel specific" bike was that Salsa made a mistake in judging what the market was after. When the Warbird was announced, the titanium version was deemed desirable, but for many, it was a jewel that was too expensive and too precious to be thrown into the cauldron of dust, mud, and rocks. Less expensive, more "rough and ready" options were thought then by riders as being what was needed. I remember there being a bit of confusion and dismay at the aluminum Warbird. That was a budget price many riders could afford, but I think a steel bike was what most wanted and expected.
The tire was a great option, but due to Clement's lack of "horsepower" in being able to produce enough tires, many riders still were going with the tried and true Schwalbe Marathon series of tires. Of course, the thought of a tubeless gravel tire was prominent amongst gravel aficionados, and that was another thing which kind of held up the process of acceptance as well. It wouldn't be until 2015 that gravel riders would see the first tubeless specific gravel tires on the market.
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| From the 2012 GTDRI (Image *I think* by John Mathias) |
So, it wasn't as though the gravel specific stuff took over in a big wave. No, it was more of an imperceptible creep that by, say 2019, had seen gravel cycling overtaken by gravel specific everything. In the meantime, we kept using drop bar MTB's like the Fargo, regular hard tail mountain bikes, mostly 29"ers, and the ubiquitous cyclo-cross bikes.
Meanwhile non-tubeless tire choices quickly kicked out the heavier, ponderous Schwalbe touring tires as the tire of record. Clement had a surefire hit with the MSO, and in 2014 there were even more choices hitting the market in terms of tires. These were mostly all lighter, better riding, and slightly wider tires that made more sense to try to "garage tubeless" into being tubeless tires.
I think the GTDRI was a great example of where the enthusiast market was at during its run and the bikes that showed up were always representative of what was most often seen on the gravel at the time. In terms of the exact time period I am covering now, it was all still a time of discovery, experimentation, and community shared knowledge that was driving the technology of the day.
We were figuring out how to be self-supported, using frame bags, different styles of lighting, different set ups on bikes, and all of that. A few of us were riding more gravelly oriented bikes like the Salsa Cycles Vaya, or by 2014, the Raleigh Tamland, and of course, the ever present Fargo and Cross Check bikes. It was a fun time period, but I think it was also a time when the riders started to anticipate that the industry was now onto gravel and we were all waiting to see what would come out next.
Speaking of "next"... "The lead up to the 2012 GTDRI is on tap for next week.
2 comments:
I really thought this was a neat write-up, GT. Perhaps this is a loaded question, but if you were to prefer it one way or the other, would you take the over-abundance of options we have today? Or, would you prefer the days of having to be creative and scrappy with your equipment? Or, maybe somewhere in the middle? As a newcomer to the scene, I've always been privileged with this over-abundance of options. But I really think it would've been neat to live in a time where I had to make things work.
@Tomcat: That's a great question. So, here is the thing. Had it remained a thing where you had to go through a period of discovery to find out what works for you as a rider, I believe this would have short-circuited the growth of the gravel scene. Would it have grown to the participation numbers we see today? Maybe, eventually.
It's just "too much work" for many people to "thinker through" many of the things we had to think through in the early days.
My belief is that would have made a lot of people not give gravel cycling a chance.
An over-simplification for you: Rider says, "Hey! That looks like fun! How do you get into riding gravel?" A gravel rider / bicycle company / retailers say, "Just use THIS bike with THOSE clothes and use THIS route and go to THESE races and you will be a GRAVEL RIDER!
It's the proverbial "easy button" and many people WANT this instead of going through the satisfying, but often short-term frustrating, process of discovering things for yourself.
So, what would I have chosen? Selfishly choosing is not an option for me, so I would say I'd rather it be like it has been and be able to see, meet, and enjoy all the people I can meet and see instead of limiting it to a specific group that bothered with trying to go through the processes of discovering what worked for gravel and what did not.
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