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| Image courtesy of King Fabrications |
As I study the new 2025 releases for gravel bikes, a couple of things are clear. This post will explore some of those things I am noting. The very first thing to understand is this; Most manufacturers do not understand what the target market for gravel is, nor do they understand what those riders need.
This is bourne out in what I see being offered for 2025 and which press releases are getting all the run on cycling media sites. Essentially there are three distinct directions which are somewhat at odds with each other. The industry is trying to pull the hardest, though, in the direction of making gravel bikes into full-on, aero based racing bikes. Bicycle that have a lot more in common with Pro road racing on pavement than anything else.
The second main direction I see is the more mountain bike styled gravel bike. Larger tires, suspension, higher bottom brackets, and longer top tubes. Thirdly, and less common, but still a distinct direction, I see the "adventure based" gravel bike as the last distinction.
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| The Davinci Hatchet Vista (Image courtesy of Devinci) |
Why do manufacturers and marketing departments have such a hard time with an "all-around" bike? Well, for one thing, an "every-person's bike" isn't easy to market. It also is not a very easy place to distinguish a brand with a notable difference. Although, it could easily be argued all the current "gravel bikes" pretty much look the same anyway.
I found a company which is taking a unique approach to this conundrum. It is the Canadian company, Devinci. Instead of trying to take their gravel range into one direction, they decided to take the "divide and conquer" route.
Their range of new gravel bikes for 2025 is called the Hatchet. Within this range they have the Hatchet Pro Rival AXS, the Hatchet Vista, and an electrified e-Hatchet Tour model. Devinci seem to be saying "gravel" is essentially going into two categories, and oddly enough, one of them is not a more mountain bike style.
It would be easy for a brand to offer two different spec levels and two different paint schemes and say that they have two different bikes, but Devinci has really made two very different gravel bikes. Their geometries are different, and even what the frames are made from is different. I'll leave the electric Hatchet out of this comparison and focus on the other two models.
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| The Hatchet Pro (Image courtesy of Devinci) |
The Pro model has a lower bottom bracket and a road bike steep 72.5° head angle. The marketing copy puts a heavy emphasis on stiffness and aero. Meanwhile the Vista is a more adventure focused bike with a higher bottom bracket, slacker head tube angle more in line with current gravel bike geo, and it has many accessory mounts. The frame is also an aluminum one instead of carbon.
It is interesting because in other brand line-ups these would be two different models. Salsa Cycles Warbird/Cutthroat/Fargo, or Specialized's Diverge vs Crux, as examples. And yes, this divergence of focus in gravel bikes is definitely not confined to Devinci, nor is it anything all that new.
The differing focuses in gravel are driven by many factors. Some feel that gravel is not one thing or another, but a loosely defined thing. Even Devinci recognizes this on their page introducing the new Hatchet range. They state the following about gravel bikes : "Yes, that discipline often seen as some sort of cross-breed between road and XC, without any universally agreed-upon definition among companies in the industry." (As if the industry can agree on the definition of anything cycling related!)
Maybe Devinci has identified what is wrong when they point out the cross between "road and XC" (XC= mountain biking here) If this is the case, then the intentions for "gravel" were misunderstood from the beginning. Probably due to the insistence on the term "gravel" for these bicycles. Had the term "all-roads" been employed, would this have made a difference?
Had a bicycle meant to cover "all roads", including gravel roads, been the design intention all along, would we be seeing bicycles really adept more at pavement (Devinci Hatchet Pro), or bicycles more akin to something that would tackle those roads, yet still be great on rustic two-track roads? (Devinci Hatchet Vista) Would suspension forks, aero, or MTB width tires even be a thing in "all-roads" bikes?
As of 2025, it is a nice thought exercise to do when you have the time. Reality now is quite different. Brands are still trying to "cover all the bases" when they really shouldn't be because they are missing a big chunk of riders in the middle who are not racers, are not always just adventure riders, and want a bike to "just ride" all-roads on. Of course, why sell the public just one great, do-it-all bike when you can sell them three.
Right?
5 comments:
Those Devincis aren't bad-looking rigs. I just wish they had given a scotch more tire clearance—at the very least, for the more adventure-focused Vista model.
~Tyler - still enjoying the heck out of the 2.2 Race Kings on my Seigla. lol
I do find it interesting, however when I look at my own quiver, I have three primary gravel bikes, including my Lauf Seigla (the race bike), a Black Mountain Cycles Mod Zero (the adventure bike), a GT Grade from a few years back (the fender bike). Oh, and my drop bar Singular Puffin fatbike, so four. In many ways, these bikes (or at least the first two) cover the primary avenues many manufactures are pursuing in terms of designs.
Look at mountain bikes. From what was once a ‘one bike does all’ category, today there are specialized mountain bikes for virtually every type of ride, and the needs of any type of rider. It’s not too much to expect that gravel will follow a similar, but distinctly different, path.
@Tyler Loewens - I also found it curious that Devinci limited clearance to 45mm tires. Now it could be that this wide tire thing caught many comapnies off guard. Keep in mind that this didn't really become a topic of conversation until after last year's Unbound where a couple of racers were notably running MTB XC racing tires, especially in the front.
Seeing as how bicycle development cycles around a two year window it could easily be that Devinci already had the Hatchet designed and spec'ed before this wide tire fashion started up.
Devinci is not the only company being - I feel unfairly - criticized for new models not meeting tire capability perceptions of the internet cognoscenti.
@MG - I see your thoughts here and mostly agree. My concern is - while many companies will, and already do, cover the two main bases, or even the three I mentioned, it is the racing/aero/stiffness train that is getting all the run on social media and being ballyhooed in the press. These bikes are (mostly) all wrong for a majority of gravel riders.
It reminds me of the 2000's and road bike marketing where the vast majority of road bike ranges were all based off Pro road racing designs and absolutely were a huge fail for consumers who often bought into the dream only to find it wasn't comfortable to ride or practical to modify until those bikes were comfortable and fun.
The steady supply of Zoom stem extenders I installed back then are testament to one facet of why I see things this way. It seems we are looking at the possibility of falling into a similar low-stack height, aero induced fail with gravel bikes as well. Hopefully I am wrong about this!
I empathize greatly with these long product cycles and wild swings in rider requirements for sure. My one criticism still here for Devinci is to launch two divergent models, and the one focusing on adventure has the same tire clearance. You can go quite a ways back to find "adventure" models of gravel bikes that can fit 50's and larger. Hell when someone like Kona can come up with the Ouroboros even through all their issues it starts to make this sort of miss a tiny bit harder to swallow.
All of that from my comfy armchair quarterback position mind you.
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