The Definition Of "Gravel"

Okay, so this whole "Gravel™" thing. What the heck? What does the term even mean anymore? It seems "gravel" can be darn near mountain biking or it could mean riding on paved back roads. It could be a full-suspension XC-MTB-ish bike or a bike packing/touring bike, or maybe an endurance road bike with clearance for 40mm tires. Does anyone have a handle on the definition for "gravel"? 

Even events are all over the place with this. So, I thought I'd dive into this mess and see if maybe there could be some sense made of it all. It doesn't help that the term "gravel" is the wrong term, but it is what we got stuck with early on. So, it is what I have to work with here. 

For the record, I would have preferred "all-road" for these bikes and riding style. I just wanted to get that out there up front. 

So, as with any good research project, it is good to know what the word means you are working on. I headed over to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary for the definition of "gravel" and this is what I found..... 

Cut from the webpage for "gravel" on Merriam Webster's site

 So, now it all makes sense. All these variations have gravelled me into a state of confusion. Who knew "gravel" could be a verb? Do not let it be said that Guitar Ted Productions is not educational. Ha!

Obviously, we're most interested in the "loose rounded fragments of rock", and "a stratum or deposit of gravel - a surface covered with gravel, ie: a gravel road". 

I know, it makes so much sense when you see the definition. It also points out how far off the rails "Gravel™" has gone. It has made the original term defined here meaningless, or maybe a different definition is now required. I don't know...... I think words should be attached to specific meanings, and in terms of cycling, words seem to be pretty fluid. At least in this case it seems that way. 

Extreme gravel. Maybe even epic. 

 I know this might offend many people, but most cyclists who think they are riding gravel are not really riding gravel. This is not their fault. The term should never have been used. Because look - most people don't have crushed rock roads near them. And even if they did, they probably wouldn't want to ride a bicycle down them. Especially if the road looked like the image above! Which, I should point out, is a rare size of rock in Iowa. 

There are a lot of dirt roads all over the world. Some may even have some small gravel in them, on them, or near them. This is not gravel, as in crushed rock road, but it gets lumped into the whole "Gravel™" thing anyway. Besides, mountain bikers had the lock on "dirt", along with maybe BMX'ers, long before this whole thing with "Gravel™" came along. It would have been hard to make a catchy name using dirt anyway, so those roads were just co-opted into gravel riding and you know what? Nobody blinked an eye! We seem to have gotten away with adopting those roads into this scene. 

Then you have this situation in most areas where dirt, maybe crushed rock roads too, are not capable of being strung together into a continuous course. You have this pesky surface which we call "pavement". You sometimes will see courses which utilize this surface to string together the "good stuff". 

Besides, you sometimes will be going through towns and villages. It seems most civilized places in the USA want pavement. Not always, but generally - yes. So, pavement is on the menu in small doses, hopefully just small doses. Too much and we'd have to go by the name "roadie", don't cha know? Can't have that, now can we? . 

Look, this article is an exercise in futility,I understand this, but I also think you might get the point here. "Gravel™" is just the wrong name. I was going to use a stronger wording here and say the name we ended up with is "stupid", but back in 2010 or so most of the folks running roads unpaved were doing so on actual crushed rock. So I can forgive those folks who saddled this style of riding with the term gravel. However; I was also saying at that time we shouldn't use the term "gravel" and I really wish we wouldn't have landed on that term. 

But like I said, it is futile to think we would ditch "gravel" for what we do and use something much more sensible and easily defined like "all-road". So, I just hope everyone who reads this comes to the understanding of what the shortcomings are when we say gravel-this, or gravel-that, and see how vague and open-ended the results are for using this terminology. It is why you shouldn't be surprised to see a full-suspension MTB with drop bars called a "gravel bike" and why you also see road bikes doing gravel bike things at the other extreme, (but those are "endurance road bikes") 

As always, thanks for reading Guitar Ted Productions.