Gravel History With Guitar Ted: The Past Is The Future

2006 DK200 checkpoint

 Welcome To Gravel History With Guitar Ted! This will be a random series here on the blog where I will give you my take on the history of gravel riding and racing in the "modern era.* 

There may be a "Ted-terview" or two where I speak with those from the early days of the Modern era of Gravel as well. 

Finally: This is my perspective, but I welcome other perspectives, even if they oppose mine, and in the end, we maybe can sharpen the focus of what really did happen versus fiction, lore, and speculations.

* The "Modern Era of Gravel" started when Trans Iowa was concocted by myself and Jeff Kerkove in the Fall of 2004. From that point forward what became known as a new niche of cycle-sport and cycling culture was born.  For more on this, see the following.....HERE

 Tire Tech & Fashions:

Fat tires are all the rage in gravel now. It wasn't that long ago when anything 43mm and above was considered "big" for gravel. Most bikes came with 40mm - 42mm tires, and races were run on these width tires for years. 

But it wasn't always this way. Going way back to the beginnings of Modern Gravel circa 2006 - 2010, it wasn't odd to see a large portion of the field at most Mid-West gravel events on mountain bikes. 

Fatter tires were known to be much more stable, comfortable, and could be just as fast as those folks who were running touring class tires on 700c sized rims. It wasn't until the bicycle industry made gravel specific tires in 2012 that this started to change. 

Tubeless tires for gravel weren't a thing until 2015 when WTB made the Nano 40 a tubeless ready tire. That pretty much sent the MTB sized rubber to the sidelines, seemingly for good. Gravel bikes came along with clearances for 40 - 43mm tires, and no one at the time figured on running anything wider, because most forgot how fatter tires tamed gravel. 

Of course, no one was making a racy, drop bar gravel bike with big tire clearances in 2015. So it was also a matter of availability to even do such a thing as sticking a MTB sized tire in a gravel bike. There were some other things, like 1X gravel drive trains, which helped as time went along to facilitate such an experiment.  

There was also a revolution happening in rim widths. It is forgotten, and hilarious, that only ten years ago we were freaking out over inner rim widths for gravel wheels being 23mm. Twenty-three millimeters? No one wants THAT in 2026! It's crazy how fast technology and "fashion" changes in cycling. 

WTB sponsored Trans Iowa with tubeless Nano 40's before anyone else could get them!

Now, in 2026 a 45mm gravel tire is considered normal, if not "skinny". Inner rim widths are creeping to 30mm and wider. Gravel bikes come with clearances for 50mm tires at a minimum now. Many companies offer a 50mm gravel tire these days. 

On the flip side you see the disappearance of "skinny gravel". You can find all sorts of 700 x 38mm and 40mm gravel tires on close-out pricing. Wheels with 23mm inner rim widths to 25mm inner rim widths are considered "old school" now. It is all indicative of where gravel fashion is going from here looking forward. Given that "endurance road" tire widths are creeping up to 40mm in width, it is getting kind of hard to not call those bikes  gravel bikes!

But I digress....

The irony here is that what is now considered "cutting edge" in gravel tires is not all that "new". We knew this about wider tires back in the day. What will be new, and is new now, is the materials technology and the design which is being applied to this sort of tire. Things which will make these tires less "drop bar MTB" and more "Gravel™". But the overall concept? 

Yeah, that's old news folks!