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| Image courtesy of Scott Sports |
The tire sizes which are seen as being 'normal' for gravel have ballooned up wider and wider. I no longer have a bike which can handle the widest gravel tires available.
Then you have geometry. Things have gone a bit lower and slacker in terms of the more 'adventure' oriented gravel bikes.
And, if I were to heed what my friend N.Y. Roll says, any bike without down tube storage is stupid.
Well.....that may be a bit aggressive, but it is a fashionable feature to include on a frame these days. .
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| Image courtesy of Dangerholm social media |
The geometry is very good. They have a GRX equipped 12 speed model in the range. It isn't crazy expensive. It isn't that lovely lilac color of the more expensive model, but....ya know....it's fine. It's okay. I'd likely swap in my BERD spoked wheel set with blue anodized Industry 9 hubs anyway, and those would look weird on a lilac colored frame and fork.
The eighty-five hundred buck model has a very specific integrated stem too, which as spec'ed, would be too long for me, and this cheaper model has a stem I could easily swap. So, there is that as well. (I've no idea if a frame set is offered)
The new Addict has an interesting fork. The blades bow outward, which Scott claims has the effect of giving the rider more comfort. It also allows for larger tires, and the inside the fork bottle mounts.
It is an enticing bicycle. For my needs, at any rate. IF I were to get something like this it would immediately replace the Noble GX5 and put the Raleigh Tamland on permanent retirement. (Can't bring myself to get rid of that Tamland since I had a hand in its development)
Anyway, just dreaming here now. If you have any suggestions you think would be great for me, hit me up in the comments. Thanks for reading Guitar Ted Productions.
7 comments:
My neighbor recently bought a Neuhaus Nova32 and told me he loves it. I've never ridden anything like that but if you already have plenty of bikes then why not add something different, say one with 32" wheels?
I googled "down tube storage" and I still don't get it.
@!Tony - Only found on carbon bikes with those big, honkin' down tubes. Someone figured out that if you put a door on the down tube that you could stuff some tubes and tools in there.
I like where we are currently with modern gravel bikes. I've kind of settled on 50mm tires weighing less than 600g as the sweet spot for my riding. I'm experimenting with a new Pathfinder 2.2. It measures 55mm on my i25 rims and weighs 570g. I was thinking back to your post from two weeks ago (8/24) discussing the anniversary of the 2012 Ti Warbird with max clearance of 38mm. I think it is strange how long it has taken the industry to go from 38mm clearance to the current 2.2 inch mtb standard. Almost 15 years!!! Compare that to the plus tire era. Within one or two years it seemed like every brand and a plus bike. Everybody was making wide rims and wide tires. They quickly figured out the frame issues for tire clearance around the BB, chainstays and the fork. This happened super fast for a standard that eventually faded away. But on the gravel side it has taken forever to finally get to the right tires. Every since the early days of DK200, Land Run, and TI mud clearance has been a huge issue. But the industry wouldn't give it to us. The concept of monstercross has been around forever. If you look at the old forums the question of "what is max tire that fits in _____ frame?" is one of the most common questions asked. People have always wanted big fast tires for their gravel bike. Why did the industry spend a decade selling us these inadequate 40ish mm tires that were overbuilt to prevent flats and therefore had poor rolling resistance on frames without enough clearance. Trying to sell us a on a nauseating variety of BS tread patterns when what we needed was a significantly bigger tire with the right casing. During that same decade there were fast, light, 29x2.0 (50mm) tires sitting right there on the shelf. Why wasn't the industry testing these tires. It really makes me think there is no such thing as real, scientific R&D in the bike industry. The individual companies really don't know what they are doing. Why did it take a guy on the Internet to start drum testing and another guy documenting his Chung method testing for us to learn this stuff? Because the bike companies don't really know what is or isn't fast. If they did, I don't think it would have taken 15 years to get from that Warbird to where we are today. When I think about the slow agonizing evolution of proper gravel tires it makes it really hard to take any of these new claims about 32 inch wheels seriously.
@Scott - Thanks for the comment and the time you put into making your points. I very much appreciate this.
There is one thing I think needs to be plugged into your thoughts on the industry and its slow progress toward changes. That would be sales.
When I was a reviewer for Twentynine Inches, I was told multiple times that innovation was dependent upon potential sales. If a brand saw something in the market which made sense, but did not have dealer support, a big grassroots appeal, or already was a trend, that product was shelved until the potential was seen.
The people I spoke to back then would typically say "We're not seeing the numbers for support of that (an idea, product, etc) So they would either hold off till there was demand, or never would make said idea into reality.
Making a gravel bike with big tire clearances was possible in 2012, but companies didn't even know if gravel as a category would ever pan out. So.....conservative takes were produced instead.
And sometimes the industry does fall in and push a standard, (plus tires, 27.5") and it doesn't work out like they thought it would. That's money this industry can ill afford to waste.
So, while I agree with much of what you say in your comments, (and I was a loud voice back then for more tire clearance as well - it got me in hot water with some in the industry!), there is more to this than meets the eye.
Plus bikes (the more mainstream 27.5 ones) had a few advantages to get started: Boost hubs and chainline gave you some more room to work with, front derailleurs were basically dead, and a smaller rim let you put the fatter tire in the "shadow" of the 29" wheel.
On the road side riders seemed to want 2x, and while the move to 142 disc hubs had in way "boosted" the road chainline out, moving the chainrings out match didn't happen until GRX and SRAM Road Wide, not without some grumbling about Q-factor. Some brands did try to do the same trick with frames that could take bigger 650b wheels. The ability for carbon frames to slither their chainstays past rings and tires probably unlocked it, but the slower tooling amortization cycles left some room for the hype cycle to grow.
I understand your frustration. The frame I bought 10 years ago accommodates 45 mm tires, which was pretty impressive at the time. That's been fine for pavement but it's now clear that 55 mm would be a lot better for everything else. Going forward I don't know, but most MTB folks seem to be backing off from tires wider than about 65 mm.
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