00:00Gravel bikes. What's not to like about them? They're incredibly versatile, they're good for
00:04both evening blasts and multi-day treks, and capable of handling a whole spectrum of terrain,
00:11from pan-flat double track to swooping single track. Gravel bikes even make for a pretty handy
00:17urban utility steed, with their plethora of mounts and chunky tyres. Of course, there are plenty of
00:23reasons to buy a different style of bike, whether you're racing on the roads or hitting up gnarlier
00:28trails, but you can't really criticise gravel bikes for not performing in spheres that they
00:34simply weren't designed for. That's not really very fair. Still, despite being the cycling
00:39industry's current golden child, there are still some pervasive problems that the overwhelming
00:44majority of bike brands could do with addressing. So, without further ado, here are some things that
00:51really annoy us about gravel bikes. Gravel bikes are really over-geared. Even with the
01:00gravel-specific group sets currently on the market, the gears offered on gravel bikes
01:05simply don't go low enough for a huge swathe of their intended use. Sure, gravel riding on open,
01:11double track is perfectly well catered for, but when riding off-road with a full set of
01:16bikepacking bags, the gears simply don't go low enough. Let's put things into perspective with
01:22Trek's XE racing machine, the Supercaliber. In the top-level racing spec, it comes with a 34-tooth
01:29chainring and a 10-52 cassette. So as not to overstuff this section with numbers, I'll use
01:36the Supercaliber setup as a reference point and then relay everything back to that. And do remember
01:41that the Supercaliber is set up for racing. XE courses can be very steep, but so too can the
01:48trails that you find yourself on with a gravel bike. And racers don't have to contend with all
01:53the kit that you would be carrying if you were bikepacking. Sure, with SRAM AXS and Shimano Di2,
01:59you can set up road shifters to work with mountain bike cassettes and get similar ranges, but let's
02:05keep this to setups that have single-tooth jumps in the cassette progression for smoother riding
02:10on the roads. With those as the rules, SRAM offers the lowest gearing with a 43-30 crankset
02:17and a 12-speed 10-36 cassette. Then comes Campagnolo, pairing a 13-speed 10-44 cassette
02:26to a 38-tooth chainring, followed by Shimano, which boasts only a 46-30 crankset and an 11-speed
02:3311-36 cassette. But all three of those options give a bottom gear that falls in between the
02:39second and third easiest ratios on the Trek Supercaliber. A cross-country mountain bike
02:45has two gears lower than the lowest gravel bike, and in the case of SRAM and Campagnolo,
02:51both those options are seriously expensive. You only need to look at the Trek 520 Touring
02:57bike and its 26-36 bottom gear to see that gravel bikes have remained hopelessly overgeared
03:02for a large amount of the segment of the riding that they're supposed to be designed for.
03:104. Traditional Rack Mounts Are Disappearing
03:13The versatility of gravel bikes is one of their major selling points. Yes,
03:17aesthetics can be divisive. Surly's bottle boss heavy approach gave rise to the term
03:23fork warts, but there are options for mitigating their visual impact,
03:26from zip bits to plain simple grub screws. But with that in mind, it's more of a shame that
03:32more and more gravel bike brands are removing more and more traditional mounting points,
03:36at the same time as decking out the fork legs, top tube, and down tube.
03:41The humble rear rack and mudguard mounts don't cause any problems with cross-compatibility,
03:46and their usefulness as a cheap and easy way of boosting your luggage carrying capacity
03:51and ability to stay dry is unquestionable. We would hazard a guess that the bike industry
03:57doesn't want to dilute the gravel look of saddle pack, frame bag, and bar bag,
04:02and other bikepacking paraphernalia with that of an old-fashioned set of panniers and mudguards.
04:09But, we say, if there's no good reason for taking those mounts away,
04:13why impose this arbitrary limitation of what people can and can't do with their own bike?
04:24The vast choice of tyres is a blessing and a curse.
04:28Much like road and mountain biking, there's a whole load of different tyre options out there
04:32to riders. However, unlike both road and mountain biking, the gravel tyre has the very tough job
04:38of trying to perform well on multiple terrains. This means that there's a whole lot of options
04:44out there, but it does create a bit of a double-edged sword situation. On one hand,
04:49you've got plenty of choice for whatever parkour you'd want to ride on, but on the other hand,
04:54you're left wondering what part of the ride you want your tyres to perform best on. Do you choose
04:59something that works for all the muddy trails around you, or do you opt for something that
05:04works really well for all the fast riding that you do, or do you opt for some sort of halfway
05:08house that only kind of works on both? Tyre choice can be a really tough one to navigate,
05:15and it often results in a lot of trial and error before you find something that works really well
05:19for your local area. But we do wish that the process of choosing a tyre
05:24was a little simpler, and actually, this takes me quite nicely onto my next point.
05:33There aren't enough aggressive tyre options for gravel bikes. This is less one for the
05:37frame manufacturers and probably one for the manufacturers of tyres. Why can't a decent
05:43mud tyre for gravel bikes be produced? It really doesn't make any sense why this segment of the
05:49market is just so barren. Of course, there are 33mm wide tyres which are directed at the cyclocross
05:57market, and these models are excellent in deep and sloppy mud, but in being so narrow, it makes
06:03it hard for them to be used anywhere else, especially where they may be subject to impacts
06:08on the rim from rocks and roots. At the other end, the mountain bike sphere is absolutely jam-packed
06:14with as many mud-specific models that you could shake a stick at, but they all typically come in
06:20at 2.3 inches in their smallest size, so they just don't fit the overwhelming majority of gravel bikes.
06:28Quite simply, what's needed is a tyre that comes in a width from 40mm to 56mm that has widely spaced
06:35and tall knobs so as to dig into the slop and then quickly shed any of the mud that gets picked up.
06:41There are some models, like the Schwalbe Ultrabikes, which get close,
06:46but these could do with slightly taller knobs, and ones that aren't quite so thin
06:51in lateral direction. Squares are generally better than rectangles.
06:56For some riders in desert-y conditions, the need for such a tyre won't even register,
07:01but for riders whose trails turn into mush in the winter,
07:04well, we would be very grateful for more aggressive gravel tyres.
07:112. Gravel bikes are quite expensive
07:15Aren't gravel bikes just expensive drop-bar mountain bikes or hybrid bikes? Well, we'll
07:20happily talk for hours about the nuances between them, but doesn't that kind of cut to the heart
07:26of the issue? Many of the differences are indeed nuances. Yes, there are cases when a gravel bike
07:33is best, when the need for speed and off-road capability is balanced just so that either a road
07:39bike or a mountain bike simply won't cut it. But for long rides that are more about the adventure
07:45rather than speed, is a gravel bike really that much better? Really.
07:51With a strong road background, there is much to be said about the familiarity of drop-bar
07:56shifters and the position that you adopt on the bike, but in terms of the roads that you'll be
08:00able to cover and the sights you'll be able to see, you'll do just as well on a hybrid bike,
08:05but with the gear range, the tyre clearance and all the mounting points that you could ever need.
08:11The Cube Travel is an excellent example of this. It combines a dynamo front light,
08:16full-length mudguards, a pannier rack, a robust kickstand and clearance for tyres
08:21up to 2.15 inches in size. It does have a 3x9 drivetrain, but the jumps between the gears
08:28are hardly any bigger than you'd find on a 10-speed 1136 cassette that you'd get with
08:33any entry-level Shimano GRX, and the absolute range is much greater at both ends compared to
08:39any of the other gravel group sets. And all of that for about a grand. It's a struggle to even
08:44get hydraulic disc brakes on a gravel bike for that price, let alone anything else.
08:53Gravel bikes can be a bit of a halfway house. When you look at a gravel bike,
08:58it may be easy to see them as a glorified parts bin from a big bike manufacturer.
09:02You've got drop bars paired with big burly tyres that are generally mated to 700c wheels,
09:08and more often than not, a fully rigid frame but with a group set which is just as confused.
09:13You'll have shifters that look like they've come from a road bike and gearing as if from an XC bike.
09:19While this slightly bizarre combination of components may seem haphazard,
09:23it does culminate in a machine that will allow you to power over rough terrain. As we all know
09:28though, rough terrain can encompass a hugely wide variety of parkours. So while you can set
09:33your gravel rig up to take on what most may potentially opt for a hardtail mountain bike,
09:38you can also create a build that's streamlined for fast rolling gravel roads. The result is
09:44something that may never be the ideal weapon of choice, but does work the majority of the time.
09:50We've seen the pros take to gravel at the Tour de France aboard the same bikes that they race on
09:54the road with. We've also seen Mathieu van der Poel adapt a Canyon Ultimate to run gravel tyres,
10:00which he then went on to pilot to third place at the Gravel World Championships,
10:04with his teammate going on to win the race. So while it is annoying that in many circumstances
10:10there will be another bike that will do the job better, we can't also deny the sheer versatility
10:16that a gravel bike provides. Well, there we have it. That's everything that annoys me about gravel
10:21bikes, so far. Is there anything else that you think I've missed out? Let me know down in the
10:26comments below. If you enjoyed the video, then please do drop it a like, subscribe to the channel
10:31for more content, and I'll see you again very soon.
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