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FS gravel bikes


dinneR

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Niner and Moots. Moots is more soft-tail than suspension. Salsa has their VRS(Vibration reduction system). Trek has the Domane. There are various seatposts on the market to smooth out the ride. Lauf fork is out there. I opt for bigger tires.

It seems that Niner is looking at the Great Divide and bikepacking. It maintained a big triangle with hard mounts for bags.

http://www.bikepacking.com/bikes/niner-full-suspension-gravel-bike/

http://www.bikepacking.com/bikes/moots-routt-rsl-ybb/

Niner Full-Suspension Gravel Bike, MCR 9 RDO

 

MOOTS ROUTT RSL YBB, titanium softail gravel bike

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I like the tech of gravel but I don’t think I’d ever need a dedicated gravel bike. My Anthem has such a nice pedaling platform I would have a hard time choosing between my cross bike or Anthem.  

But since most of our “gravel” is steep and technical I’ll ride the Anthem.

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I think gravel is probably my favorite riding. So many bikes work on it too. You don't need a "gravel" bike. A mountain or cyclocross bike works just fine in most cases. Even a road bike that can handle a wider tire will work. It all depends on the gravel roads in your area. 

Our gravel roads should be ready to ride soon. We still have a lot of snow and many of the forest service roads are closed.

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Yeah - I guess the market is always open for folks to try out different designs and ideas.  Seems that everyone has their own idea of what they want or need, and these look awfully close to an MTB (the Niner) or a Roubaix/Domane/Dogma FS (Moots).

Honestly, with road bikes moving to disc brakes, I'm not sure why most manufacturers wouldn't create relatively massive tire clearance (maybe for 38 or 42?) and/or offer rigid OR suspended front fork build options.  Sure, maybe the aero-race bikes benefit from the narrower front ends, so a max of say 32mm would be good for them, but that's only a small portion of the road bike sales.  I assume eventually too wide of a rear starts to mess with Q-factors, but that may be where the 1x set-ups shine?

Anyway, those two bikes show we are still in the "let's throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" part of this journey.  

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6 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

Yeah - I guess the market is always open for folks to try out different designs and ideas.  Seems that everyone has their own idea of what they want or need, and these look awfully close to an MTB (the Niner) or a Roubaix/Domane/Dogma FS (Moots).

Honestly, with road bikes moving to disc brakes, I'm not sure why most manufacturers wouldn't create relatively massive tire clearance (maybe for 38 or 42?) and/or offer rigid OR suspended front fork build options.  Sure, maybe the aero-race bikes benefit from the narrower front ends, so a max of say 32mm would be good for them, but that's only a small portion of the road bike sales.  I assume eventually too wide of a rear starts to mess with Q-factors, but that may be where the 1x set-ups shine?

Anyway, those two bikes show we are still in the "let's throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks" part of this journey.  

The Niner looks mt bikeish but has just 50mm of rear travel.

I'm starting to see more road bikes with disc brakes and more tire clearance. I've argued this for years. More relaxed geometry as well. Salsa has been doing this for years. Vaya, Warbird and Warroad. Surly has the Midnight Special. My Casseroll can fit a 42c tire. Sean at Rawland has always designed his bikes this way. Allroad.

 

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17 hours ago, dennis said:

The Niner looks mt bikeish but has just 50mm of rear travel.

I'm starting to see more road bikes with disc brakes and more tire clearance. I've argued this for years. More relaxed geometry as well. Salsa has been doing this for years. Vaya, Warbird and Warroad. Surly has the Midnight Special. My Casseroll can fit a 42c tire. Sean at Rawland has always designed his bikes this way. Allroad. 

The bike industry isn't stupid, and they see where the growth of the market is and also understand folks are much more likely to buy a new bike if it has something "different" about it beyond just a different paint scheme.  Disc brakes offer massively improved braking, but we all know we somehow survived with rim brakes for 100 years.  But, gradually, the combination of several "improvements" make a new bike seem "reasonable" rather than just a whim.  So, the emerging group of bikes offer a mix of road bike speed with MTB capability with little compromise in either direction for the average rider. For truly challenging off-road rides, a MTB still wins, and for a crit or a TdF stage, the classic road bike wins, but for the middle-ground? That's where these newer mixtures will shine.

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