coincidence between gravel and commuting bikes

A gigantic catch-all for Randonneuring (Audax), Bike-packing (Touring), and Commuting with or without E-bikes!
smokva
Posts: 276
Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:13 pm

by smokva

I'm glad I havent asked this question first :beerchug:
I laso struggle to see difference or even need for all that different classifications of bikes.
As someone said drop bar city commuting vs gravel vs road touring (even CX) is very hard to explain and basically artificial...fashionable. I don't see that differences are so big that one would need so many different categories. I know, i know...rear wheel spacing, fork angle, 1x, triple, disc brakes, bb height, tire clearance, fender/rack/light mounts...those are didderences, but are they really or they just sell us frames without all options to make some artificial differences. I mean is it so hard to put mounts on the frame?

I think that my touring bike with endurance road racing geometry, 35mm tire clearance and mounts for everything equiped with drop bars and 3x11 gearing can thick all checkboxes for endurance racing road bike, heavy/light touring, city commuter and gravel....all I need is to swap wheels/tires, add/remove fenders/lights and that's it.

Another thing I also don't undestand is this 1x gearing fuss...did we really become so lazy to stop using front derailleur, because I don't see any practical use of it?
I could also say a thing or two about disc brakes and how much I hate them.

PoorCyclist
Posts: 783
Joined: Wed Dec 07, 2011 1:26 am
Location: California's country side

by PoorCyclist

I have used a cross bike as my commuter and rain bike before gravel bike existed. A little higher off the ground seems to be good for rainly days. I like the more aggressive geometry.
I have a gravel bike and I do not like riding it on the road, especially with knobby tires. It feels so much like riding a MTB with drop bars.

Recently needed to replace the cross bike with a new one, but today cross frame selection is limited. Some companies don't even have cross frames.

Fender used to be easy to solve with QR skewers but with thru axle that solution is not viable anymore. I even had a rack that clamp on the QR. Now I have given up on a cross bike and settled on a gravel frame with lots of mounts, I pick one without the big slope on the top tube to avoid that MTB feel. I won't have that higher BB for rainy days and I am going to cut the steerer as low as possible to match my old cross bike that had a couple spacers.

So yes with the phasing out of QR gravel bike wins the utility category but not usually the aero and roadie requirements.

by Weenie


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