flogazo wrote:
Hi, I'm wondering: Do any of you have a MTB they enjoy riding and ALSO feel the desire to own/ride a gravel bike?
I'm asking because to me, it feels that gravel riding is just a poor man's MTBing. Poor in this case meaning that one doesn't have the bike or skill to do "full-on" off-road on a MTB and just wants to dip in the toes a little and diverge from the road-bike the minimal amount possible...
Or is it the possibility to ride road and off-road within one ride? I guess that would make some sense while still feeling like a lukewarm compromise I wouldn't be willing to make.
I'm not trying to put anybody off gravel-riding, I just genuinely don't get it...
For me, it was this ^^^.
To explain...I spent from the mid-80s to late 90s MTB'ing almost exclusively (Santa Barbara area). Because of the nature of the trails around here (and where they', this meant driving at a minimum 1/2 hour to and from the trailheads. Riding to the trails on a MTB isn't really all that fun...
Once my kids were born, finding the time to be able to "waste" an hour total just getting to and from the trails wasn't really an option...if I hopped on the road bike, I could start riding immediately from the house and be much more time efficient. This led to my nearly abandoning the MTB and riding road nearly exclusively...and eventually led to my road and TT racing starting in the early 2000's.
Fast forward to a couple years back...the kids are all "grown", and some friends started doing some mixed-surface rides. In other words, going out on long rides on the road, linking off-road sections, including riding up over the local ridge line and into the Los Padres National forest backcountry. I wanted to join in and built up a "gravel bike" using a $100 Nashbar aluminum MTB frame as the basis. I found it was pretty damned fun...one could easily ride to the trailheads and dirt roads (unlike with dedicated MTB) and ride most of the same dirt roads/trails I used to do only on a MTB. If geared low enough, gravel bikes are actually better "fully rigid MTBs" than we had in the mid-80s, especially on the uphills. And, if you put large enough tires run at low enough pressures, you may be quite surprised at how off-road capable a "gravel bike" can be.
Anyway, ironically for your post, the "gravel/mixed surface" riding has actually inspired me to start riding my MTBs a bit more (now that I have the extra time again)..which unfortunately led to a broken tibial plateau at the end of last October :-( ...but, that's a whole 'nuther story.
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