Where are you most uncomfortable? Your ass, shoulders, arms legs? All of it?
Mark

Hands and arms.

And probably feet. I use egg beaters but over 5 or 6 hours, I get a definite hot spot in the balls of my feet.

Wider tires and lower pressure. Tubeless is a must. I run 43mm width tires. Also wrap an old tube underneath your handlebar tape on the top section of your handlebar.

Maybe try Candy pedals instead of Eggbeaters?

Bar tape and vibration damping bars seem to do very little.

Shock stop stem has a noticeable effect. I'm sure the Lauf does as well.

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Kinekt seatpost and a light touch on the bars. Ride in the drops for all descents.

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Candy pedals.

Appropriate tire pressure for the course.

Widest tires possible. Wider tire means lower pressure too.

Making sure you relax your body and legs too.

For me, REALLY good bar tape and gloves help a lot. Gel pads are great as well.

No one has suggested bike fit yet, but that may be contributing. Too much weight on your hands/arms and not enough on the saddle?

Love my Lauf. And flared bars for rough descents.

That's a good point. My gravel set up is borne from experimentation and failure. It's a much more upright setup than my road bike.

This!! Fit is the always the first area to check. Especially with hands and arms. With a properly fitted bike, the bike should almost disappear.

That said, I love my Lauf! It takes out much of the vibration and absorbs some rock impact. But as good as the fork is, it won’t solve a bad fit.

This is a common misconception about gravel bike fit and is probably the source of discomfort.

If you have a comfortable road bike setup, start with that, then add maybe 1-2cm of stack, and reduce 1-2 of reach.

That being said my personal road and gravel fits are identical.

Riding more gravel

I built my 3T with these from day 1 so don’t have a before/after comparison, but I’ve been enjoying a combination of Lizard Skins 4.2mm tape, Cane Creek eeStem, and tubeless with low(er) pressure.

Redshift shockstop stem is a game changer for me. 20mm of travel and seems to make a huge difference for me on my gravel bike! Give it a try, you won’t regret it.

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"I swim because that's how I get to ride my bike."

I think this is my next purchase. Five-day 350 mile 'races' with 30k of climbing convinced me that front-end shock absorption is underrated.

Redshift stem and the Canyon VCLS seatpost. 45mm tyre widths too. I have run tyres as wide as 2.1 inches which is really plush but its a dog on the asphalt sections then.

Same here. A simple, elegant design.

Just gonna throw in another recommendation for this, not that you needed it. There are so many washboards on the gravel here in Utah, a little cliche but the shockstop changed things from being nearly unrideable to quite bearable. Cannot recommend it enough.

As others have stated"love my lauf". Fork absorbs a bunch but also lets me run 700 x 2.25 rubber.

You have to determine what is an acceptable level of comfort and how much you are willing to 'pay' for it in terms of weight. When people say, "Oh, 40 mm tires are enough," I want to laugh. If you ride that around here you are going to be doing hike-a-bike a lot.
Comfort is like that.
I went through multiple iterations before I arrived at my present 'gravel' bike.
1. Modified hybrid with 40mm tires. Rigid.
2. Modded mtb frame with 50-55mm tires. Rigid.
3. Modded mtb frame with front suspension fork.
4. Dual suspention mtb with drop bars.
All with some drop bar mods and most with aerobars.
Only when I reached number four did I find an acceptable level of comfort for my roads.
Now I can ride comfortable in any terrain I might encounter and enjoy the descents.
The downside?
It's heavy. That's it. At 31 pounds with everything I need to race and make repairs, except water, it does not climb like an eagle, but man, it can go down fast. And unlike on the pavement, where the downhill cannot make up in a short period what you lose on a long climb, with dual sus I can blow away rigid bikes on downhills.
For me, it is the perfect bike to ride my terrain. I can ride offroad in the aerobars with a headwind even over washboard.
Now, whether that is your terrain type is what you have to decide and you have to reach whatever level of comfort is acceptable.

My Shockstop stem is great, but I believe the Lizard Skin 3.5mm thick bar tape helps almost as much.

What works for me are 75mm wide tires at 7psi (+/-).

No, it's not fast, but comfort?
Just extraordinary.

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