There are highway bikes and there are mountain bikes, and by no means the twain shall meet. A decade or so in the past, that will as effectively have been the governing mantra for biking within the UK. Positive, there have been loads of highway riders with a mountain bike within the shed for winter cross coaching and mufti days, and even a sizeable physique of mountain bikers who would shame-facedly admit, if pushed, to proudly owning a highway bike “only for commuting”. We have been stolidly one or the opposite. However then gravel occurred.
It got here to the UK, like so many issues, from throughout the pond [read our guide to the origins of gravel, here, with contributions from our US editor]. This fatter tyred highway bike, which at first few may differentiate from a cyclocross machine, bemused many people, a minimum of to start with. In any case, the UK expertise of off-road driving tended to be relatively completely different to the pictures of lengthy, straight, dusty doubletrack stretching in the direction of large horizons filtering in from the States.
Gravel will get rolling
(Picture credit score: Future)
“No person can get them, and as soon as they do they don’t know what to do with them,” I used to be informed by one provider in 2020 on the peak of the lockdown bike drought. And if I had a pound for each time I’ve heard gravel bikes known as a fad, I may in all probability purchase a complete set of bikepacking baggage. It wasn’t shocking to listen to this cost levelled at these new machines, which appeared directly so acquainted and but, with their 40mm-plus tyres, so alien. Many people weren’t even certain what they have been known as. Have been they journey bikes, gravel bikes, or have been they each? And what the hell was the distinction?
Over the previous 4 years, we’ve got turn into way more au fait with these new bikes, with each main highway bike producer – together with manufacturers corresponding to Bianchi and Colnago who’ve historically provided high-end highway race bikes – providing a gravel bike. Many even provide a couple of line of such machines. In accordance with the Bicycle Affiliation – which collects gross sales knowledge from bike retailers and on-line retailers – within the 12 months to the top of July 2024, about 30,000 gravel bikes have been bought within the UK, up 15% on the identical interval in 2022-23 and up 284% versus the identical interval pre-Covid. How occasions have modified.
For therefore lengthy, the highway market was led by skilled highway racing. As just lately as 15 years in the past, even funds highway bikes have been usually provided with a full-sized chainset and a titchy ‘25’ on the again, and working pencil-strip 23mm tyres. Invariably the highest tube bore the title of a Tour de France climb. No marvel many riders discovered these bikes intimidating and opted as an alternative for a friendlier hybrid or hardtail mountain bike.
Producers and patrons made step one away from this racing-dictated paradigm within the late Noughties with compact chainsets, larger sprockets after which later, as disc brakes allowed, ever wider tyres. Gravel-type bikes had in actual fact been accessible on the British marketplace for a while – Genesis first launched the Croix de Fer in 2008, albeit marketed as an journey touring machine – however the momentum was steadily rising. Now gravel driving and bikepacking is a market all of its personal.
A rising sector
(Picture credit score: Future)
“It’s had an enormous impression on the kinds, and the combination, of bikes we promote,” says Adam Cross, gross sales supervisor at Pauls Cycles in Dereham, Norfolk, UK. “We’ve discovered that gravel, mixed with e-mountain bikes, are large development areas for us, in keeping with one another.” Provided that Cross was already a devoted gravel rider – he has ridden each version of the Soiled Reiver occasion – Pauls Cycles was poised and prepared when the brand new style started to take off.
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“Personally, I at all times thought it was going to be large,” he mentioned. “I assume we jumped on it and simply went for it.” Pauls Cycles was adequate to offer us an perception into a few of its gravel-related gross sales knowledge, revealing that its gravel bike gross sales had elevated 110% up to now yr, whereas highway bike gross sales had fallen 45%. Ribble Cycles, one among Britain’s greatest bike manufacturers nowadays, can also be investing closely into creating its gravel choices. Industrial director David Stacey informed Cycling Weekly: “Gravel is a very vital a part of our vary, with its personal devoted platform overlaying all supplies from carbon, titanium, metal and alloy. Now we have been on the forefront of creating the self-discipline extra accessible too, and have fashions in our vary that cowl varied value factors.”
As soon as a roadie
Not everyone seems to be satisfied by the brand new development in the direction of gravel driving. Novice rider Ian Brookes, 40, initially from the UK’s Midlands however now dwelling within the USA, tried gravel driving however wasn’t satisfied.
“It’s obtained large worldwide, however the UK isn’t actually good for gravel driving,” he says. “The UK is nice for mountain biking; it’s nice for social household rides alongside the canal with the youngsters, that type of stuff. And it’s nice for roads – we’ve obtained a number of the finest.”
For Brookes, there may be solely a slim habitat during which gravel bikes excel and outperform a highway bike or a mountain bike. He would relatively not compromise. “There’s a really tight window earlier than you want one thing apart from a gravel bike,” he says, “and that frustration is what made me assume, you understand what, I’ve solely obtained so many hours per week to spend on the bike. Do I actually wish to be struggling on a gravel bike, or do I simply wish to go and open up the faucets on a highway bike?” Brookes solutions his personal query. “For me, it’s the feeling of going fast, on a highway, no automobiles, going through-and-off doing 25mph – you’ll be able to’t beat it actually.”
This example is echoed at Liphook Cycles in Hampshire, UK, the place store proprietor Trevor Beauchamp informed us that gross sales of gravel bikes effectively outstripped these of highway machines and had turn into his personal machine of alternative. “Personally, as a man who’s getting on a bit now” – he’s 60, he informed us – “the times of flat-down highway bikes are in all probability not over fully, however you understand, you desire a bit extra consolation. I feel a gravel bike with an extended head tube and fatter tyres goes to make sense,” he mentioned. Beauchamp echoes the views of different riders CW heard from, with the poor state of Britain’s roads usually being singled out as a powerful push issue in the direction of the gravel style.
The added consolation and sturdiness make a gravel bike perfect for commuting day-in, day-out usually in poor climate on tough surfaces. It is sensible to be on one thing just a little extra rugged and predictable than your skittish ‘Sunday finest’ highway bike. Maybe the largest driver in the direction of this new fashion of driving is the discomfort – worry, even – that many riders really feel when sharing the roads with automobiles and vans which are solely rising larger and extra quite a few.
Security and freedom
“I’d had a variety of incidents on the highway that put me off,” says Douglas Jaram, who has turn into a totally signed up gravel rider. A passing driver’s ill-advised overtake was the final straw. “It’s a typical theme, we simply appear to be a gentle goal,” he says. Jaram started gravel driving on a Genesis Datum he had initially purchased for winter coaching. “I began driving on the native trails, and thought, why the hell don’t I simply do extra of this?” he smiles. “I simply went additional and additional afield. It was the proper mixture of having the ability to get away from the visitors whereas nonetheless having the ability to go from A to B – with gravel, the path begins out of your entrance door.”
The World Tour’s gravel renegade
(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
Typically the WorldTour throws up a shock – and different occasions it throws a mind-bending curveball. In a twist that will have been unimaginable 15 years in the past, top-fl ight professional staff EF Schooling expanded its horizons to the purpose the place it now pays Aussie rider Lachlan Morton to experience UK bikepacking occasions.
The staff’s willingness to assist its riders create attention-grabbing tales within the gravel realm away from professional highway driving speaks volumes about how inspirational this new style can look. Morton, 32, has ridden two Grand Excursions, nevertheless it’s his profitable experience within the 2019 GBduro – Land’s Finish to John o’ Groats in lower than 5 days – that he refers to as “probably the most unbelievable expertise of my life”.
Morton final rode within the WorldTour in 2021, and has spent the previous three seasons driving gravel, registering a win within the latest Unbound occasion. “What began as a highway calendar with some ‘various’ occasions thrown in has slowly developed into one thing else fully,” he wrote on Instagram after that victory in June.” I don’t assume @jvaughters would have imagined the place we’d find yourself when he recognized me on the 15-16 USA Nationwide Championship. We didn’t win the Tour de France nevertheless it’s been extra attention-grabbing, in my view.”
Jaram additionally welcomed the change in mindset. “If you add a gravel experience to Strava, individuals aren’t involved in your common velocity – it’s about the place you’ve been.”
Midlands rider David Hazleton has an analogous story to inform. He initially alternated between highway driving, mountain biking and working, however his curiosity was piqued by the rising gravel development, and eight years in the past he bought a mountain bike to purchase his Boardman journey bike. “I didn’t know anybody else with one,” he says, “however regularly they turned increasingly more in style.” Like Jaram, he enjoys having the ability to pair the go-anywhere spirit of the mountain bike with the go-as-far-as-you-like angle of the highway bike, and has performed a variety of century rides on gravel along with his native group. “I do love the truth that on the gravel bike you’ll be able to nonetheless experience highway fairly rapidly,” he says. “I nonetheless do have a highway bike, nevertheless it’s 30 years previous,” he provides
Future tendencies
Whereas some should view gravel driving as a fad, it appears to be like right here to remain. The gravel scene within the US is already large, and rising quick. Will the UK comply with go well with? “I feel we’d be silly to assume in any other case,” says retailer Adam Cross. “It’s definitely an enormous a part of our ahead orders and planning for subsequent yr.” So is that it now, gravel all the best way? Ribble’s David Stacey predicts a “maturation” within the style. “As inside highway and MTB – assume crit racing vs sportives, downhill vs XC – it’s probably that gravel will proceed to specialise and outline its sub-disciplines,” he says. “Mass-participation gravel occasions are prone to balloon in reputation and the native scene will proceed to strengthen.”
Fragmentation inside the gravel style shouldn’t be laborious to envisage. For a lot of, the flexibility of a gravel machine that’s quick on the highway stays very enticing. However producers are additionally pushing the all-terrain finish of the spectrum, with bikes corresponding to Large’s Revolt that includes a suspension fork and sufficient beef to deal with something wanting an MTB downhill run. A part of the fantastic thing about the gravel driving ‘membership’ is that you would be able to be part of it on nearly any bike you want. Previous-school hardtails fitted with drop-bars are usually not unusual, and this latest tackle the gravel bike is near closing that circle. Wherever all of it heads, you might be certain it’ll be someplace wild, attention-grabbing and away from the visitors, largely with a smile.
