I’m going to start this article by addressing a non-issue to put it out of the way completely (because it’s right there, you and I can see it and Yes, it will rear its ugle head at some point when reading this article). I’ll say it straight: Yes, there is totally a point to gravel bikes and they must exist.
Now, that wasn’t particularly hard. The simple reason that gravel bikes must exist is because gravel biking exists in its many forms and guises. People have taken gravel bikes to myriad different places and terrain; to canal towpaths, forest singletrack, poorly surfaced cycling infrastructure, roads of all description and, sometimes, even on gravel. As long as people continue to ride on these surfaces and want a bicycle that can handle them comfortably and adaptively, gravel bikes will always have a place. Based on the current evidence of races, events, societies and even my own anecdotal evidence of riding a bicycle daily, I think it’s safe to say that this kind of bicycling is here to stay.
Now that we’ve put that out of the way, it’s time to address the Real issue with gravel bikes which, to me, is one of semantics.
You see, the trouble with gravel bikes is that I really don’t think they should be called gravel bikes anymore.
We should have seen the signs long ago. As soon as the first person complained that gravel bikes were just ‘90s mountain bikes’ or ‘cross bikes’ or ‘touring bikes,’ we should have dropped the nomenclature collectively as a community, because these complaints are at least partially right. A 90’s mountain bikes can ride the above surfaces with as much aplomb as some modern gravel bikes. A cross bike might well be as fun and agile on off-road surfaces. A touring bike could, potentially, be as adaptable between a range of surface types. Ignoring any obvious differences in performance, bike geometry and specifications between these and modern gravel bikes, gravel bikes as a concept seem to be nothing new.
I know why the term gravel bike exists, though, and that’s because they had to be sold. Names of things that sell need to be catchy, and somehow Bikes That Can Be Ridden On Towpaths, Singletrack, Rubbish Roads, Paths and Even Roads (BTCBROTSRRPaER for short) just doesn’t roll off the tongue. Gravel bikes are called gravel bikes seemingly because they had to be called something.
There is some credence to the theory that the term ‘gravel’ was chosen because, for the originators of the modern gravel bike as we know it, Salsa in the USA, off-road surfaces did actually comprise of gravel. The prototype Salsa Warbird, their first true gravel bike model, raced on some of the United States’ extensive network of gravel roads on events such as Unbound (formerly and appallingly known as Dirty Kanza). Without detailed historical analysis, I can only assume that the Americans started calling them gravel bikes and, when others sprung up in the mould of the Salsa in other parts of the world, the name just followed suit. If it ain’t broke…
In the years since the first Salsa Warbird, we seem to have grown stuck with the term ‘gravel,’ but it just doesn’t stick. The first trouble with gravel bikes is that they aren’t ridden on gravel all the time. Road bikes do, of course, get ridden (mostly) on roads and mountain bikes arguably spend a lot of time on surfaces that are at least inclined upwards or downwards, but unless you live in the USA, Tuscany, parts of the Salisbury Plains or in my case the 2km stretch of gravel tracks near my workplace, gravel bikes will not be ridden on gravel. This is a relatively minor trouble, but does seem to jar.
The second trouble is the somewhat more subjective but serious one of image. Image matters, I think, especially when it comes to an activity like cycling that has blurrily distinguished professional and leisure-based sides. In my experience, the too are easily conflated. While this happens regularly enough in terms of road cycling (“Who do you think you are, Wiggins?” “Lycra lout” “Go Race the Tour de France” etc. etc.) I worry that the semantical proximity of everyday ‘gravel’ riding to ‘gravel’ as an American racing discipline means that they will be conflated too easily. Best get ready for comparisons to Ian Boswell and Amity Rockwell while out on your local towpath.
This conflation is bad enough in that it undermines cycle riders’ utilitarian intentions; but gravel cycling has suffered from a image nightmare of late. The recently-announced Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame shows us a more toxic side of the sport, built as it is on historically colonised land from native Americans and comprising of an almost fully-cis-white-male board of directors. Even the logo is a ‘masculine’ beer cap design. It’s not a great image and I, for one, wish to have no association with it as someone who rides a bike that, for all appearances, is in the mould of these gravel racers.
I don’t think these views exist in an echo chamber. Cycling communities like the incredible Woman, Trans and Non-Binary-led New Forest Off-Road Club have eschewed the term ‘gravel’ right from the start, and in doing so expanded their horizons of riding bicycles off-road. Members of the club use everything from drop bars, to suspension forks, dropper posts and cantilever brakes. In this sense, we are returning to my previous point that people consider gravel bikes to be similar to many other kinds of bikes. And that’s accurate, because they are not a breed unto themselves. The sheer variety of terrain that off-road riding comprises of means that the boundaries of gravel riding are fuzzy at best. Even manufacturers, the original purveyors of the term ‘gravel,’ appear to slowly be having enough of it. See Mason’s ISO for instance - an ‘adventure bike,’ a ‘drop bar bike with progressive geometry’ but a gravel bike? Definitely not.
The term ‘gravel bike’ exists for no particular reason and is loaded and toxic. The community of people and makers who are involved in off-road riding is tightly knit and flourishing. Can we not just lose that unhelpful name and keep doing what is good?
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