Cycling UK Forum

Hi fellow bikers
Need some advice on gravel biking please. So I come from a MTB background and over the last 12 months have been doing some 100 - 200 miler trails. Trails like Dales 300, Trans Cambrian, Brecon Beacons and Black mountains. These routes as you probably know are a mix of gravel and some old school traditional MTB single track over isolated moorland. Ive completed these rides on a full sus mountain bike not an xc bike more of a enduro set up. My question is whilst there are good fire road, bridleway and double track on these routes theres also some rock gardens that would seem quite sever for a carbon gravel bike. But tame for a full sus or managable for an XC bike. I love the fact that the Gravel bike will be lighter and help me on the climbs, as I usually try to push between 80 to 100 miles each day. My dilema is what is the best XC hardtail or Gravel. Any advice and info much appreciated.

Welcome.

How much do you want to spend?

Jonathan

Do you mean ‘best’ for the routes you’ve already covered? If so, presumably you know the balance of conditions, so are best placed to judge.

Or, do you mean ‘best’ in some wider sense? In which case unless you have particular routes in mind, flipping a coin might be as good a way of answering as any.

As a footnote: there are lots of very nice steel and titanium bikes, of a wide range of geometries in the ‘gravel’ realm, and there are bikes with limited amounts of suspension too. It’s a continuum, with CX bikes at one end and hard tail 29ers at the other, rather than a fixed point, and you might find a sweet spot by choosing, say, a bike at the more MTB end of the scale, with tyres c50mm, a bit of suspension, and spinny bottom gears, but still having reasonably high top ratios. I know nuffink about this type of bike, but here’s a big selection:

https://bikepacking.com/index/drop-bar- ... ikes-29er/

Thanks for the replies guys. Was thinking of the vitus venon evo gr on chain reactions its at 2500 at the moment 8.5kg ish and can run upto 4.8 tyres. Although the steel and Ti options have crossed my mind some great bikes put there. Good point also about the terrain as well, in my mind i want to ride quicker, i want to crunch out the miles and the climbs my current mtb is 15.5kg and im carrying about 10kg of back packing stuff. Im trying to understand if it would be a noticable difference regrading weight and geometry, and terrain or is it just a head game that doesnt make that much difference. Could be a case of a bad tradesman blaming his tools.

If you factor your own weight into the equation, you might find that the % weight reduction that can be achieved isn’t huge, but having a different riding stance, and possibly higher top gears ought to help on the uphills (stance) and the easier bits (stance and higher gears). I’ve added a link to a big long list of the sorts of bikes I was thinking of to my previous post.

PS: when they weighed that bike, what tyres did it have on it??

PPS: It looks to be at the racier end of gravel, so it might not be much fun on really rough ground.

How about:

https://alpkit.com/collections/sonder-broken-road

Ti hardtail MTB built for exactly that sort of riding - long distance / bikepacking / trail riding, it'll do laden with bags or stripped right down for speed.

Hey thanks again guys, will take a look at the sonder for sure. Regard the weight and tyres on the vitus they said its weighted with tubeless and i assume its the tryes that come with it 40c. Thanks

Can I bang on about the gears thing?

I’m a right slow old puffer, but regularly overhaul younger, fitter MTB riders on easier bits of route simply by having higher top gears.

The vast majority seem to have 1x setups with maybe a 30T at the front and smallest cog 10, so 3:1 gearing, legs going round like mad, and in a bad posture for putting power through, whereas I’m at maybe 4.5:1 with legs at a nice steady tread, in a far better posture for that job.

Now, those guys can take horrendous downhills through masses of tree roots that I daren’t go near, and they can actually fly (one of them sailed past me in mid air as I was gingerly picking my way down a slope), so it’s swings and roundabouts, but it is very hard to go fast on spinny gears, sitting up like you’re in church. At minimum, you need decent top gears.

100miles+ on a FS MTB.. good effort!

You'll find the Gravel Bike night and day different. If you watch some gravel biking on YouTube, you'll see the sort of terrain where they hope off and carry.

You'll be much faster on the gravel bike, but some of the 'fun stuff' you will probably need to dismount. That said as your on a stiff faster machine there is more fun stuff.

Basically it's going to come down to what your priorities are.. distance/speed. Or not getting out the saddle..

I have a Gravel bike, and hard tail. And i hire or borrow a FS every now and again. Speed/distance is not of huge importance for me. I mainly use the Hard tail for leisure rides with groups and the Gravel for commuting/occasionally exploring by myself..

That's Vitus looks a nice machine and with the discounts a bit of a bargain..

Depends on your tolerances. My clubs weekly gravel ride (tonight) sees us doing everything from forestry tracks to slippery singletrack and descents with stones like bricks as well as the local red and blue runs. Bikes are no different to 80s MTb except for the better brakes, tubeless tyres, less weight and better postions.

I ride a hardtail and gravel bike up at Hamsterley.
No way would i ride the gravel bike on red routes and even some of the descents on the wide tracks are unpleasant without any front suspension.
As for climbing,yes the gravel bike is quicker,but i actually prefer the single ring set up of the hardtail to the double of the gravel. Where the double comes into its own is on road sections.