Originally Posted by
chas58
Interesting question.
As stated above, the Trek is a little more relaxed and is limited to ~33mm tires, where the 3T can get real fat with 650b tires – but it has more aggressive geometry. What do you want? Tire versatility? Endurance or agile/aero geometry? Fast downhill, or fast handling in the flats?
Typically gravel bikes are relaxed and can take some wide rubber. These two bikes do neither – instead going for opposite extremes of the spectrum (although both are good road bikes, the 3T isn’t an endurance bike and the Trek isn’t effective for a challenging gravel race).
I was looking at similar bikes, and ended up with a Canyon, because it is as fast as those but costs half of what the 3T costs.
I know this is new territory for a lot of people, but pick what you want from this list:
- Narrowish hard pack road/gravel machine
- Endurance geometry for rides <4 hours?
- Ability to do rough gravel and light single track
- Road bike agility vs downhill prowess in loose gravel?
- Aggressive Aero for rides <= 3 hours
- Agility for road or CX riding?
I like the aero geometry that can fit wider tires. That is why i thought the 3T would be a great choice. I think the difference between the 3T and Open bikes is that you sit more up right with the open bike where as the 3t you are more aggressive. I am not sold on the 3T because of the price and because i have heard some issues with them but if i could get something with a similar aggressive geometry that could fit wider tires at a good price point that would be my ticket. I probably need to input the numbers into excel like someone mentioned above but I am just a little inexperienced in understanding how they minor differences affect the handling. I understand that a slacker head tube is less aggressive and the angle of the seat tube has something to do with how far back you sit and so on but when you put them all together its a lot of variables to understand how it feels. I definitely should try to go for some test rides but its definitely hard when they just want you to ride in the parking lot. So i guess I am hoping to narrow my choices down so I can test 2-3 different bikes and choose from them. Bikes like canyon and viathon seem hard because you might have to send it back if it isn't exactly how I want it to fit. Which seems like a huge hassle.