I remember quite clearly the first time I encountered the term gravel bike, and it was circa 2008 or 2009, either from Sea Otter or NAHBS coverage. And associated with, I’m pretty sure, the original Salsa Warbird. And yes, we did laugh, because it was obviously just a cyclocross bike with disc brakes and a lower bottom bracket. It seemed a bit silly. But we were wrong about the appeal of it as a category. The rise of gravel bikes was also helped a lot by I think a general increase of interest in “adventure” style recreation in popular culture - think Spartan Race or Tough Mudder vs a 5k. And the rest is history as they say.
Originally Posted by
dwmckee
The propper term as I understand it is an Allroad bike
Originally Posted by
dwmckee
and Jan Heine from Bicycle Quarterly coined the term to categorize the bikes he rides that are designed for great performance on both fire roads he rides in the Cascades and the paved roads used to access them.. I am guessing by 2004/5 or so, but not sure. The phrase never caught on much though and the mutch catchier name of Gravel Bike took over by around 2010 roughly.
Jan Heine is certainly a character and he sells
some nice tires. But I wouldn’t regard him as an authority on gravel bikes per se. He’s long been a proponent of old-style road bikes from about the mid-century period in Europe that were designed for the kinds of road surfaces that were common in that time and place. While these bikes share some features with gravel bikes, there’s no familial connection - gravel bikes evolved from cyclocross bikes, which evolved from the road racing bikes of the post-war period. Very much not the audax and randoneeuring machines that Heine admires so much.