Phatman

I've been riding for a long time, road, mountain, etc. My first grownup bike was a Lemond I bought it 2002 brand new. After that bike, I mostly bought bikes based on how light they were, what components came on it, and how stiff the BB was. I bought a cross bike in 2015 so I could do some cx racing and ride some gravel, I didn't do much research other than looking at reach and stack to see what would fit. Turns out the bike I got is sort of a transition bike from the old school (high/steep) CX to the newer gravel style (long/low/slack) CX bikes. Its a Kona Jake the Snake, and it has a fairly high BB - 63mm and a a fairly short fork offset - 45mm, but a fairly slack HTA - 71.5 and short stays - 425mm

It handled the flatlands/rolling hills where I used to live pretty well. There's a ~15 mile gravel loop by the airport in Raleigh where I used to live, and there's a twisty decent that's a LOT of fun. The Kona handles fantastically on this loop. I suspect that the long trail of the front end is somewhat responsible, its stable and tips in really nice. However, I moved to the mountains a couple years ago, and I'm finding myself doing a lot of long (30ish minutes or so) gravel climbs at 8-9 mph. The Kona is absolutely terrible at this, it wanders all over the place at low speeds. Again, I suspect that trail from the slackish HTA and low fork offset is to blame, ie, steering flop. Its a blast coming down the other side though, it descends better than most XC hardtails do.

So with that in mind, I've been passively looking for a new gravelly/cyclocrossy bike. I want it to hold a line like my road bike while climbing, but descend the other side like my Kona. I also like light, since I climb a lot. The issue I'm having is that geometry is all over the map for gravel bikes. I like the light weight of the Specialized Crux, but would the 72.5 HTA with a 50mm fork offset (for 59mm of trail!) be too sketchy on fast descents? I see that the Orbea Terra uses a 70.5 HTA with a 50mm offset for an extra 10mm off trail, and the Giant Revolt has a whopping 75mm of trail in some sizes!

Or is the answer something in the middle? A few years ago, I bought a Toyota Tacoma because I thought it would be a perfect "middle" type vehicle, I could haul with it, but I could park it in the city easily, road trip with it, etc. I hated it! It got crappy gas mileage, rode and handled badly, couldn't carry a load of compost without the axle sitting on the frame, etc. Basically, it had all of the downsides of a full size truck with none of the upsides of a car. I traded it after 6 months and lost thousands of dollars. I'm worried that if I go with a fence sitter like a Santa Cruz Stigmata or an Ibis Hakka, I'm going to have the worst of both worlds like the Tacoma.

Thoughts? Am I overthinking this? Bikes are so much more expensive these days and I'm worried about spending thousands of dollars and then hating what I buy.