MKahrl

A gravel bike can be a great choice for the type of enthusiast recreational riding you describe.

The one shortcoming I find in many road and gravel bikes is a lack of mounting points for racks and fenders. It's a minor point and you may not be thinking about it when you first make the purchase but bicycles often have long lives and there may come a day when the type of riding you do includes carrying stuff. (Small tools, food, a camera, the jacket of someone you're interested in.)

Look around at other cyclists and you'll see a great many have some sort of provision for carrying stuff and depending on the bike's design the solution varies from elegant to god-awful.

redlude97

Having owned a range of "road" bikes from crit bikes, endurance, cross, gravel, and bikepacking all of which get ridden on pavement regularly I'd say even if you don't race on the road there are substantial differences in how they feel cornering, sprinting and climbing etc. to say they are all the same.

rms13

Yes, but for the average rider there isn't a significant difference. The average recreational rider today is being sold a endruance geo bike with discs that takes 700x28 tires. The average "gravel" bike has close to if not the same geo as a endurance bike, has same disc brakes and can fit 700x28 road tires but can also fit 700x37 or 40 tires or 650b. If you want to race crits AND go bike camping AND race cross then sure maybe 3 dedicated bikes are for you but that's not the impression I get from OP's post

jimmyjames

You only need the one (gravel) bike. I also have a GT Grade, and it's the commuting and rain bike I wish I always would have had. With 30mm Schwalbe S-one tubeless I don't really notice any speed difference from my Scott CR1 (on 23s) I used to commute on--but it is soo much more comfortable and pleasurable on crappy pavement. The reduced attention needed because you're not scanning for every crack in the road was a revelation. The handling is a bit slower, but it turns out I prefer that in town for dodging obstacles. It's heavier than my 16 pound CR1, but unless I'm going for an uphill PR or hilly weekend ride I still prefer to be on the GT for the comfort (and hydro discs). I anticipated immediately swapping out the flared handlebar but on gravel and descents the extra width in the drops gives a nice measure of control--the hoods are in a narrower position and is your most aero position, so if I want to get small and low I feel that I can. Definitely try before you buy: I test rode a Diamondback Haanjo and it was a snooze, giving that front-of-a-tandem feeling another mentioned. I also went a bit down in size to a 55 rather than 56 (5' 11" with longer legs).

HTupolev

Yes. If the gravel bike fits and it's set up in your normal road posture, if it provides the gearing you need for road riding, and if the tires are fast, then it's pretty much a road bike. Depending on what you're doing and what the particular fat tires you're using are, this can be true even if you don't bother with a separate wheelset.

My gravel bike is a cheap drop-bar conversion of a 1984 Stumpjumper. Very far from a traditional road bike: absurdly high mechanical trail, 475mm chainstays (!!!), full-length fenders...
But it's fit like my road bikes. While it's 3x7 drivetrain provides me with bailout gears for mountainous gravel riding, it also gives me gears up to 113 inches and - through a 1.5-step scheme - tightly-spaced gears for fast road riding. And although the 53mm Rat Trap Pass ELs that it wears most of the time are a very wide tire, they're built like a high-performance road tire.
Because the bike is very heavy (33lbs!), and perhaps also slightly because of the completely ridiculous front-end geometry, it climbs dramatically worse than my Emonda: about 6-7% speed deficit (!!!) up steep hills. But otherwise, although it feels nothing like a road bike to ride, it performs surprisingly closely in line with my "real" road bikes: plenty of my paved PRs and even a few KOMs are on the Stumpy, and when I take it to the same group rides, for the most part I ride with similarly-composed pacelines. During the winter time, when people start busting out their tough urban tires, the Stumpy actually becomes a stronger performer than a lot of road racing bikes.

The bikes you're looking at are fancier and far more road-like than my Stumpy. They'll still feel a little different from a pure road bike, but if you fit them roadishly and use tires that roll fast on the road, I don't think the performance will differ very tangibly at all.

canyoneagle

My old commuting rig was one of the early "gravel grinder" bikes, and I found it to be extremely versatile. Mine was tailored for commuting (internally geared hub, racks, lights, etc) but I could have easily set it up for a little lighter recreational duty with a conventional drivetrain and more svelte wheels.
FWIW when I lived in SLC my daily commute varied from about 10 miles to 18 miles each way (moved locally during my time in that city). The longer commute also entailed an 800 foot climb from the valley to the neighborhood I lived in.

Even mine, with all of its extra stuff, was a wonderful bike to ride. At the time, it was my only bike. I've since sold it, but to date it is the most practical bike I've owned

In my opinion, unless you are racing or needing a dedicated bike for road riding, a modified gravel bike / cx bike is a great choice. There's less flexibility with a full-on road bike.

Zaskar

I'm not saying you a dedicated bike for every type of ride you do, but ^that^ is not accurate. Among other things, there are significant differences in the geometries of road vs gravel bikes.

JayNYC

First I want to say thanks to everyone who responded. Most of the comments were right on target with personal experiences that were the kind of thing I needed to hear. The consensus seems to be that for the type of riding I'll be doing, the gravel bike will be a completely decent road bike (after I put a different set of wheels on it).

Gearing was a common comment and to that point. NYC has hills, they're not as bad as some places (e.g. I rode in Vancouver last month and suddenly couldn't ride as far as I usually do because of all the hills), but we've definitely got hills. My current bike has horrible gearing for hill climbing (lowest gear is 36 gear inches), which makes hill climbing unpleasant. Meanwhile I'm not (yet) at the skill level where I speed down hills. I doubt there will be many times when I spin out on the gravel bike gearing. And as one of you pointed out, I'm only really missing the 50x11 gear – the Felt tops out at 48x11.

Can someone be a bit more specific and technical in quantifying what's meant by those two statements. Zaskar hinted that one of the criteria might be wheelbase. But on the specs I laid out above, how exactly do they differ from an endurance road bike? Wheelbase? Head tube angle? Rake/Trail? And how much of a difference are we talking about?

For example, Felt is just released the Breed and the Broam – the Breed is a "gravel" bike, the Broam is an "adventure bike". I suspect that the Broam's geometry has more of the compromises you're talking about, where the Breed is closer to a road bike. Even among gravel bikes there's a lot of variation. The new Cannondale Topstone and the new(ish) Trek Checkpoint both have pretty low bottom brackets (75-76mm drop). Not as low as the Diverge (which is crazy low – 85mm), but low enough that you can't really swap out wheelsets without running into problems. I ran into one sales guy who had just purchased a Checkpoint and thought the Jari was too CXish / sporty – he liked how relaxed the Checkpoint was. The point being tell me exactly the specs you see that aren't road-like and how much variation we're talking about and I can re-evaluate the various gravel options based on those criteria… Or point me to your idea of an ideal endurance road bike, and I'll figure out the differences myself.

Occasionally I do encounter some pretty rocky trails. Unlike some places our gravel options are pretty limited around here, and at least one one of the trails I'm most interested in is rather challenging on my current bike with 700C x 42. But yeah, much of the time 700C x 40ish is a perfectly good choice. That's what I have now and it's given me the opportunity to experiment a lot with different types of riding (a jack of all, master of none sort of scenario).

redlude97

Generally, more wheelbase, less BB drop, and more trail compared to an endurance road bike.

JayNYC

That was helpful. Thanks.

And yeah, I need to do some test rides. Problem is some of the bikes that are top contenders are so new that no one has them in stock. Or, despite the fact that everyone I know who wants a new bike wants a gravel bike, the LBSs just aren't ordering them and stocking them. Partly because of the struggles of being an LBS these days (they want to keep their overhead low), and partly because they don't really understand gravel bikes well enough because they're a rapidly evolving category and there's very little actual gravel around so they don't understand how gravel relates to an NYC rider. Now that Interbike is over and all the 2019 models are released, I'll start calling around in a week or two to find who's got what in stock.

Rock71

I don't disagree with wanting different rims and tires for road use. Here is a little info on the Carbon Jari coming soon. https://www.velostreet.com/en/produc...-carbon.26527/

rms13

Significant enough that the average (non competitive race) rider will notice? A gravel bike may be more stable and have slower handling which may be preferable to someone that's not racing.

canyoneagle

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JayNYC

Thanks for quantifying it. I just did a quick check looking at the Specialized Allez (Elite) that I rode in Vancouver last month, and the Tarmac Comp (which at least sounded like a decent pure road bike) and…

"More wheelbase" is definitely true - about 4mm.

"Less BB Drop" – eh, there's so much variation in BB drop with gravel bikes I don't think anyone can say that. You've got CX bikes with a pretty moderate drop and stuff like the Checkpoint, Topstone and Diverge with tons of BB drop. The Allez Elite felt pretty low to me (BB height was 256), whereas the Tarmac Comp has a BB height of 262. I've read the "ideal" road bike BB height is ~265, so those numbers don't surprise me. But the two gravel bikes I mentioned above match those numbers – 260 to 265 with 700x25 wheels on.

"More trail" – here you're spot on as well. The Allez & Tarmac were low to mid 50s, where gravel bikes (with skinny tires on) tend to be 60ish to 70ish. The rakes/offsets are comparable, but the head tube angles are slacker with gravel bikes.

Thanks. With some gravel bikes the carbon versions are only a half pound lighter than the aluminum version. With the Jari it seems they've got quite a weight savings (18.5 lbs vs 21). But, for me, aluminum is probably "good enough".

HTupolev

There are a lot of interpretations of what a gravel bike is and how it should ride. Most are somewhere between road and MTB in front-end geometry. Some that are trying hard to feel like road bikes, like the Open U.P., have trail figures very similar to traditional road bikes. There are a few people out there who are even doing the vintage gravel randonneur thing and using a low-trail geometry (like 40mm) in an attempt to get the bike to handle more road-bike-esque when it's using a handlebar bag.

The choice has a gigantic impact on how a bike feels, although I think the actual performance implications for paved road riding are very subtle.

redlude97

I agree that you can adapt quickly especially if its a primary bike. Since I rotate between 3 very different bikes with huge trail number differences(sometimes I'll even be hopping off the commuter/gravel bike right onto the cyclocross bike) its very obvious the differences. Performance wise is probably a lot smaller, I show up to group rides on my gravel bike regularly

Dean V

Any increased trail, wheelbase etc on a gravel bike may make it feel a bit more sluggish on the road but won't actually make it any slower.

bjornart

+1 for Jari! I have the 1.5 (2017) with 1x11 and it's the most versatile bike I've owned.

Compared to my Transonic 1.5 di2, it's a bit slower and responds a bit more delayed as expected, but is more comfortable and sturdy to ride.

With a more upright riding position, you have to put a few more watts into your pedals on group rides, but it's my go to bike for hill repeats (I use a Stages power meter). Also great for coffee shop, super market, work and winter riding. Living in Norway I use tyres with studs during winter which works great!

You can use the Jari for bikepacking also - lots of mounting options on the frame.

And the handlebar makes the bike more stable on the downhill because the bars point outward.

DaleW

A gravel bike with smooth supple tires like Compass brand or WTB Horizon will handle city streets with all the lumps and bumps, trolley tracks, bricks and cobblestones and other urban terrors. Would it be as fast in a typical peloton and racing? No.

Scoreboy

Have you looked at like Trek Domane SL 5 disk? it comes with 32mm slicks which are ok on mild gravel. Then you can get some Schwalbe G-1 35mm tires for gravel if you want to get rowdy.
Only mentioning it because I was looking for the same thing and I just got it last week, love it so far.

drdave18

My first thought was: move out of Manhattan to someplace decent for bike riding. For what you must pay to live there, you could buy a house with a three car garage in a lot of great places in the West and have as many bikes as you want!

JayNYC

My criteria are 700C x 40+ and 650b x 47+. The CAADX is on my secondary list because it comes close – 700x38 and (according to WTB) it can handle a 650x47. But I don't want to go lower than those numbers. It will just result in an N+1 scenario when I want what I wanted all along a couple years later.

Manhattan is one of those places where (in the long run) you can live for free if time your real estate purchases right (by getting everything you spent on mortgage, etc. back in appreciation when you sell). Plus, my husband's (tenured) job is in downtown Brooklyn, so there are only so many places that are even possible. And Manhattan is actually pretty incredible for cycling. I'm close to Central Park, not far from the GW Bridge (for good road cycling and some gravel), and it's not hard to get up to Westchester County for some great trails (paved and gravel). And when I do want to get out of the City, I'm just a few blocks from a MetroNorth station. About the only thing I'm missing is miles and miles of gravel farm roads like I just rode last week in Michigan.

Skipjacks

It's funny how different people can be. All the things people say they love about NYC, the easy access to downtown, the big buildings, the tons of people, the ability to do things 24/7.....are all the things I hate about NYC and what makes me happy to live far away from a city.

I'm not dissing you for liking NYC. I just think its' funny how massively different 2 human beings can be, yet we still find common ground on how fun gravel farm roads are to bike on.

It's kinda cool.

idc

In my experience, yes, it can be a "good" road bike. But not great.

I sold my old CX "race" bike and converted my old road geo bike to a fixed gear a bit over a year ago, and planned to ride a newly purchased modern carbon gravel bike (Salsa Warbird) for everything.

The Warbird with mid-depth carbon road wheels/tires rolls fast in a paceline, and sprints fine. But it's not so great on turns as it handles slowly. And once the road goes up beyond about 5-10% it feels a bit less sprightly a climber compared to my old alumin[i]um road bike. Between the looong wheelbase (esp. the front-center), the very slack head tube angle it's definitely more suited to bumpy gravel. It's possible that the comfort baked into the rear end and longer chainstays affect the power transfer too, but I'm not sure.

For smoother gravel and CX racing I would actually prefer my old CX bike (actually: especially for CX racing). And on fast group rides, for anything with sharp cornering and/or sprinty hills I'd prefer a more aggressive road geometry.

I do love the Warbird on bigger, harsh, rockier gravel, esp on the descents - and for just general road riding it's fine too. I also have a spare, cheap Al road bike which has a very tall "endurance road" head tube but otherwise typical modern road geometry (short wheelbase, steepish seat tube, etc), and a steel road-geometry single speed - I find both handle and climb a little better (at least relative to their respective weight).

I have actually considered getting a "race" geometry CX bike again, or even just a plain road bike again mostly for the faster group rides. But I don't really race often nor at a very competitive level so I haven't (yet).

One other point I've considered: it may depend a bit on your size. I'm not heavy (<140lbs) and I almost never run anything larger than 32mm tires even though my gravel bike clears 44mm. I imagine the differences between having wider tires/lower pressure/etc. are bigger for larger folks, and in that case it may make more sense to have a gravel bike. In my case, in hindsight, it almost feels like overkill as I used to just do gravel on my CX bike with no problems. And conversely, even the minor differences in geometry between my road bikes and my gravel bike are enough to affect my smaller frame/power output.

u235

My gravel bike is my road bike or visa versa. I do have two sets of wheels/tires but they are not much different (same wheels, different tires). One slightly better off road and the other slightly better on road, both are 40c. I am not winning any races on or off road but it's not the bikes fault. I'm more a solo guy but I occasionally do group rides and easily hang. Bike still dirty muddy and my short drop flared bars and all. If you are road riding with a group and can't hang with bike A and you think you can with bike B, then get bike B or upgrade your motor. Only you can decide that. I don't think I'll ever ride a bike with less than 35c tires and standard compact bars again. I'm not feeling any penalty, only feeling more comfort and control. Don't worry about what random people think or if you are "doing it wrong", it's your bike, your money, your ride, and your experience.