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Who else is using a gravel bike as a road bike? What is the trade off (if any)?

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Road Cycling “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.” -- Ernest Hemingway

Who else is using a gravel bike as a road bike? What is the trade off (if any)?

Old 07-18-20, 03:18 PM
  #26  
jnesss
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Originally Posted by kosmo886
mid imagine changing gearing and tires on the gravel would eliminate 95% of the difference? Is that likely accurate? Not sure if you have a 1x or something on the gavel, but that would certainly be a fairly big difference.
​​​​on a road bike, it's easier to go further while maintaining a higher speed for a longer period of time
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Old 07-18-20, 03:45 PM
  #27  
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Originally Posted by kosmo886
mid imagine changing gearing and tires on the gravel would eliminate 95% of the difference? Is that likely accurate? Not sure if you have a 1x or something on the gavel, but that would certainly be a fairly big difference.
Yes, this is an option. My road wheels for my gravel bike have a 12-25 cassette, vs. the 11-34 on the gravel wheel. The tighter cog spacing is useful on road rides (terrain dependent). With the 46/30 crank I know I can maintain mid to hi 20’s with the 12-25, but that’s about all I can do anyway and it’s usually downhill, so it’s not like I miss the 50 ring and an 11 tooth cog, of my road bike. But as I mentioned earlier, it’s also the added bike weight which slows down acceleration as well as larger tires at lower pressure that seemingly do not roll as quick. Thus in IME experience you can make a gravel bike into an OK road bike, but if you hop on a 17 lbs carbon road bike, it’s going to feel quicker. How important that is, is really up to the user as to they’re needs.
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Old 07-18-20, 04:28 PM
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Originally Posted by jnesss
​​​​on a road bike, it's easier to go further while maintaining a higher speed for a longer period of time
Yes but, easier is relative. For many, it would be unmeasurable or very insignificant if it were...
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Old 07-18-20, 04:29 PM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by DrIsotope
If 7lbs of variance is good for 8% difference in speed/effort, then what's 1-2lbs gonna do? Even as a thought exercise, what's the point of this? A lighter bike on narrower tires will get you there 8% faster. How much are you willing to spend to "save" those 6-8 minutes a day?

My CX bike is steel, has absolutely zero done ot it in the name of weight savings, and is a hair over 20lbs with nothing on it (no electronics, no spares, no cages, no pedals) but that weight figure is meaningless.
How do you calculate the 8%? Is the 7 lbs 8% of the entire system weight (bike and rider)?
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Old 07-18-20, 04:31 PM
  #30  
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Yes, I have a 1x with 40t up front.
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Old 07-18-20, 04:40 PM
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A lot of the comments have a theme that their road bike with skinnier tires feels faster. The key here is perception of being faster is different than actually faster. Wider tires up to 38 mm are shown in every test to be as quick or quicker than narrow tires. The twitchy harsh riding sensations you get from a traditional hard core race bike give the feeling of being faster but that’s rarely the case.
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Old 07-18-20, 04:50 PM
  #32  
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Bought a set of DT Swiss road wheels with 700x32 GP5000s tires for my Look 765 RS. This seems to climb and accelerate about the same as my Look 585. But the wider tires are sooo much smoother. And the gravel bike's steering is more stable. Very comfortable. With the road wheels it's maybe a couple of pounds heavier. Lighter riders might notice the additional weight, but I am not a lightweight. I'll just say I never ride my 585 now. Today I inadvertently ended up on a couple of stretches of dirt and gravel roads. The 32 tires did really well.
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Old 07-18-20, 04:50 PM
  #33  
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Originally Posted by yarbrough462
How do you calculate the 8%? Is the 7 lbs 8% of the entire system weight (bike and rider)?
I've ridden the same 50km route literally dozens of times with both bikes (both with power meters,) so I have a reasonable idea of what kind of effort is involved to obtain an "average," as well as "tempo" time/effort. The overall average is right at 100 minutes, with the lighter road bike coming in a few minutes under, and the heavier 1X cross bike coming in a little bit over. About 2-3 minutes behind the cross bike is my SSCX-- which gives up between 10 and 21 gears, but only a few minutes in time. about half of the time is lost on the ascent, and the other half on the descent-- 48/18 (SSCX) and 44/10 (CX) struggle to match the downhill velocity of 50/11.

The CX bike has covered the route on a variety of tires, none of which have impacted the average time by more than that same 2-3 minute gap. Currently the CX is on 700x30 (34 measured) WTB Exposures, and the road on 700x23 (25 nominal) IRC RaceLites.

Some of the more recent efforts. Matched Rides on Strava is new, so it doesn't go back very far for some reason-- it's also super specific, so even one or two different turns can break the "match" off two rides.

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Old 07-18-20, 05:21 PM
  #34  
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Originally Posted by DrIsotope
I've ridden the same 50km route literally dozens of times with both bikes (both with power meters,) so I have a reasonable idea of what kind of effort is involved to obtain an "average," as well as "tempo" time/effort. The overall average is right at 100 minutes, with the lighter road bike coming in a few minutes under, and the heavier 1X cross bike coming in a little bit over. About 2-3 minutes behind the cross bike is my SSCX-- which gives up between 10 and 21 gears, but only a few minutes in time. about half of the time is lost on the ascent, and the other half on the descent-- 48/18 (SSCX) and 44/10 (CX) struggle to match the downhill velocity of 50/11.

The CX bike has covered the route on a variety of tires, none of which have impacted the average time by more than that same 2-3 minute gap. Currently the CX is on 700x30 (34 measured) WTB Exposures, and the road on 700x23 (25 nominal) IRC RaceLites.

Some of the more recent efforts. Matched Rides on Strava is new, so it doesn't go back very far for some reason-- it's also super specific, so even one or two different turns can break the "match" off two rides.

So it's not all the weight? It's tough to compare with different gearing.
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Old 07-18-20, 06:39 PM
  #35  
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Originally Posted by yarbrough462
So it's not all the weight? It's tough to compare with different gearing.
It's not that tough at all, because weight is likely the least significant factor. Take for example the two activities right next to one another, separated by just one second: Riding less = riding faster, and Pretty decent. Between those two efforts, the road bike was one second quicker, on seven fewer watts. So in that matchup, the power difference between the two was less than 4%. This is why I go off of averages taken from multiple rides. Getting lucky with lights/traffic might account for +/-2 minutes on the total time.

IME, weight only becomes an issue when it's excessive. Times would start getting further apart if one of the bikes was +30lbs. But 8-10lbs certainly isn't a dealbreaker. Again-- not racing. Just riding.
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Old 07-18-20, 07:17 PM
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Originally Posted by velopig
A lot of the comments have a theme that their road bike with skinnier tires feels faster. The key here is perception of being faster is different than actually faster. Wider tires up to 38 mm are shown in every test to be as quick or quicker than narrow tires. The twitchy harsh riding sensations you get from a traditional hard core race bike give the feeling of being faster but that’s rarely the case.
Wrong.
Depending on the road surface of coarse but generally on any normal road a tyre around 25mm is fastest if you are a reasonably fast cyclist.
Which strangely is exactly what the racers use!
Personally I have used tyres over 30mm and found them to be consistently slower than my 25mm tyres.
As I am a fairly average cyclist this difference would only be magnified if you were fast and the aero component became a larger factor in the total drag.
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Old 07-18-20, 07:27 PM
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Originally Posted by DrIsotope
It's not that tough at all, because weight is likely the least significant factor. Take for example the two activities right next to one another, separated by just one second: Riding less = riding faster, and Pretty decent. Between those two efforts, the road bike was one second quicker, on seven fewer watts. So in that matchup, the power difference between the two was less than 4%. This is why I go off of averages taken from multiple rides. Getting lucky with lights/traffic might account for +/-2 minutes on the total time.

IME, weight only becomes an issue when it's excessive. Times would start getting further apart if one of the bikes was +30lbs. But 8-10lbs certainly isn't a dealbreaker. Again-- not racing. Just riding.
Agreed on all points.
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Old 07-18-20, 07:29 PM
  #38  
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Originally Posted by Dean V
Wrong.
Depending on the road surface of coarse but generally on any normal road a tyre around 25mm is fastest if you are a reasonably fast cyclist.
Which strangely is exactly what the racers use!
Personally I have used tyres over 30mm and found them to be consistently slower than my 25mm tyres.
As I am a fairly average cyclist this difference would only be magnified if you were fast and the aero component became a larger factor in the total drag.
As I mentioned real world testing has showed your premise wrong. Only in laboratory conditions with completely smooth test drums do narrow tires come out ahead and even then marginally.
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Old 07-18-20, 07:29 PM
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Originally Posted by Dean V
Wrong.
Depending on the road surface of coarse but generally on any normal road a tyre around 25mm is fastest if you are a reasonably fast cyclist.
Proof? I have road bikes with both 25mm and 32mm tires, both GP5000s. Neither is faster than the other for me. The 32mm bike is way more comfortable though...
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Old 07-18-20, 10:12 PM
  #40  
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I have an 2008 Specialized Roubaix Comp and a 2018 Niner RLT RDO gravel bike. With cages and pedals, they both weigh 19.8 lbs as currently configured.

I ride them interchangeably on the road, and I have two sets of wheels for the Niner. My road wheels are November RCG 36 carbon running 30mm Schwalbe Pro One tubeless. The Roubaix has Hed Belgium rims with 25mm Conti GP 4000s (tubed).

I don’t have a power meter but in real world riding based on Strava segments and the groups I ride with my performance seems to be the same regardless of the bike. The Niner has a 34/34 low gear, and with the larger tubeless tires I run lower pressure (66/78, I weigh ~200 lbs). So if I know a particular route will have poorer roads and/or some really steep bits, I will take the Niner specifically. Other than that I just tend to switch between them without much thought. So IME a gravel bike with nice wheels and road tires makes a fine road bike. There is a little difference in the geometry, I can tell the Roubaix turns a bit quicker, but the Niner doesn’t feel sluggish.
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Old 07-19-20, 01:14 AM
  #41  
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Originally Posted by yarbrough462
Proof? I have road bikes with both 25mm and 32mm tires, both GP5000s. Neither is faster than the other for me. The 32mm bike is way more comfortable though...
Proof!
Not a single serious road racer rides tyres that big.
Sure in the past roadies have been slow to break with tradition but there are plenty out there now that are willing to try new things and test everything to get any advantage they can.
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Old 07-19-20, 02:04 AM
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Originally Posted by Dean V
Wrong.
Depending on the road surface of coarse but generally on any normal road a tyre around 25mm is fastest if you are a reasonably fast cyclist.
Which strangely is exactly what the racers use!
Personally I have used tyres over 30mm and found them to be consistently slower than my 25mm tyres.
As I am a fairly average cyclist this difference would only be magnified if you were fast and the aero component became a larger factor in the total drag.
The benefit does not come from tire width but lower pressure. Silca has a pretty good blog explaining this, as does Tom Anhalt, but the gist of it is - as you increase tire pressure, rolling resistance improves. But vibration losses (due to imperfect roads- and even good asphalt is fairly imperfect) increase - and after a point, they increase very rapidly. There is an optimal pressure at which point total rolling losses are minimized - but if you go a bit higher in pressure, you lose a LOT more wattage than you if you go lower.

So the takeaway is that unless you are riding super smooth asphalt all the time, lower pressure is better. Is it 50-60psi? Probably not... but definitely lower than 100-110psi.

The problem, until recently, is that rim brakes did not allow very wide tires and as a result, running low pressures meant the risk of pinch flats. The advent of disc brakes has allowed riders to run wider tires (which, for a given tire pressure, result in lower RR and overall lower total rolling losses). This is developing science as we speak, and the fact that all the new aero wheels coming out are all optimized around 28-32mm tires supports this. Racers are generally very resistant to changing what works for them, but i do suspect that over the next few years, there is going to be a shift to wider tires.
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Old 07-19-20, 03:34 AM
  #43  
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Originally Posted by guadzilla
The problem, until recently, is that rim brakes did not allow very wide tires
Yes they did. The technology to make lightweight, stiff rim brakes that can handle large (up to around 2") tires has been available since at least the 1930s. The gravel cyclists of that era put a ton of emphasis on figuring it out. Properly-set-up old-school wide-profile cantis work quite well, as do the dual-pivot centerpull calipers of the 1950s. The leverage isn't as high as on modern sidepulls, but that's not a critical issue in most reasonable setups of the era (since people weren't trying to manage technical terrain on the hoods), nor would it have been technologically difficult to solve (i.e. make the arms slightly longer).

Last edited by HTupolev; 07-19-20 at 03:54 AM.
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Old 07-19-20, 04:02 AM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by HTupolev
Yes they did. The technology to make lightweight, stiff rim brakes that can handle large (up to around 2") tires has been available since at least the 1930s. The gravel cyclists of that era put a ton of emphasis on figuring it out. Properly-set-up old-school wide-profile cantis work quite well, as do the dual-pivot centerpull calipers of the 1950s. The leverage isn't as high as on modern sidepulls, but that's not a critical issue in most reasonable setups of the era (since people weren't trying to manage technical terrain on the hoods), nor would it have been technologically difficult to solve (i.e. make the arms slightly longer).
I think it's fair to state that "typical" rim brakes made it difficult to accept larger tires like 32mm. There are decent 57mm brakes out there that open up enough to use large tires, but they're not common. Most people just use whatever comes on the bike, 105, Ultegra, SRAM, etc...and then find that they have a very difficult time getting a 32mm tire on the bike. It can be done, but needs some thought.
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Old 07-19-20, 04:12 AM
  #45  
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Originally Posted by Steve B.
I think it's fair to state that "typical" rim brakes made it difficult to accept larger tires like 32mm.
For new OEM products in 2020, yes. My point is that this is more an issue of fashion than technology. A few decades ago it was totally normal for rim brakes to accept 32mm tires with healthy clearance to spare, and this was even true of road calipers (although lightweight mid-reach single-pivots are generally pretty spongy).
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Old 07-19-20, 11:19 AM
  #46  
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Originally Posted by HTupolev
Yes they did. The technology to make lightweight, stiff rim brakes that can handle large (up to around 2") tires has been available since at least the 1930s. The gravel cyclists of that era put a ton of emphasis on figuring it out. Properly-set-up old-school wide-profile cantis work quite well, as do the dual-pivot centerpull calipers of the 1950s. The leverage isn't as high as on modern sidepulls, but that's not a critical issue in most reasonable setups of the era (since people weren't trying to manage technical terrain on the hoods), nor would it have been technologically difficult to solve (i.e. make the arms slightly longer).
Fair point. I have had a pair of Tektro long-reach calipers on my steel bike since 2014, that comfortably fit 35mm tires. But the typical Dura Ace/Ultegra groupset did not allow for larger tires, nor did the typical race-oriented bike.

I am sure if the science behind rolling resistance had been as evolved 15-20 years ago, we would have seen this. I know HED has been talking about the benefit of wider wheels providing more stability for quite a few years, but the first i have started hearing about wider/softer = faster has been recently.
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Old 07-19-20, 02:46 PM
  #47  
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Originally Posted by Dean V
Proof!
Not a single serious road racer rides tyres that big.
Sure in the past roadies have been slow to break with tradition but there are plenty out there now that are willing to try new things and test everything to get any advantage they can.
That’s not proof...
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Old 07-19-20, 03:47 PM
  #48  
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Originally Posted by Dean V
Proof!
Not a single serious road racer rides tyres that big.
Sure in the past roadies have been slow to break with tradition but there are plenty out there now that are willing to try new things and test everything to get any advantage they can.
Serious road riders take many things into consideration when selecting equipment and are a poor example of what average punters should use. Unless you ride a 140mm slammed stem with a 200mm drop saddle to bar obviously your bike is set up incorrectly following your logic. Selecting crazy stiff equipment is another area where a average cyclists would be better to avoid. Back to my original comment any actual research showing the ideal size in real world conditions is 25mm would be appreciated rather than just randomly declaring “wrong”.
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Old 07-19-20, 03:51 PM
  #49  
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I have a Cannondale SuperX CX bike that I swap wheels out on periodically to ride road.

I do this especially in late fall when I stop riding gravel. I run Ksyrium Equipe (stock for that model/year) with Sammy Slicks for gravel and Ksyrium SL with Swalbe One's in 25mm for road. Either way the SuperX is a really comfortable bike... and quite stable in rainy crappy conditions. The Sammy Slicks actually roll pretty well for those days you want to ride road but don't want to do a wheel change. You feel silly but...

I do have a dedicated road bike. It is an "endurance" bike; over time I have gotten it to where it is as comfortable as the SuperX. Perhaps just a little more so - but only by a hair.

The CX bike gives up very, very little to the dedicated road bike; maybe a little speed, but just a little. Could very well come down to body position which is a little higher on the SuperX - that and a little extra weigh.

You've already noted the smaller chain ring. Other than that, I cannot think of a thing. In my case perhaps some relatively heavy dual duty pedals - spd on one side, flat/studs on the other. There are times I just want to jump on the CX bike and take it to the lake for a swim. No spd on those days. The extra weight is worth it for the option of swim shoes.

Dual duty is ultimately very doable, and you may be more comfortable on those longer rides.

Enjoy!
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Old 07-19-20, 03:55 PM
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Originally Posted by HTupolev
Yes they did. The technology to make lightweight, stiff rim brakes that can handle large (up to around 2") tires has been available since at least the 1930s. The gravel cyclists of that era put a ton of emphasis on figuring it out. Properly-set-up old-school wide-profile cantis work quite well, as do the dual-pivot centerpull calipers of the 1950s. The leverage isn't as high as on modern sidepulls, but that's not a critical issue in most reasonable setups of the era (since people weren't trying to manage technical terrain on the hoods), nor would it have been technologically difficult to solve (i.e. make the arms slightly longer).
You are correct when you mention equipment was available which could accommodate wide tires however the braking performance was in no way comparable to what is currently the acceptable standard.
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