bikecrate

Here is the scenario...mostly I ride on pavement. However, I will be having the opportunity to ride around in a national forest. The roads are split between paved and unpaved. I'm thinking my typical ride would be about 70% paved and 30% unpaved. The problem is the unpaved parts are mostly very loose sand. I don't have much off pavement experience, but the little I have with my Jamis Renegade with stock tires was not good. I did try the other weekend and the front wheel would sink up to the rims and I almost got bucked off a couple of times before I threw in the towel. My question is...can a gravel bike handle really loose sand? If so, is it a problem with me or the tires? If not, is there any bike that can do some hills, roll reasonably well on pavement and handle the sand? I'm open to getting another bike (has to be cheap, so used is okay), but I have only room for one bike, so it has be a bit of a do all.

Darth Lefty 

Fatter flatter tires with tread

Elvo

Run 3" wide tyres

ksryder

Yeah sand sucks pretty much for any setup, but fat tires are your only hope.

OneIsAllYouNeed

If you and your bike weigh 190lb together, try some 47-48mm tires at 30psi. It'll give you a fighting chance on the sand and still roll nicely on pavement. Use even wider tires if you weigh more. Jamis claims the Renegade will fit 650b x 47mm tires.

tyrion

It's all about tire size.

Also: sometimes sandy trails will have a firmer edge that will support a given tire that the middle of the trail won't.

rosefarts

Get in a really low gear and keep as much weight off the front wheel as possible. It'll still suck but it's your only option.

I rode two different centuries this spring, both sandy as heck. The first one I had a cross bike with 38mm knobby tires and I was fine but I cussed a fair bit. The second was on a road bike with 30mm road tires. I had to walk the sandy sections and nearly came off on several loose but not full sand sections.

Most bikes it's not practical or possible to go beyond 42mm, even if you could, you'd probably hate life on the paved sections. So yeah, get 38s and practice your swear words.

HTupolev

If the sand is super-loose ocean-beach-like stuff, there's not really a good all-rounder solution. It's too deep to slice through with skinny tires, and so loose that you need something hugely wide and low-pressure to get good float. Fatbikes might do okay, but tires in the ~2" realm tend to wallow... they half-float and just sort of drag about erratically. Not very fun.

Throw your weight back and just try to keep moving forward and things can sort of work. If the front tire gets where it needs to go, the rest of the bike might follow, sometimes.

Happy Feet

It was not being able to ride sand like this with 26 x 1.75's



Which sucked because there is a lot of this I want to explore




and led to buying a bike like this.




The one bike solution at this point for me seems to be in getting a second wheel set with a more road friendly tire size (for the fat bike a 29r rim).

Trying to use a modern gravel bike for really loose sand is going to be disappointing probably even with the 650b option but all gravel bikes need not be 700c. What about a 27.5 or 29'r that can also handle a plus (2.8 -3") tire?

Gconan

The Jaroon Plus is a high-end steel frame dedicated to the touring and bikepacking world. What's unique about the Jaroon Plus is the 29 + wheel sizing, 29" diameter with a width coverage of 3.0. It is a sort of MTB that thanks to the 16° flared out racing handlebar becomes a hybrid born for adventure

https://www.wilier-usa.com/Home/Comp...ival-1X11.html

Marcus_Ti

$3,500 for a rival equipped bike....that frameset had better by Reynolds 953 or equivalent.

Gconan

All of their bikes seem over priced to me. I just posted it for a drop bar 29+ 3.0 tire size. That might make it through the sand. I don't know that it will. But it is a very large tire for a drop bar bike.

bikecrate

Some good feedback...thanks. The Jamis will be staying at home in the city. I'm more likely to buy a bike. It's budget time too. One of the activities I'd like to do is ride around and then stop at a cool spring for a swim and them ride home. I don't want to park something that cost more than $1,000 there. That is why I'm keeping my eye out for some CL used bike. I just wanted to make sure I was pointed in the right direction. I like the idea of swapping wheel sets. One for pavement days and another for mixed.

rumrunn6

sand is so variable. what national forest?

bikecrate

Ocala National Forest.

rumrunn6

just stay off the soft stuff

this looks ok



this does not

Greenhil

I camped in Ocala NF earlier this year and tried to ride some of the forest roads with 48mm 650b slicks. Not even close. Looks like Rumrunn6 had better luck. BTW, Withlacoochee State Forest has a nice network of hard packed roads that’ll keep you busy for a day. It’s maybe an hour + drive from Ocala NF.

Lemond1985

I always just go around sand. Sand is for dune buggies and camels, not bicycles.

xroadcharlie

Soft, Dry sand is by far the biggest single argument that supports Fat bike's.

Some find them a lot of fun too with the cushy ride 3.5" + low pressure tires bring, and of course the polerizing style.

WarrenR

I was out on our local rails-to-trails yesterday and they were doing some resurfacing. They were recommending to go around but I gave it a go. There were places where the dump truck had dumped his load of what appeared to be beach sand and they had made the first run to spread it out. I slowly ran through it with no problem but a mile or so certainly would be a hard on the legs. My Trek Verve still has the stock Bontrager H5 700*45 at 40 psi. These tires work well on pavement, can easily average 25 kph on our local coastal loops.

Happy Feet

Interesting... but no dune buggies allowed.

TimothyH

I remember sand.

There was lots of it on Long Island. Our motorcycles had paddle tires for climbing sand hills.

Now I live in North Georgia. The only sand here is in bags at Home Depot or Lowes.


-Tim-

rumrunn6

I did not ride there. I just searched google & youtube to see what the park was like. I often do this, when I am prospecting a new place to ride ...

bikecrate

Too bad there wasn't more details in the top two video what trail they were on. I haven't done a lot of research, but I thought the only bike trail was farther south than were I will be at and it was a loop that wasn't very long. The FL trail also crosses through the forest, but I'm not sure if they allow bikes. I'd be pretty happy if there was something like that to ride on. However, mostly what I've seen looks like the bottom image.

rumrunn6

keep researching & maybe make some phone calls

https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/ocal...32311&actid=24

& see item #4 here
https://www.floridarambler.com/flori...tional-forest/






looks good!

https://www.google.com/search?q=Pais...w=1920&bih=969