prj71

Rolla

Bruce Gordon beat 'em by a year or so, but he didn't have that awesome music.

mstateglfr 

The multicolor splatter BG RR frame is the epitome of period correct coolness.

sincos

Bottecchia in the Alps, 1925 Tour. Though the soundtrack was probably more like wheezing, swearing, and hacking up a lung. Of course his Automoto wasn't called a gravel bike, anymore than the Specialized or Rock n Road were.

shoota 

That's rad.

chaadster

The Rock Combo was a riff on the Charlie Cunningham bikes which had already won a national championship under Jacquie Phelan by 1983 and go back to their first prototype in 1979. 26” wheels, short-reach flared dropbars, and he even made wide range cassettes and a unique, underbar thumb shifter mount to give index shifting from the road brake hoods….well before STI.

The DNA was original— Cunningham was making something totally new rather than working a road bike backwards into a dirt capable machine— and the bloodline, despite John Tomac taking those handlebars to the road when he raced with team 7-11 Motorola in Europe in ‘89-‘91, did not flow directly into modern gravel bikes although the company Cunningham co-founded and developed so many innovations for, including the evolution of his bike design as the WTB Phoenix, is a prominent tire brand in the gravel scene today.

mstateglfr 

^ that has to be a late 80s built frame, right?

chaadster

I don’t really know how to date them definitively, but by the late ‘80s, he was already doing the brake lever shifter thing, and I’d expect that Jacquie would have been the first to have all the goodies, so given those things and the brake cable routing, I’d guess it was an earlier iteration, but I also think she raced her frame, named Otto, for many years with a variety of permutations, the details of which I don’t know, so I really can’t venture an educated guess on the bike in the picture. The Bell V1 Pro helmet came out early ‘80s, too, so that’s another clue, and we know WTB was founded in ‘82.

mstateglfr 

I was just guessing based on the front brake caliper choice as well as what looks like rear brake routing, which means the rear would have most likely been under the chainstays since that roller cam design was popular for a brief moment in 87-88 or so.

Bomb Komodo

Got a Trek 6000 for my GF and it's wild how similar it is to the modern gravel bike. The bars are obviously not the same, and I do not miss 3 rings or toe clips, but for casual use, it's an inexpensive way to get on the gravel and have a comfortable ride.

chaadster

Cunningham developed and pioneered the under-chainstay rollercam brake in 1978.

bikemig 

The rock combo is an interesting bike. It came out in '89 and a 26 inch wheel was a good choice then if you wanted a fat tire. I have a '93 XO 2 which has road geometry and 26 inch wheels. It's a blast to ride.

Here is a thread with some good info on the rock combo:

https://www.mtbr.com/threads/89-spec...of-500.984372/