Originally Posted by fourfa

I was drawn to my gravel bike by the dream of having a do-it-all bike with 650B semi-knobs and 700x28 race-rubber wheelsets at the same rolling diameter. It's been pretty great overall (and has covered a third garage spot as a touring bike as well). On the aero GP5000TL wheelset it's a much better road bike than the 90s Ti roadie it replaced. Is a fully modern road bike better yet? - sure. Good enough for me though.

If the question was, do I notice the difference between GP5ks and 650b gravel tires - without question, every 650 I've tried is significantly slower on every paved surface around me (also Bay Area). We don't do winter here, or chipseal, or refuse to fix potholes, so some folks with truly awful pavement might feel differently on a plusher tire. The speed difference is enough that I switched to a 10-tooth cog on my road cassette because I was frequently spinning out the 11-tooth (with a 46 tooth chainring). I never spin out the 11-tooth small cog on the gravel wheels; in fact I seldom use it.

On pavement I'm very happy with the quick-ish geometry enabled by this moderate tire clearance (420mm chainstay, moderate wheelbase), and off-road with a dropper to get my center of mass back and down, I seldom wish I was on a long/low/slack gravity sled. It's good enough for me, I dismount for some rock gardens, and I'm happy to be on basically a road bike for the 99.99% of my miles that are not rock gardens.