chancelucky

I had an interesting experience today riding what's really a hard-tailed mountain bike with a cousin of Jones bars and 35mm tires. After riding through dirt trails with lots of roots and rocks and unpaved roads without difficulty, I happened
upon a path that consisted of pea-sized gravel that might have been up to three inches deep. i had trouble holding a line going downhill, had to ride in a very low gear on the flat, and had no traction uphill. I wound up riding alongside the trail instead of on it,
then walking the rest of the way up the hill. My tires aren't especially knobby and I happened to be at a fairly high pressure. I imagine that lower pressure with wider knobbier tires might help on this sort of surface, but, how do I put this, can
gravel bikes do actual gravel? This felt closer to riding in sand than anything else.