Originally Posted by
Russ Roth
I used a gravel bike one season for a cross bike, there was obvious issues while navigating some of the tighter areas where the course was meant to wind back and forth in short tight areas, the gravel bike had to go slower to get around the bends and every course seems to have a section of these to really separate out who can handle their bike and who can't. My cross bike does have a further drop to the bars than my gravel bike which works fine for a bike I have to get off and on and for which I'm not riding that long. It is the same drop as my road bike which is fine for 4-5 hours on the road but would get rough on the shoulders with the same amount of time over dirt and gravel. My gravel bike is more upright and with its wider stance feels more stable over the gravel that the cross bike isn't designed for. The cross is meant to move faster on dirt, grass, and mud but yes, the gravel is much more an endurance and 3 hours over dirt and gravel to cover 50 miles is much more endurance than the same 50 miles on pavement.
This all depends on the type of gravel bike. A more race-oriented gravel bike will perform much more like a CX bike. There are several examples of top CX racers running gravel bikes, including the Cervelo Aspero, Santa Cruz Stigmata, Pivot Vault and Orbea Terra.
https://www.cxmagazine.com/bike-prof...locross-gravel
More to the point of this thread, Cannondale apparently sees no difference between CX and Gravel when it comes to high level racing geometry and frame design. This is backed up by results from recent years of gravel racing, where Cannondale endorsed athletes won several high-profile gravel races on the same SuperX that was used by pro UCI CX racers. They've doubled down on this with their new bike. Ted King already raced one of these new bikes this year at Unbound, and has noted in the past his preference for racing the SuperX for gravel, rather than Cannondale's gravel bike (which he has raced in the past, even with a Lefty fork).
Here's a quote from earlier this year:
“I’m running a Cannondale SuperX in most of my gravel races," King told Bike Perfect. "The Topstone is an incredible rig too, but I tend to opt for that on rides geared more towards exploration. If speed is on the line, I’m generally going with the SuperX." https://www.bikeperfect.com/features...l-bike-gallery
I wouldn't expect the new SuperSix Evo SE to be that good for long adventures into the back-country and assume many recreational riders may find them uncomfortably compromised and stiff for that use. This is why Cannondale is still selling the Topstone alongside it.