Originally Posted by
NumbersGuy
The point is that a gravel bike isn't trying to take the place of or have all the capability of an XC mountain bike. Contrary to your preferences, there are plenty of riders who do want to spend their time riding on gravel, and that's what gravel bikes are designed for. Your personal preference to not focus on gravel riding seems to be poor reasoning for why your bike would perform better than a gravel bike for gravel riding.
THIS^^^^
I have zero need for the bike I use for gravel riding to handle single track.
Further, after years of trying to find what works best on single-track and roads (gravel is “road” in my book), I’ve come to the conclusion that I can mess with tires, suspension (or lack thereof) all I want, but one thing I can’t get around is the fact that the cockpit setup that is best for singltack vs roads (including gravel) are very much at odds with each other. Any setup that I find optimal for grinding out 25+ miles on gravel is going to be a serious handicap on single-track, and vice versa.