PeteHski

I see you are doing your usual thing here i.e. talking BS about something you know very little about. People will notice.

Maelochs

Um ... yeah ... he did.

Jeff Neese

Or, if the marketing term "Gravel bike" hadn't been developed, you could flip that around, and buy a touring bike and a second set of wheels for gravel. Neither approach is wrong, but you're recognizing that it's mostly about the tires. The industry doesn't want you to think that way. They want you to think that even if you already have a touring bike, you still need another, new bike if you want to ride on gravel. Take an existing bicycle and just put different wheels on it? Ridiculous - you need a whole new bike. Please visit our "Gravel Bikes" section.

Maelochs

Dude .. . STOP.

The Surly website text calls the Preamblel a "Gravel Bike." The wopds are right there.

You are doing again what you have done int he past ... you are clinging to a factually and demonstrably incorrect position and denying the facts ... even when they are literally posted right in front of you.

It is a dishonest and a dishonorable position to take.. please stop.

Surly itself calls the Preamble a gravel bike.

Get over your hang-up with this notion that "gravel bike" is a "fad" or a "marketing term" and "real bike makers" don't acknowledge it.

Just grow up. You are embarrassing yourself.

I say this out of care, not to ridicule you---you are making yourself look ridiculous. You have proven that when you choose to you can engage in intelligent exchanges and explain your insights, which benefits everyone. Yo also sometimes choose to follow a dead rat down a rathole for no good reason, and to deny obvious facts (and the actual text in Surly's description of the Preambe, on Surly;'s website, shouldn't be deniable ,... but you keep doing it.

Please ... just stop.

PeteHski

I'll re-word this for you:-

If gravel bikes had not been developed, I would have to compromise and buy a touring bike with wide tyre clearance and a second set of wheels/tyres for gravel.

Fortunately we have more choice today so I can buy whatever bike does the job I want it to do the best. Some overlap in a bike's capabilities is inevitable. For me personally, gravel bikes actually have the most versatility of all modern bike genres, especially with a couple of wheel sets. I did briefly consider buying a gravel bike instead of an endurance road bike, but I don't have enough local access to gravel roads to really make use of the off-road capability. I'm absolutely not interested in touring bikes btw.

Jeff Neese

Stop what? Stop presenting the other side of the debate, that "Gravel Bike" is a made-up marketing term with no real distinction? I'm not the only one that thinks that, and I would say I'm in pretty good company.

It really seems to bother you that you don't get to be the arbiter of what is or is not a gravel bike.

PeteHski

So there we have it folks. An entire genre of modern biking is just a made-up marketing term to sell us more bikes. I'm wondering what "good company" you are in here?

shelbyfv

The paradox of ignorance....

PeteHski

You mean a bit like being dead? i.e. it's only an issue for everyone else.

livedarklions

The reason he's on my ignore list is because he has decided that the forum is nothing but a competitive debate site, and all he's concerned with is tactics. He is employing a technique known as the "squirrel cage", when you know you have no real case, you draw your opponent into arguing some inane side point. In this case, he has drawn several people into an argument about the placement of the word " gravel" on the web page of a second-tier manufacturer/marketer. Who bloody cares?

Of course "gravel" is a made-up term, so is "mountain", " cruiser", BMX, racing, time trial, or any other word, including bicycle. The question for a consumer is whether the label helps them select a bike that's suitable for the use case. Hybrid fell out of favor because it was being used for just about every flat bar bike that wasn't a cruiser or a mountain bike. I thought a couple years ago that something similar might happen to the word gravel, but I'm pleased to be wrong about that. The people on this thread demonstrate a consensus on what a gravel bike is and what it's good for, and there's a couple of contrarians who are basically nitpicking to contradict that. OP wanted to troll the nitpick fight, I say just ignore it and let people who are enjoying their gravel bikes have the thread. Their pictures are way better.

Maelochs

Yeah, I have given up on him in this thread.

I was going to ask him if he was a lawyer, because he tries to logic-chop, squirm out of some definitions, create other definitions, and such. But if he were a lawyer he'd be too broke to even ride a bike ....

(I actually posted a question about what bikes he owns and rides, and how he likes to ride ... but the site ate it. )

Yeah ... he is not an honest person, and he somehow still thinks he can fool people with word games. Sad ......

PeteHski

I'm not convinced he actually realises when he has no real case. That could just be clever trolling in playing dumb, but I just don't think he's that clever. Time will probably reveal.

PeteHski

This made me LOL! I did also wonder how you could make a living with this attitude. But then some of the stuff I hear people state IRL as "fact" is pretty ludicrous.

livedarklions

I've long ago come to the conclusion that when you can't tell whether the endless loop is resulting from cluelessness or cleverness, the conversation needs to be over. At some point, it just becomes obvious that all the other guy is trying to do is outlast you. Walking away is problematic when there's actually a serious issue involved--e.g., someone pushing really bad medical advice--but the stuff this guy obsesses on is uniformly trivial.

livedarklions

This isn't really how lawyers argue. It's more like the fanfic version. If I tried his tactics IRL, all it would accomplish is getting a judge to yell at me and/or have another lawyer slam the phone on me.

staehpj1

Cyclocross and gravel racing are two very different disciplines.

big john

No real distinction? Read post 92 where I offered some of the differences between a Cannondale "endurance road" bike and their "gravel bike". I get that you hate the term "gravel". I don't know why this term is so upsetting to some people. What if they called it a road worthy mountain bike? Or a rough country touring bike?

And how dare they offer products people might want to buy? How can there be a debate about whether these things exist? They do, people ride them and have fun on them and in many cases they are awesome.

big john

In mountain biking there are several sub-sets, different names for different types of riding and the (sometimes slightly) different bikes used for different rides.

We have cross country, trail, enduro, freeride, downhill, and now something called down country. What's in a name? The important thing is to know what the terms mean to those involved. I wouldn't take a cross country bike on an enduro course. Some people could, but that's not the point. When I tell other mountain bikers about a freeride bike, they know it's a big, heavy, long travel bike capable of bashing downhill on huge jumps or whatever.

Most people here know that a gravel bike is generally going to be a road style bike with very slack geometry, low gears, maybe extra eyelets for water cages or bags, and a stout, abuse worthy frame.

Why anyone would deny the existence of these bikes is beyond me.

Koyote

When we see some weirdo babbling incoherently on the sidewalk, we all look away and walk faster. But on BF, people stop to debate with the crazy person.

So, who's really crazy?

Maelochs

When did I ever claim not to be crazy .... I said i was honest and occasionally logical.

"An this be madness, yet there be method to it."

Koyote

It's interesting that you assume that I was referring to you.

livedarklions

The person who notes the craziness of responding to a crazy person?

Infinite regression alert!

PhilFo 

Well, excuse me! (Take that with a healthy dose of sarcasm and WGAS).

tomato coupe

Has anyone ever been banned for outright stupidity?

livedarklions

Not in so many words, but I have my suspicions.

Now I'll see if anyone has any new ideas about how to carry a golf club on a bike, cough, cough.