taz777

In terms of outright performance, and generally speaking of course, would an adventure bike outperform a hybrid bike? The drop bars seem to suggest that it's built more for speed compared to a hybrid.

If you only had one from the two types - adventure or hybrid - which would you choose and why?

JonathanGennick 

An adventure bike is a hybrid with better marketing spin . My preference lies toward the performance end of the spectrum, whereas I feel the term "hybrid bike" has come to mean something rather doddering and stodgy. Raleigh has a pretty nice adventure bike in the Redux that comes with flat bars.

Paul Barnard

It is getting to the point in marketing where the categories are becoming confused. This is a Cannondale Adventure:

https://www.cannondale.com/en/USA/Bi...ntid=undefined

There are several other adventure bikes built in that vein.

But the marketers have borrowed from the motorcycling community and are calling gravel bikes adventure bikes:

https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...locross-bikes/



OP, I assume you are talking about the latter category.

taz777

Yeah, I noticed that when I searched for adventure bikes, a lot of gravel bikes popped up!

jbell_64

I have a trek fx hybrid and then added a Raleigh tamland gravel bike. The hybrid is nice for slower family rides around town and towing the toddler in the trailer. I use the Raleigh for everything else. It's faster and more comfy over longer distances. The hybrid is more stable at slow slow speeds and the triple chain ring is helpful when towing the trailer.

JonathanGennick 

I look at that bike and see the quintessential hybrid. I had a completely different image in mind for "adventure". Goes to what you are saying -- the categories are murkily defined.

ph0rk

That's a weird naming choice, but I guess that's the model name, rather than the category. They call the category "Urban Fitness".

Cannondale doesn't market "Adventure" bikes as a category, but they do market Gravel and Allroad bikes under road, and these look nothing like that bike.

jitteringjr

Drop bars offer more hand positions to move them around if you start feeling fatigued. Even if you add bar ends to a flat bar bike, you still have more positions with drop bars. For that reason alone, even if everything else was spec'd as identical as possible, I would choose the adventure bike.

livedarklions

These marketing terms are getting less and less descriptive of what the bike is good for. "Gravel bike" is such a misdescriptor of what is essentially a more road-oriented hybrid (some mountain aspects on a drop-bar bike) that it's throwing everything off.

"Adventure bikes" should either come equipped with their own venomous snakes or an adversarial villain.

Paul Barnard

Well before "adventure" became essentially another name for a gravel bike, Bikes Direct was marketing bikes as such.

Save up to 60% off new Hybrid Bikes | Hybrid | Cafe Bikes | Adventure Bikes - Performance Hybrid Bikes and Fitness Bikes

ph0rk

I think BD will call a bike anything at all to sell it. Hybrid/cafe/adventure? What?

I saw adventure used to describe bikepacking/touring bikes at various levels of gnar (by manufacturers) almost exclusively back in 2015-16. Things like the Trek 920, Specialized AWOL, etc. I don't think the term adventure means much now, though. It never hit as a clearly defined genre.

Trek merges adventure with touring, now, and puts things like the 1120 in there alongside the 520, but this is also the company that refused to make a proper gravel bike until just now.

I'd hope that no one would confuse the hybrid from the OP with an 1120: https://trek.scene7.com/is/image/Tre...=0&cache=on,on

taz777

My understanding is that an Adventure bike has drop bars rather than flat bars well, according to some UK online retailers at least!

rumrunn6

I would decide based on where I plan to ride. Then, having whichever bike, I would continue to plan rides based on the bike

fietsbob

Do tell, how is Adventure , bike types different , in british english * , from trekking bikes .

* meaning my fellow yanks, sit this one out.

medic75

This whole hybrid thing is becoming more and more confusing. The biking community leans towards a hybrid encompassing the following two combinations: commuter/road & commuter/mountain bike. Then, you toss gravel bikes and adventure bike into the mix with some being more road/commuter hybrids while others lean more towards cyclocross bikes with mounting options for racks. Then, if you look at the definition of hybrid, they all fall into it.

Personally, I am considering replacing my current hybrid with a Raleigh Willard or Tamland some time in the future. They just look like an interesting combination of capabilities that will fit my needs nicely and not restrict me when I see that dirt path that I want to explore it - not that my Peugeot U09 ever restricted me when I was a teenager, I'm just a little smarter now.

Bothrops

livedarklions

Then they will cross those, creating the comfonzo.

Witterings

I think the maority of people / marketing campaings would agree with this with the additional ability to take much wider tyres than a road bike

I genuinely think marketing this as an Adventure Bike when everybody else seems pretty much in unison with what is and what isn't won't do them many favours and they'll miss out on what seems to be the latest ... and in my opinion a great trend.
https://www.cannondale.com/en/USA/Bi...ntid=undefined

Just my 1p's worth

Gconan

Adventure bikes are made to go on an adventure, be they gravel, dirt or paved roads. Oh, also some single track.

https://m.norco.com/bikes/road/adven...earch-xrs-105/

wipekitty

Assuming that an 'adventure bike' is a drop-bar bike with clearance for wider tires, a stock drivetrain consisting of road components, and often brakes from the MTB world (disc or cantilever), and a 'hybrid' is a flat-bar bike with clearance for wider tires that lacks the suspension of a MTB but tends to have a mix of MTB type components for its drivetrain, I would go with an adventure bike.

An adventure bike (or gravel bike, touring bike, even some marketed as cross bikes) will be lighter and have more hand positions than a hybrid, making for (IMO) an easier ride. I also believe that such bikes are more versatile: in addition to adventure/gravel/unpaved trail/whatever riding, you can put on some slicks and have a serviceable road bike, or even studs if you want to ride in ice and snow.

I've never owned a hybrid, actually. If I were only permitted one bike, it would be an adventure bike and about five sets of tires.

csport

I like drop bars. I run a 3x9 setup with Shimano M590 crankset with 48-36-22 chainrings and 11-30 cassette in the back. Tires are 700x42c. Probably this qualifies as a gravel bike. There is nothing wrong with flat bars or trekking bars either.

cs1

JonathanGennick 

I actually have come to believe the difference is one of focus. I should start a new thread, maybe. With gravel and adventure bikes, there was a specific target use case in mind -- the gravel road ride. Optimizing for that narrow case happens to great a "hybrid" bike capable of a little bit more -- pavement and light singletrack -- on either side of the spectrum.

Bill Gem

Kapusta