Gravel bicycles began to spread tentatively across Europe a few years ago, at a time when in the United States ten gravel bicycles were being sold for every road bicycle.
Today, sales of gravel bicycles in Europe — and in Spain in particular — have soared. Until a season or two ago many bicycle brands didn’t include gravel models in their catalogues; now that has changed, and it’s a rare catalogue that doesn’t include one.
This kind of bicycle competes with both road and mountain bikes. Gravel bikes let you discover places that would be unthinkable on a road bicycle, while opening up the endless possibilities of mountain bikes.
What is a gravel bicycle?
At first glance it can look like a road bicycle, but as you get closer you see it also resembles a mountain bike. How can that be? A gravel isn’t very different from a cyclocross bike, but its geometry design and new components have resulted in technical specifications that make it more versatile, while remaining closer to a road bicycle.
A gravel bicycle is essentially a road bike with a dose of mountain bike in its veins. It lets you enjoy both disciplines.
A history of gravel bicycles
If we’re being honest, we know this kind of cycling isn’t new. At family meals my grandfather often tells us stories from his youth, and one always comes up: how he used to ride to work every day. He and his work crew would cover 50 or 60 km on dirt tracks each day, their bicycles loaded with tools, to put in their endless working day.
Which makes me wonder: has gravel always existed? Have we always been riding it?
I’ll set aside the everyday use of the bicycle in past eras and focus on cycling as a sport to get to know the history of gravel bicycles a little better.
We all know the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, Paris-Roubaix, etc. These are some of the best-known races today and they date back to the late 19th century. Back then, the roads we ride on today didn’t exist.
If we go back to the late 1980s, Dave McLaughlin and Gavin Chilcotte raced the 1985 NORBA (National Off Road Bicycle Association) nationals on two pink Specializeds with Cinelli handlebars.
After them, Charlie Cunningham, the framebuilder behind the NorCal bicycles, blended mountain and road bicycles into a striking aluminium frame with drop handlebars. The first version was ridden by his wife in American races, making her the first woman to race a mountain bike with drop bars.
In 1986, Bianchi introduced the Volpe model in its catalogue: a 700c-wheeled bicycle with 38 mm tyres.
The Bianchi Volpe came fitted with hooks for attaching a strap to carry the bicycle over the shoulder.
In an interview, Sky Yaeger, who was product manager at Bianchi at the time, said: “In 1986 we had the Volpe model, which promoted a bloodline between road and mountain bicycles; it was advertised as a ‘truly competitive machine’. These weren’t cyclocross bicycles, and by 1990 we had five versions of 700c bicycles with large-volume tyres. We hated the name ‘hybrid’, so we called them ‘all-terrain’ bicycles. In 1993 we introduced the Project 7, a sloping bicycle that used 45 mm tyres and a Rock Shox Mag 2 suspension fork.”
Years later there were other adaptations, but none had the impact of 1989, the year that put drop bars on the Mountain Bike map.
That year, a rider — possibly the most gifted, charismatic and versatile in Mountain Bike history — took everyone by surprise. I’m talking about John Tomac, who transformed the mountain bike scene when he turned up on the American NORBA circuit aboard his striking Yeti FRO with a Cinelli road handlebar and cyclocross levers.
In 1990, the iconic Yeti partnered with Easton to build a distinctive series of bicycles with carbon tubes in the front triangle. These bicycles were built by Chris Herting for the team made up of Tomac and Julie Furtado.
That year, John Tomac raced Downhill on the carbon-aluminium Yeti C-26 with a Cinelli drop handlebar, a 50 mm-travel Manitou fork and the unmistakable Tioga rear wheel.
He did so first at the Kamikaze Downhill at Mammoth Mountain, where he took everyone watching by surprise. His second appearance was at the UCI World Championships in Durango (USA): he couldn’t win and finished second behind Greg Herbold.
The most striking thing of all was Tomac’s nerve, skill and courage. None of the previous riders on drop bars had done it quite like that.
Was this the real beginning of gravel bicycles?
After all this movement, things returned to “normality”, though there was always some new arrival or some oddity; nothing really stood out.
The bicycles that became established for sporting use were the ones we all know: road, cyclocross, mountain and BMX. But the makers, in constant evolution and in search of rider satisfaction, began to develop what is now known as gravel bicycles.
Born from the need to combine road bicycles and mountain bikes, they’re growing in popularity thanks to their excellent versatility for riding on almost any terrain. You can use them on the road, on dirt tracks, on trails, on mountain paths, or even for the commute to work. Wherever you want to go, gravel bikes are a safe bet for enjoyment.
To achieve that versatility, the gravel bike fuses some of the best characteristics of road, cyclocross and mountain bike disciplines to create a light, multi-purpose bicycle — so versatile it won’t hesitate to take on tarmac or a rock-strewn singletrack.
The birth of modern gravel bikes
As we already know, our ancestors were riding bicycles along dirt tracks to go to work, do the shopping or head to the festival in the neighbouring village. Cycling’s historic Europe, where the epic of the grand tours and the Spring Classics sends shivers down our spine on those stages that run along dirt roads or cobbles, with impossible gravel climbs or narrow roads riddled with potholes.
It was the Americans who invented the mountain bike, the Americans who invented 29ers, and the Americans who have invented this super-innovative and oh-so-cool thing: gravel.
In Europe we have a cycling problem: being excessively conservative and unwilling to look a little further afield. Why are all the new disciplines born in California? In short, because they don’t have those prejudices and have had no problem turning off onto a dirt track on their road bike.
They didn’t invent cycle touring, but they did invent bikepacking — enjoying a couple of days with just the right kit on the adventure of venturing down those unknown tracks.
The European mountain biker denied the functionality of 29ers, while the Americans had spent years developing and enjoying them. And the ultra-traditional European road cyclist, when you suggested taking his shiny carbon bike onto a bit of dirt, would throw his hands up in despair and brand you a madman.
What always happens, happened: the hunter and seller of ideas turned the idea of cycling as leisure rather than competition into a trend. He invented gravel — that new discipline the big brands sell as a novel way of riding a bicycle, with no rules and no destination.
Time for action — I’m going to break down the key points of gravel bikes.
Frame geometry of gravel bikes
They look similar to endurance road bicycles or cyclocross bikes. In fact, gravel geometry was born from the union of the two concepts. But there are several differences that make gravel bikes easier and more comfortable to ride, especially over longer distances.
First of all, they generally have a more relaxed riding position. A taller head tube (Head Tube) combines with a slacker head angle (Head Tube Angle) to make the bicycle more versatile.
A taller head tube and a shorter top tube (Top Tube) create a more upright riding position. But with some caveats that we’ll see later on.
On a gravel bike the bottom bracket is higher and the wheelbase (Wheel Base) is also longer (to give a gravel vs road example, 1036 mm vs 995 mm). A longer wheelbase and a slacker head angle result in more controlled, safer steering and a more stable ride on uneven terrain.
You can read in more detail about how steering affects the handling of a bicycle at the following link…
Discover how a bicycle handles »
At the same time, the fork along with the rear triangle (chainstays and seatstays) were adapted to achieve generous tyre clearance. This lets us run tyres with much more volume than on road bicycles.
It might not seem like a big difference in terms of frame geometry. But these small tweaks make for a big change in the bike and in how it handles.
Differences in geometry between a road bicycle and a gravel bike
Let’s look at an example.
I think this image alone should be enough to see the differences between a road bicycle and a gravel bike. These bicycles are for the same rider, so the biomechanical measurements don’t vary at all. What has been modified are the measurements that affect the bicycle’s behaviour, to adapt it to the terrain it will be ridden on. In fact, if you look closely, the stem is slightly longer (10 mm) on the gravel bicycle.
Let’s look at it in more detail.
You see this and it all seems harder, but it’s really easy. Compare measurements and you’ll see the differences. As you can see, the Top Tube length contradicts something I said earlier:
A taller head tube and a shorter top tube (Top Tube) create a more upright riding position.
Indeed, but for this rider, the 8 mm increase in the Top Tube on the gravel bike provides the same position in the cockpit. If you look at the Reach, there’s only 1 mm of difference. Negligible when riding. But the Stack is much higher on the gravel: 580 mm versus 567 mm on the road bike.
What do we achieve with all this? Raising the rider’s position so they adopt a more upright posture, with an optimal weight distribution for better control of the bicycle on uneven terrain.
Brakes on a gravel bike
Disc brakes dominate gravel bikes, and it’s easy to see why: better braking power, greater reliability and more tyre clearance at the frame are just some of the key benefits of disc brakes.
The ability of disc brakes to handle adverse conditions is perhaps the crucial factor, since they aren’t as affected by rain and mud compared to their rim-brake counterparts.
Disc brakes are the preferred choice for riding a gravel bike. What’s more, there are no catalogue gravel bicycles fitted with rim brakes.
The only remaining question is whether mechanical or hydraulic brakes are better. Generally, this is decided by the budget available for the bicycle, but hydraulic disc brakes are always preferred for their superior performance; even so, if your choice is mechanical disc brakes, you’ll still get all the advantages of disc brakes.
There are TRP disc-brake models in which the lever pull is cable-actuated and the braking system at the caliper is hydraulic. They combine the simplicity of a mechanical brake with the power of a hydraulic. Then there are SRAM’s BB5 and BB7 models: these mechanical brakes have excellent braking power that easily matches countless hydraulic brakes.
What are the differences between hydraulic and mechanical brakes on a bicycle
Wheels and tyres for gravel bikes
As the only point of contact between the bicycle and the ground, choosing the right tyres is crucial to getting the most out of your gravel bicycle. Our most common recommendation for gravel bicycles is 38 mm tyres as standard; however, you can choose any size from 32 mm up to wider tyres of 48 mm.
This range opens up plenty of possibilities: 32 mm makes the gravel bike faster on the road, and 48 mm makes it more capable on trails, but at the cost of speed.
If you’re not sure of the terrain you’ll be riding on with your gravel bike, 38 mm is a good starting point until you find out. If you need to switch regularly, there’s the option of investing in another set of gravel wheels with different-sized tyres to make the change easier.
It’s a bit more expensive, but if you can afford it, you’ll make your gravel bicycle far more versatile without the hassle of constantly swapping tyres.
38 mm is a great starting point on a gravel bicycle, though there’s the option of running wider tyres up to 48 mm.
In this image you can see four WTB gravel tyres showing the differences in size and tread pattern.
Puncture-resistant or tubeless gravel tyres?
Most gravel tyres have a central tread strip with a harder compound to help with rolling efficiency, with superior grip on the tyre’s shoulders to improve cornering on mixed surfaces. But new tyres designed for different terrains are constantly appearing, with much more specific tread patterns (see image above).
Tubeless tyres are also commonly found on the gravel bicycle, as the sealant provides a high degree of puncture protection. At the same time, it offers the option of running tyres at lower pressures to increase grip.
When I recommend gravel tyres to my clients, I work from a selection of gravel tyres that have been tested and chosen with the type of rider, their skill and the terrain they’ll be riding in mind.
There are gravel tyres with a specific tread pattern to deliver comfortable rolling and also with puncture protection. These can be very good options if you’re new to this style of riding.
Drivetrain on gravel bicycles
Cyclocross bicycles offer a certain degree of versatility; that’s why their preference for a 1x drivetrain setup helps avoid issues.
Gravel bicycles generally come fitted with a second chainring. This provides a much wider gear range and a greater degree of flexibility while riding. It makes the bicycle more versatile for tackling trails and the steepest ramps on the road, while ensuring you can pedal faster on descents without running out of gear when you want speed.
Gradually, versions of gravel bikes with 1x drivetrains have been introduced. This has come about thanks to the appearance of new drivetrain developments such as the 12-speed models from Shimano and SRAM.
Which is the best drivetrain for a gravel bike, 1x or 2x?
Racks and mounts on a gravel bicycle
When versatility is the key selling point, it’s essential to make the bicycle compatible with all kinds of extras. Being able to quickly add mudguards, racks and additional accessories is a great benefit. Off-the-peg bicycles generally aren’t as well prepared for this as custom bicycles.
Any custom OXIA gravel bicycle can be built with integrated mounts on both the frame and the fork. You can also add a third, fourth or fifth bottle mount, so you can stay hydrated on those long days in the saddle. Mudguard mounts or fittings for any other accessory you want to include: on a custom gravel bike anything is possible.
Using a gravel bicycle to get around the city?
With a gravel bicycle you can do whatever you fancy, from commuting to work to living out your adventures of several days or weeks on your bike. The possibilities are endless thanks to the riding position, the geometry and the countless options for carrying gear.
There’s also the bikepacking discipline, where racks aren’t needed.
Handlebars for a gravel bicycle
A key identifier of a gravel bicycle is the handlebars. They’re very similar to those fitted on road bikes, but with subtle differences. Some gravel bicycles have a flat handlebar; however, this prevents you from shifting into the aerodynamic position by gripping the drops, which makes it a less effective option for road riding.
Gravel bike handlebars also provide a more natural hand position. They produce less fatigue on a long ride than a flat handlebar equivalent. In the photo below you can see a gravel handlebar, where the drop is slightly flared outwards. This shape offers a wider position so that grip and control of the bicycle are more comfortable.
In the photo below you can see a gravel handlebar (top) and a road one (bottom). On the road handlebar, you can see the current trend of flaring the drop angle to improve grip and comfort.
Comfort of gravel bikes vs mountain bikes vs road bikes
The frames and components built for gravel bicycles are designed to maximise the rider’s comfort.
We’ve already covered geometry and tyres. These play a vital role in rider comfort. But many gravel bikes also use specific components to help with this, which can include areas with extra mounts for bottle cages or bags as I mentioned earlier, suspension seatposts and stems, and there are now even gravel suspension forks.
Thanks to hand-built construction, the geometry of a gravel bicycle can be tailored to the rider’s needs, helping it absorb impacts and vibrations more effectively, making it more comfortable so you can ride much further, or making it so versatile that you can use it as your only bicycle, replacing both the MTB and the road bike, while tailoring the geometry of the gravel bicycle to the rider’s biomechanics.
Ready to start your new adventure? I offer a full range of customisations to build unbeatable gravel bicycles through custom construction. They will cover all your needs and will be fitted with the best components on the market for your needs.