In turn, your glutes are more easily recruited to the task of pedalling, and so you can, in theory, pedal with greater efficiency. Broadly speaking, a gravel bike borrows from the road with an extended reach that has you pivot your hips. The difference in rider position can be huge, too. Image: Bartek Wolinski/Red Bull Content Pool. And yet, the position these top-tier athletes ride is likely still far too aggressive and compromised for us mere mortals to comfortably use off-road. Even the most performance-focussed mountain bike racers sit more upright on a MTB than on a road bike. While a modern mountain bike puts the rider in a position that more easily allows the maneuverability of those wheels: a higher front end and rearward weight distribution mean the front wheel is easier to loft over obstacles, while the hand position of a flat bar is more favourable for fighting a front wheel that’s being bumped offline. Not unlike a road bike, a gravel bike prioritises pedalling efficiency with the assumption that the wheels will roll over the terrain they’re pointing at. And it’s this stark difference in speed that has perhaps helped define the design differences between modern gravel and mountain bikes. Meanwhile, most recreational groups on a Saturday morning road ride have no problems holding that same speed. Maintaining an average speed of 25 km/h (15.5 mph) on a mountain bike, over rocky and technical terrain, would put you in a very elite category. Simply, the rougher the terrain you wish to ride, the lower your average speed will likely be, and at a point, a mountain bike will become the better pick. Which leads me to a conversation about average speed, perhaps the best metric in deciding whether a gravel bike, or mountain bike, is right for you. In turn, a mountain bike suitable to many tailored trail networks can make riding simpler terrain, such as gravel roads, rather dull and slow-feeling. On the other side, mountain bike terrain has only gotten more challenging over the years, and bikes have progressed to keep pace with this. A gravel bike will of course still allow you to conquer terrain that sits at either extreme of our scale, but arguably it’ll need a change of tyres or wheelset in order to excel at one or the other. Still, what’s obvious is that most gravel bikes are at their best on terrain that sits between a two to four on our gravel scale. Some people would find this fun on a fully rigid gravel bike. Clearly there’s a lot of ambiguity in this topic. Similarly, more skilled riders or those coming from mountain bike backgrounds can find true joy in rediscovering old trails on a less-capable bike. Terrain that one person might be happy tackling on a road bike may see another wishing for a dual-suspension mountain bike. There is, however, a tipping point for where a hardtail may become the wiser, and an even more versatile choice, and all that depends on the terrain you wish to tackle.Īs previously covered in our grading gravel feature, not all-terrain – or even people’s perception of that terrain – is equal. Gravel bikes have grown in popularity for their ability to mimic the efficiency of a road bike while adding versatility for where they can be ridden. Your terrain is everything, and so is speed At 8.9 kg and more than double the price of any gravel bike we tested, if there was ever a mountain bike to outshine a gravel bike on its home turf, this was it.
![gravel bike gravel bike](https://i1.wp.com/capovelo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ABLE-Sport-Gray-e1559573588519.jpg)
To add to the 12 gravel bikes we tested, we brought along what’s arguably the nicest and most efficient hardtail mountain bike money can buy: an Unno Aora. These are questions we’ve pondered as gravel bikes have risen in popularity, and something we wanted to answer while at our inaugural Field Test in Sedona, Arizona. So if gravel bikes are effectively where mountain bikes came from, then why not just pick a modern mountain bike? Is a light, cross-country hardtail MTB the ideal gravel bike? Or do gravel bikes truly fill a gap in the market that the progression of mountain bikes has left empty? And really, a look at the latest geometry, tyre widths and technology to hit the gravel riding world don’t help to make that joke any less true.
![gravel bike gravel bike](https://cdn.road.cc/sites/default/files/bontrager-gr2-gravel-bike-shoes.jpg)
So often we joke that gravel bikes are just old mountain bikes from a time that’s now in the rearview mirror.