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Comment by auxym | Hacker News Reader

In many ways, modern gravel bikes are a comeback of the "sport touring" road bikes that were popular from roughly the mid 70s to the mid 90s, then became mostly absent from market. Compared with "racing" bikes, they had wider tires, a more relaxed geometry, and various conveniences such as mounting points for fenders and racks. Thus, they were a much better option for the majority of riders who did not participate in serious road racing.

Then for 20 years you couldn't really get a road bike with tires larger than 23 mm, which is totally illogical in places with less than perfect roads such as here in Canada.

Really happy that gravel bikes have brought back some sensibility to the sport, and that they provide a nice "all around" option in a market where manufacturers had been using "super specialization" of products to entice customers to buy more products.

Now I'm waiting for a similar trend to take over XC skiing!

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In my neck of Europe those bikes reached peak popularity in the 90's and early 00's. We called them "city mountain bikes".

Their distinguishing feature was that a "mountain bike" comes with gears (normal bikes don't), which was very popular. The city edition came with fenders, luggage racks, a nice bell, stand, etc.

Big fat tyres, comfy geometry. The tires usually had a slick strip in the middle and grooves on the sides so you had slicks running on pavement and got massive grip turning on gravel.

As it got cheaper, they even started having front suspension.

Looked kinda like this:

https://www.bolha.com/image-bigger/gorska-kolesa/mosko-gorsk...

https://www.velo.si/modules/uploader/uploads/s_product/pics_...

https://www.bolha.com/image-w920x690/mestna-kolesa/mestno-in...

These aren't the types of bikes meant by the one you're replying to, I think: these are basically mountain bikes with modifications for day to day road use. The other are gravel bikes (which is what I assume means the ones used in cyclocross i.e. a sturdier version of a road bike) modified for day to day road use. But yes these citybikes were very popular in Europe.

Touring bike is my favourite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touring_bicycle#/media/File:Lo...

Very similar to cycle cross (a wide range of gears) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Fo...

The hybrid has straight handlebars https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/AE...

Mountain bikes, gravel bikes, are slow. Gearing is for climbing a mountain. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/No...

Mountain bikes, gravel bikes, are slow

Given the huge difference between the 2 I'm not sure what you mean? Also because these days 'mountain bike' is an umbrella term, whereas gravel bike is still rather specific. E.g. that last link shows already a rather specific segment of maountain bikes: dual suspension, quite a lot of travel on the front suspension, totally suited for going down the hill fast as well.

Yeah the bottom one is close to being a Bomber.

Indeed, for anyone curious, have a look at the 1985 Raleigh (a notable UK company at the time) catalog, and compare the "Road Sport" category with "Sport Touring": https://www.sheldonbrown.com/retroraleighs/catalogs/1985/ind...

Amusingly, here in the Midwest we refer to the skis that we use for poor snow conditions, where there's a lot of mud and muck, as "gravel skis."

Surly made a couple bike you could put fat tires on - their touring bike and a cyclocross bike. I don’t know if they’re still available but they were selling them in the mid-2000s

Definitely still available. That segment of the industry has exploded. Another great manufacturer for touring/adventure bikes is Bombtrack.

Many touring/adventure bikes will double as way better commuter than a road bike I feel. They are set up for comfort, long hours in the saddle, and usually have with luggage mounts.

My 15 year old Surly Crosscheck is probably my most ridden bike - it was one of the 'first' gravel bikes (they've been making them for 20 years) before they really became a thing. The cantilever brakes are rubbish but that just makes it more fun.

If you haven't, and have the budget to do so, try a set of Paul Components mini motos. Fantastic brakes.

I have a bike with cantilevers too, I admire their robustness but yep, definitely not the quickest way to stop in a hurry.

I haven't had to pay attention to that market because my 2007 Surly is still going strong :)

Every Surly bike takes wide tires. Their Pugsley was the first mass-produced fat bike, starting back in 2005.

Fatties Fit Fine on most of their bikes.

I ride 40mm tires on my Long Haul Trucker.

The annoying thing is that the industry still tweaks those perfectly functional gravel bikes for "performance" cycling adding useless features like an aggresive low stack geometry, 1x only drivetrain compatibility, nonsense suspension. Jan Heine gave us some of the best advice through Bicycle Quaterly, his books and the Rene Herse website.

The 1-by drivetrain is something I sought out when looking for my Wife's bike ( or last new bike purchase several years ago ). The advances in the range you can stack in a single cassette totally outweigh the upside of a second ring up front. She has no plans to take that bike up HWY 80 to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and apart from that, she gets by just fine even pulling a kid trailer around town.

My experience with 1-by drive is that the simplicity and (hopefully) fewer opportunities for derailment are totally worth it.

One by drivetrains certainly have their advantages, but many new gravel bikes sacrifice 2x drivetrain compatibility for ultra short chainstays and only accept 1x. Notable examples are Marin Headlands and the Gestalt X10 and X11. Others models that also accept 2x have their whole lineup equipped with 1x. If you also want to use the bike as a road bike, good luck with that. It's either climb hills or go fast with current gravel 1x drivetrains, depending on the size of your chainring. For me the new GRX gravel drivetrain from Shimano has been a godsend: a no nonsense subcompact 46/30 crank and a deraileur usable with up to 11-34(36) casettes or a 1x option usable with up to 11-42(46) casettes. If it wasn't for the gravel/all road bike I would have probably never gotten a proper road bike with skinny tires because it's only usable on roads that one shares with other motorized vehicles.

My first gravel bike came with 42t crank and 11-42 cassette. It's perfect for everyday use. You spin out at like 45km/h (or even higher if you can do high cadence) while the 1-1 gear allows you to climb pretty steep hills. Sure, it's not enough for a road race and I prefer 2x drivetrain these days as I do a lot of distance on pavement but I still think 1x is just a better option for most recreational cyclists.

I can't really climb steep hills with 28 gear inches on the road, let alone on singletrack. But yes, your gear ratio is suitable for road.

My all-road bike has 23 (30/34·26.5", 650bx45 wheels). I don't race.

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