Gravel was meant to be the friendly, inclusive ‘it's about the journey not the speed / result' movement that reclaimed recreational off road riding from intimidating racing and radness. But have aero obsession and the UCI taken the fun away? And will 'adventure gravel' ever just admit it's OG MTB and fit the flat bars and proper tyres that make far more sense?
Ok let's not beat around the bush here. For all its popularity and trend bucking sales in these grim times for the industry, 'gravel' has never been more than clever marketing. Repackaging stuff we'd all been doing for years / decades as a bright new hope for bicycle escapism.
Actually, you can easily stretch that timeline to well over a century. When an almost complete lack of anything we'd consider a road still didn't stop early cyclists from heading into the hills and over mountain ranges on mad adventures. My mum used to happily relate tales of overtaking cars down the gravel switchbacks of north Wales. Piloting her single speed, rod brake roadster on 'pass storming' Youth Hostelling trips. I once got lost down a bottomless rabbit hole of research on French ultra light aerospace alloy 'randonneur' racing bikes from the 1930s while researching a book too. The Rough Stuff Fellowship has a fantastic archive of pictures showing bikes being dragged through all sorts of ridiculous rafting, wading, snow drift and Via Ferrata situations all over the world. Mostly powered by dark pints, meaty pies and the friction of tweed and wool on road bikes with slightly wider than normal tyres.
Fifty years ago, the California chapter of ‘clunker’ cruiser bike off-roading, built on escaping ‘cars, cops and concrete’, was commercialised to create ‘mountain biking’. But that only occurred because they were already pushing their touring and cyclo cross bikes way beyond their remit. So far in fact that the infamous rides of Jobst Brandt - attended by later MTB icons like Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly, Tom Ritchey, Scot Nicol and others - were measured not just in hundreds of miles, but also in how many spare tubular tyres it was wise to bring as spares.
Mountain biking also provides the perfect history lesson lens for looking at what's happening in gravel right now too. It didn't take long for the counter culture crews and road racing refugees that started exploring the back country on modded beach cruisers to get hold of stopwatches. Soon, timed downhill runs on the Repack Trail joined drum circles and demolition derbies as mid ride entertainment. Hop up parts from motorbikes and touring bikes began being replaced by lightweight gear from road race group sets. Tom Ritchey built a super light frame complete with integrated seat post. Keith Bontrager cut and re-welded Mavic alloy road rims to replace steel beach bike hoops. Gary Fisher beat an all star cast of pro road and cyclo cross racers on his ultra custom race MTB rig at the first Reseda to the Sea off road event. Soon he was selling replicas from the 'Mountain Bikes' shop he set up with Charlie Kelly for 2-3 times the price of a top spec Colnago pro peloton machine of the time.
Looking at it from a UK perspective, I can still remember the chuntering amongst the original “we’re just racing for fun” All Terrain Bikers when Team Peugeot cyclo-cross pros Tim Gould and David Baker first turned up, taking chequered flags by a cross-country mile on their crude Sitting Bull bikes in those iconic chequerboard skinsuits. And I'm sure if social media had existed back then there would definitely have been threads about that sort of behaviour not being in the 'spirit of mountain biking'.
And bike development got sidetracked in the same way. Now 'original gravellers' are wailing about the UCI getting involved and aero frames, not just fresh air in your face becoming the hot topic. Epic rides have become hyped hardcore races and FKTs (Fastest Known Times) are instantly being recorded on history centred Cycling UK routes. Potentially not just robbing average riders of a sense of achievement for having just completed the route, but also missing the point of the adventure entirely by encouraging you to stare at clocks not castles. Events that used to be a confused but cheerful and welcoming sort of fancy dress on whatever wheels you wanted to ride are now brutally competitive races with fights at feed stops. Pace lines have replaced party pace and as ever the media and marketing machines have seized on speed as the way to sell new stuff.
And it was exactly the same story with mountain bikes back then. Small numbers on scales translated to big numbers in sales. Frames, wheels and colourfully anodised components became lighter and lighter until they snapped. Bars became so narrow we couldn't steer. Yet we still added bar ends to catch in bushes just so we could try and catch our mates on climbs. And at that point, as we sketched down hills with our hands way out front, on two inch wide race tyres, making even the lamest dog walking tracks in the woods a massive drama we hit a crucial intersection point.
Because that's exactly where the most progressive gravel bikes are now. 50mm tyres, 460mm+ bars - sometimes with weird loops on, 40mm travel suspension forks, head angles hovering around 70 degrees. Apart from having disc brakes that actually work as far as the tyres allow, rad gravel and retro MTB are now basically the same thing.
But that's not something to be cynical or judgemental about. In fact we should be rejoicing in the fact that a whole new generation of riders is potentially about to discover the version of off road biking many of us still absolutely love. Just going out with mates trying new trails or having fun trying to tame familiar runs. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes for days. Riding from the door or across distant lands. And while what handlebars or tire width you decide to do it on matter far less than the doing of it, I can't help think that a hardtail or lightweight XC full suspension bike that's benefitted from three decades of evolution might be the best way to do it. But for those who are fine with gravel bikes how they are, that's totally OK, because for truly mixed on/off riding they are an awesome one bike solution.
Alternatively, if you love the fact you can now basically have a road race or time trial with all the same tactics and tech but without the lethal dangers of traffic, then great. You crack on with being you, and we'll crack on being us and we can all have our own version of fun on the same hills and forests. We can all use whatever bikes, clothes and tech we want from a seemingly ever-increasing range of media hyped options too. Just don't think any of it is actually new, because you'll find pictures of deep aero wheels, drop bars and aero skin suits in MTB thirty years ago and fat tyre adventure road bikes in several brand catalogues from a similar date.
So, to answer the original question of what's happened with gravel, I guess it's just gone in a big circle of exploration. Having a lot of fun and learning some stuff from experience along the way. And that doesn't just sound like my idea of a great ride, it also sounds a lot like the 'spirit of gravel'. Or indeed the spirit of MTB, Rough Stuffing, pass storming, randonneuring* and every other brand of bike adventuring that's gone before.
