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Gravel bike on single track? Good idea or bad idea.
So me and my wife have temporarily moved in with my parents to save up for a down payment (boy houses are expensive right now). Their house is in a more rural part of Arizona and they have a tons of trails and fire roads that I'm looking at riding when it gets cooler. I have a Canyon Grizl AL 6 with 45mm tires and a rigid carbon fork. The tires are set up tubeless and have pretty good dry grip so I think I should be fine and I would be less than 5 miles from a car accessible road at all times. I have under biked a bit before but not on a desert trail. I was curious if any riders here have any experience and/or advice for taking a gravel bike on single track.
I think it depends on the terrain. Lots of rocks and roots, and you might be wishing you had a proper mountain bike. If it's more smooth/compact gravel or dirt, I think you'd be fine. You can drop the tire pressures, especially with them being tubeless. I say at least give it a shot - if your wrists are killing you at the end from a lack of suspension, you'll have your answer. :-)
I didn't think about dropping the tire pressure. I'll have to experiment and report back. I guess that's some good material to get more discussion going on the cycling tag.
Tire pressure is huge. With tubeless you can go pretty low, depending on rider weight. If you're going to stick to paved roads, keep it a bit higher, and if you're going off road, drop it down a bit.
Utah mountain biker here. I've seen many drop bar and gravel bikes out on local trails, even on some fairly bumpy/rocky single track. And, also, the first "mountain bikes" were basically road bikes with slightly better tires.
That's actually how I started riding. Bought a 100$ rockhopper off of craigslist and tuned it up/replaced the tires and just rode it on everything. I just still am in the habit of babying my gravel bike.
It is an absolute blast! Like some others have said, if it gets super steep or techy you might have some issues, but on blue/green level trails it’s honestly a great time. If you get into mountain biking, you will have the best line selection ever from it too.
I have a Kona Rove and have sent it on trails it supposedly had no right being on in all weather, here in the UK. I feel just as confident on it in steep and techy trails as I do commuting to work on roads and bike lanes. The term 'gravel' is a bit of a disservice to the bike itself in my opinion. Also look at what the original mountain bikers were doing on klunkers many moons ago, try not to buy into the marketing of bike companies too much!
Yeah I wish gravel wasn't the word everyone settled on. All road is much less limiting. The only real reason I got it over a road bike was the better tire size clearance and the clutch on the derailleur. I'll do some exploring and maybe make a little writeup/diary of the ride. Honestly still not sure fully what the site culture here likes as far as content.
It makes more sense to me. I like ATB too, I think some companies still go with that. Can't remember off the top of my head though. But it reminds me of 90's MTB branding and makes them sound more machine-like, like motocross or something. I'd love to read the diary though. Focus on the content that you want to make firstly, or at the very least the stuff you'd like to see here, I'd say.
As long as you have a full hydration pack, and some form of GPS locator beacon, what is the worse that can happen?
I participated in the first ever UCI Gravel World Series race in Bongabon, Philippines. I was using a 2021 Giant Revolt 1.
Maybe around 10% of it was singletrack at the end of a 80km route in 42C weather. That was... I'm not gonna say "fun", but it was definitely doable if not enjoyable.
I've had a couple of other races with more singletrack spread throughout the courses, and that was definitely more my speed compared to having it all at the end. A decently long road section to "rest" makes a big difference.
I mean it shouldn't be dangerous, the downside is your bike isn't optimized for those trails so you will have to work more to get through them, but that's not really a safety hazard. I guess mountain biking in general is a bit dangerous, but having a less than optimal bike doesn't really change that equation.
Just bring plenty of water, ideally find a buddy, and if not just let people know where to look for you if you go MIA. But realistically bringing water and a charged phone should be more than enough to get you out safe, even if you end up having to hike a bike.
If you need more gears you could go with a hub.