DJI’s in the gravel game now I guess?

[Jeremy McCreary]

as jeremy had stated elsewhere, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a bike that is pretty good at multiple things. i personally prefer focusing on one thing, which is going as far and fast as i can on the many beautiful roads within riding distance of my front door, so i like road bikes and find no benefit whatsoever to things like suspension, upright riding position, tons of bosses, dropper posts, 1x drivetrains, huge tires or knobby tires and so on. but those things are awesome for other situations

If I had the money and garage space, I'd love to have a serious road, gravel, and mountain ebike — one for every mood. I can only imagine what it'd be like to fly around on your Aethos!

But I'd probably ride the gravel bike most. My usual MO is to set a 1st objective — say, a particular beach or local summit — then ride by ear from there. The gravel bike's versatility would put the fewest restrictions on where I went next. No need to pick a surface ahead of time.

 

[carl06]

If I had the money and garage space, I'd love to have a serious road, gravel, and mountain ebike — one for every mood. I can only imagine what it'd be like to fly around on your Aethos!

But I'd probably ride the gravel bike most. My usual MO is to set a 1st objective — say, a particular beach or local summit — then ride by ear from there. The gravel bike's versatility would put the fewest restrictions on where I went next. No need to pick a surface ahead of time.

I couldn't agree more with your thoughts. I have Analog gravel, mountain and road bikes plus an E-gravel and E-Mountain. I have two wheelsets for the E-gravel and use the second set for road rides. The two gravel bikes are my favorite bikes. I ride a lot of group ramble rides where we ride anything including pavement, gravel and single-track. The gravel bikes are so much fun on these rides. Yes the mountain bikes kick butt on the single-track and rough gravel but they struggle to keep up on pavement or smoother gravel unless they are riding an E-Mountain Bike. I don't have a suspension fork on my gravel bikes but I do have suspension stems on both and I have a 2.35 mountain bike tire in the front of my E-gravel bike.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

So here's another honest question: Since flat bars are kosher, what's to stop me from calling this SL a gravel bike? Geometry?

Jeremy, I consider Vado SL a proper flat handlebar gravel bike as long as you use proper tyres (yours are the proper ones). Flat handlebar gravel bikes do exist, for example this one. My brother rides one in gravel races; he is unbeatable in rough terrain (especially on gnarly singletracks) but he gets the beating on asphalt. Given the fact he is a Master (a senior), his racing results are more than pleasing.

As mschwett explained, the principal reason behind a drop handlebar gravel bike is high speed (especially off paved roads). A person who is a known gravel race organizer (and he also rides e-MTBs) thinks gravel e-bikes make a little sense. The reason is the short range of e-bikes. For that reason, the e-races he organizes are limited to 50 miles with (say) 4,500 ft elevation gain. On the other hand, traditional gravel races he organizes are 100 milers, 3 x 100 milers as well the Ultra (say, 300 miles). No e-bike could ride that far.

Neither you or me ride very fast, so Vado SL is perfect for the gravel role. I could buy a Creo 2; I would be ashamed with my poor performance on that beautiful machine (not even mentioning the EU 25 km/h assistance limit).

 

[Base]

Its a really good question, and one that doesn't really have a clear answer. Historically there has been a variety of bike categories in that space between road bikes and mountainbikes. Touring bikes, endurance road bikes, cyclocross, monster cross, etc. Gravel is the hot (relatively) new category but its related to all those IMO.

The "average" gravel bike has coalesced as something similar to what would have been an endurance road bike 15 years ago. Start with a general purpose road bike, slacken it slightly, lengthen the chainstays, add tire clearance, tweak other geometry so the rider is a bit more upright and there you go. But there are lots of variations on that theme. I think gravel is in general less rigid about what is "the right way" to do it than the roadie world is. You get gravel bikes that are basically racing road bikes with a bit more tire clearance all the way to mountainbikes with drop bars. Where people ride gravel bikes varies a lot too, from packed cinder that is almost pavement up to MTB-trail.

Personally, its just a bike that I would want to ride on gravel rides. I have my preferences for geometry and rack mounting points and components but I'm not gonna pretend they are universal.

MTB's were also been ridden with drops. way before a category of gravel was known...

1910 Tour de France, what currently is a road race this was a gravel race at start. Fully self supporting.... These bikes where at that point single speeds with a flip flop hub, so before the big climbs turn the wheel around for the hill-gearing

 

[Chargeride]

All bikes are multi terrain, but not all backsides are.

 

[jabberwocky]

"Fat tires" back then were probably skinnier than standard gravel tires are now.