Gravel bike- where's the gravel?

 Last fall (2020) I bought a used gravel bike from a friend- I took a test ride with him and within about 50 yards I was in love with it.  The bike is a 2016 Niner RLT-A which has SRAM components and a hydroformed aluminum frame.  It seems to flow over the pavement or gravel as compared to my carbon fiber road bike which sort of clatters over our local roads.  I bought a spare set of wheels from another friend so I now have on set with 700/30-32 smooth tires for roads, towpath, and touring and one set with 700x42 knobby tires for gravel.

So of course I had to rationalize the need for a used gravel bike and it was pretty easy.  First, it is actually a really good setup for touring.  I never really "loved" my touring bike although I had several really nice tours on it.  I was able to sell it for about 1/3 what I paid for the gravel bike so that helped. Another significant reason was to morph my riding more over towards more bike trails and towpath and less roads and of course ride gravel roads when I can get to them.  Part of this change is simply to have safer rides- less traffic.  There are simply too many people out there who text while they drive, hate bicyclists, or are just crappy drivers.  I still ride a lot of roads but have definitely ridden more bike trails and towpaths this year than in years prior.

The gravel bike is 1-2 mph slower than the road bike and probably almost 3 mph slower when I have the knobby tires on it.

Oh, one other thing to mention is the gearing.  For touring I'm all about good climbing gears- when you're going up a hill with a load you want climbing gears.  My small front chainring is a 30 tooth and the rear cassette I added to both wheel sets is an 11 x 36.  This gets me up just about anything my legs, heart and lungs can handle.

The photo below shows the bike on the OTET- Ohio to Erie Trail.  It took awhile to find a rear rack but I found the perfect one.  I'm using two rear panniers and carrying my tent on the rack platform.  Tools and spare tubes are in my seatpack.  Two water bottles worked well for this 326 mile trip completed in June 2021.  Note that I do have some inserts on the front fork which can be used to attach various types of racks or holders.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Southern Tier- the hard part is getting there

Image
 San Diego to El Paso by Bike - the hard part is getting there  10/23/21. After spending the better part of the past week boxing my bike and figuring out what I need for about 3 weeks on the bike, I’m finally sitting in the airplane. The alarm went off at 330 this morning and so far the trip consists of a 45 minute drive, 45 minutes getting my bike checked and 45 minutes in TSA. Cycling should be easy after this.  American has a bike rate of $30 which is a deal. Unfortunately the gate agent had no idea about the rate so it took her and 2 others to figure it out- thankfully it didn’t turn into the $200 oversized charge. The bike box came in at 49 pounds against a 50 lb max! I’m meeting my friend Brian Blair in San Diego. Earlier this year we rode the OTET trail from Cincinnati to Cleveland with a group of four. The last time I biked with Brian was in 2011 when he and Susan Spinelli let me join them for the Seattle to Glacier National Park part of their cross country ride. ...
Read more

The Sonoran Desert

Image
The first 20 miles out of Gila Bend was a low grade climb into a 15 mph wind, taking over 2 hours. This area has not one structure. It was mostly scrub sagebrush but as the mountains came closer we started to see saguaro cacti. The slow climb brought out a lot of beauty in this place. I’d like to have explored some of the trails we saw. The first structure we saw at about 30 miles in turned out to be the admin building far a very busy landfill. Of course the wide berm petered away and we were assaulted by numerous 18 wheelers returning from the landfill and passing too close for comfort. Then I get my first flat in a few days. I immediately found a stainless wire that had pierced my tube, put a spare tube and the tire back on with Brian‘s help and got on the way. 3 miles later, another flat And I again found a tiny wire that pieced the tube. Another repair.   We got to Maricopa and stopped at the busiest Circle K in the world and I bought an extra large Mountain Dew to quench my th...
Read more