My wife gravel riding in Kamloops. She's new to this, but having fun!
Gravel Bike Thread
With the cost of decent alloy rims these days the Cushcore pays for itself super fast on these kinds of bikes if you ride them on trails. I have previously killed 1-2 rims a year which adds up.
Posted by: Heinous
With the cost of decent alloy rims these days the Cushcore pays for itself super fast on these kinds of bikes if you ride them on trails. I have previously killed 1-2 rims a year which adds up.
Yup. Way more hard rim strikes with only 42cc between my rim and an abrupt root.
Speaking of getting rowdy on a gravel bike, how often do you all crash on a gravel ride. I have to say that gravel riding feels way closer to the edge a lot of the time due to the gravel on hard surface and crap tires (in comparison to a mtb bike tire). My most common crash is having the front wheel wash out in a corner. I'd say it happens to me about one in 20-30 rides. I fu÷#ing hate it though. Gravel crashes can be pretty high speed and falling on gravel always sucks.
I very rarely crash cx / gravel bikes on gravel, but in CX races where pushing harder and the conditions are usually terrible probably average a small crash every few races. Riding a CX bike on MTB trails I don't crash often, but do have the odd emergency dismount.
Crashing on gravel at high speed is nasty business, and while I tend to go pretty quick, crashing is a rarity. Grinduro California I had one that could have been really bad but managed to salvage it and eject in an upright position and run off the speed.
If you're crashing at high speed on gravel washing the front I'm curious about your bike fit and set up...
I think my bike fit is OK. My tire setup may need to be rethought. I'm running gravel king semi slicks right now as I do at least 50% on roads. I also ride a little too fast a little too often but sometimes my spills aren't tire or equipment related. For instance, yesterday my front tire blew out in a corner that had 3" of loose gravel on top of hardpack. Gravel has to be the least confidence inspiring surface to corner on imo. It's also hard to predict what gravel is going to let loose. I'm relatively new to gravel so I was wondering what others experience was.
Do you have any road riding experience? I think road riding is really useful. The position is similar, but mostly, I find that the way you handle the bike and assess risk is informative. I crash mtb's a lot more than gravel, but that's mostly because gravel (like road) crashes tend to be pretty nasty.
took a cervelo aspero 5 force axs testbike home over the weekend, daaaaaang what a super fast maschine it is. easy 4-5km/h more than with my bombtrack
Rebuilt my cache with drop bars, not the ideal brake/shifter setup, as I couldn't get my hands on 12 speed hydros but mechanical Force 11 with TRP Spyres are working well. My intention is to swap up to the new 12 speed Ultegra when they become readily available.
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