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You can do that on an MTB too. A short-travel 29″ XC bike with semi-slicks would be my choice.
Exactly. An MTB doesn't have to be a 160mm full sus with big knobbly tyres.
I find the difference in speed between a hardtail XC bike with fast XC tyres on it and a gravel bike with 40-45c tyres on it pretty small and to me it is just down to firstly what style of bike I enjoy riding most and secondly the ratio of road/versus off road.
Not sure what the Quoich option is though.
I had a spare day a couple years back, and set out from Braemar - up towards Linn of Quoich, then carried on heading for Bein a Bhuird then over the main slug track, and descend into Glen Builg, it's a lovely little track, off and on, then hug the river plain for a while, then I headed up Cullardoch. It's not a looong climb in absolute terms but it can be a bit loose, and granny ring slog.
it can be a bit loose, and granny ring slog
Better not take the MTB then, it doesn't even have a granny ring 🙂
I don’t think being fit standing up on a singlespeed translated seamlessly into jumping on a geared bike either
I think there is something in this. Not singlespeed (I'm not mad 🙂 ) but different types of fitness. Like a few people I found I did more riding during lockdown. All loops from home on the gravel bike. I saw the average speed creeping up and expected to notice that extra fitness when I jumped back on the MTB but I think it was a different type of fitness and I'd actually lost in some areas (like arm strength).
Give it some time, and maybe a diet
I have been looking at some SIDs recently 🙂 Never really got on with my 130mm Pike. I don't think there is anything wrong with the fork and it's great on the bigger hits, but I can't get the small bump stuff to be anywhere near where I'd like it to be. Switching to a 120mm Sid would drop a bit of weight and tighten up the steering a bit. But I'd need to be sure that I was still going to ride it and not just become a full time gravel bore first.
I always swore the one bike I'd always have would be some flavour of MTB HT whatever else was in the shed, I've been without a HT for over a year now and I've not missed it...
But that's because my Gravel bike sort of made it redundant, it just seems to cover distance, especially mixed on/off road routes from the door faster, and that whole lack of suspension with skinnier bars and tyres thing actually appeals to me, because it is very reminiscent of my first couple of MTBs back in the early 90s. It probably takes an odd mindset to actually prefer something that's "less good" offroad specifically for that reason...
If winch, plummet and "gnarr" are on the menu then I will use my Stumpy 29er, a mid travel bouncer which I have no great urge to udgrade or replace now, it is perfectly adequate. For riding from the doorstep it's either the gravel bike or the road bike, very seldom the MTB now...
What I can't understand though is why people keep asking to be 'convinced' about gravel bikes.
If you can't see past a HT MTB, then use that. Stupid curly bared skinny, tyred bikes either appeal or they don't, it's not worth dwelling on just because you feel like a fashion is passing you by or something...
There's a whole lot of gray between the black and white of road bike and mong travel max full suss.
Gravel bike comes in at maybe 3 out of 10, with a 29er rigid XC at maybe 4, with some travel a 5/10. On the kind of trails you've pictured I'd go for the 5 out of 10, you've gone for the 3.
The point being, labelling one "gravel" and one "mountain" ignores that they're all bikes on a spectrum of gnarr.
You, like myself, are also getting older...! Enjoy the bike you like on the trails you like.
Well said and this sums it up very well "Enjoy the bike you like on the trails you like."
Nothing has ruined anything - range of bikes is better than ever and picking one over the other doesn't mean the other is ruined.
I started as a roadie, 30 years ago, but if you think drivers are bad now then you should have been around then - less of them but some utter headcases.
So one day while whiling away time on a cricket tour I was browsing shops in Bath and saw these new fat tyred MTB's. I bought one on the spot (OK, as soon as I got back from tour) and became a MTBer.
My first (a Diamondback Sorrento) was a heavy as ****, fully rigid, narrow barred, crap braked beast and I loved it. I rode it up lanes, through farmyards, along bridleways and if I had to characterise it it would be 'I wonder what's over that next hill'. It essentially was gravel biking, but I thought it was offroading.
Gradually I got sucked in by suspension, (not suspenders, I was already into them) and full suspension, and trail centres, and knee pads, and.... and I forgot about gravel.
2 things happened. I got older, and I bounce less well. And I changed jobs that gave me a rideable commute. I started riding my HT 29er, then i thought that a cross bike would be better - whip along the roads in the am, take the long route back over the ranges. I enjoyed both, so bought a road bike to enable the whipping along, and the cross bike has stayed for other duties. Mainly riding it up lanes, through farmyards, along bridleways and if I had to characterise it it would be 'I wonder what's over that next hill'.
It's essentially the same riding, as it was 25 years ago. It's still fully rigid, the bars are still narrow but a slightly different shape, but instead of being a beast, it's carbon framed. Oh, and the brakes - to stop I no longer need to phone in advance, now I have disc brakes.
Lots of people enjoy a wide variety of cycling and one of the great pleasures is the variety of niches. I agree with the posts about pre late 1990s MTB being much like gravel seems to be today.
Gravel, off-road touring and less extreme MTB riding all look similar and your needs could be met with a confusing variety of bike styles for the same sort of riding. But beware the assumption that a gravel bike can meet a wide variety of needs.
I've settled on a very XC carbon MTB, a gravel "all road" bike and a racey steel roadie. There's arguably some overlap between the gravel bike and each of the others but, in practice, I find they do very different things.
I agree with the posts about pre late 1990s MTB being much like gravel seems to be today.
Depends. We used to go to the local forest and ride the descents as fast as we could, and look for the crazy steep stuff. That was the direct ancestor of the gnar core riders we see today. But some of us also did the long days out in the wilderness.
That's why I have a long travel gnar bike as well as a rigid 29er 🙂
Our early MTB adventures were probably more gravel than most of my recent gravel rides!
Long tarmac drag to Barcaldine Forest from Benderloch, big fireroad loop around the reservoir, 2 minutes singletrack excitement, long tarmac drag home.
It blew my mind when some guys from Oban came to Beinn Lora and built a bona fide steep rooty monster of a DH track, it was like a different sport!
Edit: although I was using canti brakes back then and am still using cantis today, so some things never change!