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Do they need drop bars & skinny tyres, or just a bike with rigid forks & big wheels?
I've been riding a OO 29'er Scandal with rigid 440mm (natch, they should be 470mm) forks for years but my tyres are on the big side, am I Gnar or not?*
*This is important in my world 😉
Edit. Nope.
Nope was not to you OP. More to my walking away from the discussion.
I don't know what any of that means.
If what you're asking is, sometimes is riding not hugely technically challenging trails on a bike that has no suspension 'n' stuff to go some places actually quite good fun?
Then yes.
Ride what you want.
Unless, of course you work in IT and the only way that you can place yourself within the world is to have something with a name attached to it, then, no.
To quantify then where I live in Herts is boring & I can do 90% of it on a shopping bike, sometimes that may be inappropriate so I do have other bikes but for 90% of the time...
Gnarmac is drop bars blatting where a road bike can't go. Don't get the sneeriness around it, looks bloody good fun. Also, if it's good enough for Miss Atherton, it's good enough for me.
This one looks awesome (but £7k!)
[url= http://road.cc/content/news/162396-open-eurobike-first-ride-review ]Open U.P. [/url]
2unfit2ride - Member
...I've been riding a OO 29'er Scandal with rigid 440mm (natch, they should be 470mm) forks for years but my tyres are on the big side, am I Gnar or not?*...
Bugger Gnar. Is the bike fun? Yes!
My unGnar Scandal (with Big Apple 2.35" tyres)
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Can highly recommend it. The only limitation offroad is the lack of tread on the tyres, so if it's dry you can still ride the same stuff, but otherwise you ride within the tyre grip. On road it's good too. I've done a 120 mile day tour in the NW highlands on my SS Scandal, so it's capable of doing a decent average.
The only reason I'm not using it at the moment was because I had a spare Ti frame sitting unused, so I converted that instead.
'Arse in the air off-road' as opposed to 'bars in the air' off-road?
Fast vs slower?
An excuse to buy another bike and wear more Lycra offroad? (N+1 buzz-button)
I'm an old late-forties git and remember the 1980s - riding my Carlton Cyclone 10spd 'racer' offroad. It was the only bike I had, and some sections of the funnest voyage to GF's house were variously canal towpath and woodland. I was often thankful of the padded leather motorcycle jacket (notably in the wet), as for some unknown reason never thought to buy and fit cross tyres. Then bought an MTB. Recently looking at hybridizing my MTB further with drops. Seems somehwere between the two worlds of road and MTB is an imagined 'sweet-spot', could be a fantasy, could be achievable. I'm excited to find out. Yet I have the feeling that it might simply turn out to be 'fun to round-peg a square hole' if you push hard enough, ie it's the pushing that is fun.
Saying that - must admit am struggling to think how road geo is 'good' offroad, but IME (see above) it can be a sort of fun in a 'WYonF!?' kind of way. I do like wide drop bars. Is a Salso Fargo considered 'gnar'? Or are bars too high?
Needs explaining, maybe an agreed qualifying/disqualifying list of gnar features would help identify gnar bikes vs non-gnar bikes?
Let's not get too snotty - anything that stimulates more biking has to be a good thing. But definitions need definitions!
There's no formal definition. My definition would be drop bar bike off road - CX, monstercross, adventure bike
But no one really cares - If it's fun it's fun
^ a catch-all term for drop-bar off-road? Makes sense.
My style of riding has always been quite wide (in a non-competitive sense) ie - general transport, back lane touring/exploring, shopping, commuting, fitness/fun loops (transfers between roads/bridleways/trails) - and I dislike driving to trails so usually go local which involves a degree of road to access any trail. So a drop-bar off-road capable bike could be the 'one bike' option I'm looking for...(latest fantasy list candidates being Specialized AWOL or Dawes Gran Tour)
I suppose the big decision with any gnarmac bike is to have the drop bars positioned high or low - as this would make the single biggest difference to the ride? It's really difficult IME to lighten a front wheel when yr chin is over it...but I was never Martyn Ashton