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You tell me what I need. Having eschewed a new road bike, my mind had turned to off road. Being quite envious of the “ride and a pint” pics we often see on here, I quite fancy a burly trail bike, say a 140ish Nukeproof/Spec/Jeffsy sort of thing to replace my Clockwork Evo as my spare / fun bike. Then again, the Clockwork evo makes a great winter bike but not as easy or as comfortable as a FS for away days, something I’d like to do more of now my son is getting older. Yet, I should be maxing out my time on my Spark RC which of course isn’t really a “fun” bike.
Being attached to the Clockwork Evo, I turned to thoughts of Gravel. I have a early road focused “gravel” bike - a bergamont grandurance tiagra disc, which I’m just converting to tubeless on 33mm Victoria Mix. It’s heavy, limited on tyre size and 50/34 and has been a good winter road bike. I quite fancy something with fatter tyres e.g. any modern 1x gravel machine for longer gravel type rides to replace it if it’d be an upgrade. Yet, riding my Spark on a club gravel ride kinda negates this.
All of this is compounded with a successful return to being thrifty, and not wanting to buy a “mistake”.
Help?
Buying a gravel bike (focus atlas) is the best thing I’ve done for my biking in a while. Maybe it’s just a new bike effect but I’ve ridden my mtb more too.
I can now do easy xc rides on the focus so I’ve put heavier tyres on my smuggler so riding more dh & harder trail stuff on that.
Gratuitous pic…
Sell the gravel bike and the hardtail. Keep the spark for training and racing and get a proper fun trail bike. If needed you can view the time spent mucking around on the trail bike as 'skills' so all round good stuff.
Also see molgrips' thread about a trail bike.
I was thinking about this the other day. When the kids were young I only had my Cotic Soul. I did everything on this bike, partly because it was so versatile and partly because I didn't have any choice.
Since then I've now got 5 bikes for all different types of riding which I love riding.
But the thing is, I've never really replaced my Soul and I think it a bit indulgent have so many bike (I know people have more, even me in the past but 5 bikes seems very indulgent to a non cyclist).
So.....
If I was in your position I'd sell the road/gravel bike and build up a gravel bike to replace it to the spec that will get you out riding more. I'd also think strongly about selling on any other bikes that you don't ride.
Thats a good point. I've been looking a Cinelli King Zydeco and a Pearson Off Grid this morning. I could get one of those and sell the Clock work and the Bergamont.
I ride the clock work 3-4 times a year and am at the point where choosing between a muddy wet forest and a Turbo means I'm opting for indoor rides. A "proper" gravel bike would give me the option of winter road, winter gravel (as opposed to MTB slop) and summer gravel.
The Spark is fine of course for proper stuff here in the SE, although I'm reticent to have it to play with on rocks of Wales & the Peaks as breakage means voiding racing.
Bugger me this is hard!
Full guards all year round on my gravel bike make it the bike of choice when it’s less than good conditions. Now pretty much only ride my mtb when it’s dry.
I'm going to aim for Triggers broom. I'm riding it tomorrow on the club gravel ride, 3hrs of actual gravel experience. I'm then thinking - as it has OEM un-named heavy stuff on it - that I could pick up some lighter components. I could even get a GRX crank and remove the front derailed.
I could go further and get a pair of Hunt all seasons to drop some weight, leaving the OEM wheels shod with Panaracers for winter with guards.
A quick play at the online shops shows I could do all this for less than £600. With the bike currently at 10.4KG, I reckon it might even be down to 9 when I'm done and I've a) saved some money and b) got myself a little weekend project.
Unless it beats me to pieces tomorrow, then its days may be numbered 🙂
So I discovered my bike was great this morning over a 75k Gravel run over rutted fields, single track, shale and horses hooves and I'm not aching unduly. There's something quite enjoyable about Gravel riding.
I probably could add a clutch mech over the 4700 mech to quieten things down and am waiting for my tubeless tape to arrive but don't neeeeeeeeed anything else.