One Bike to Rule Them All

[Stretched@Birth]

2 hours ago, bozzopi1 said:

Since you are from Gauteng, you can freely come any day during the week (weekends included) to Sling Aircraft  factory, and I will take you on one of our demo Tagati's, on 2 hour ride, on our local trail. I have demo bikes in all sizes. No obligations what so ever. I want to show you that gravel bike can be the only bike you will ever need. And you can also personally experience how wide tire, good spec gravel bike feels. Same applies to everyone else in this topic. Feel free to contact me on 0739510455

I may just take up this offer.  Whereabouts is your factory?  If I'm not mistaken you're at the Heidelberg airfield?

[bozzopi1]

18 minutes ago, dasilvarsa said:

I "Once" Saw a Gravel Bike on the Trails.

Gravel bike is not meant to replace mtb or road bike. But it will do 70% of what mtb can do and 90% of what road bike can do. It will also take you on adventure when you need to have one or even to work and back, if that is your thing. It won't cost you arm and leg for maintenance. It will save you space and money, coz u can have one bike instead two. That is the main thing about the Gravel bike. I done many mtb races with mine and I done them equally well as any other xc mtb. I done many road races with my Gravel bike also. I just change tires from 29x2.2 to 700c 28mm and ride on road. That is the whole thing about the Gravel bike. It is one bike that can reasonably well do everything you put in front of it, and save you some space and money while doing. Coz not all of us can have or want to have N+1.

[bozzopi1]

5 minutes ago, Stretched@Birth said:

I may just take up this offer.  Whereabouts is your factory?  If I'm not mistaken you're at the Heidelberg airfield?

We are based at Tedderfield Airpark. Eikenhof 

[Mountain Bru]

29 minutes ago, AllTerrain said:

I tend to agree with this thinking. I ride my 2012 Scott hardtail 29er 99% of the time. Sometimes I worry my others bikes will up amd leave me???? That will change now, because I have bought a cheap hybrid bike from cycle-lab to use for day to day commuting and similar. Also, I don’t understand what the benefit of drop bars are. But I guess having never been a roadie, I am probably just scared of change. I demoed a norco gravelbike last year at rosemary hill though, which is not exactly technical, but there was no way I could find where the drops were better than flat bars on a trail or on a dirt road, where you need to steer, navigate bumps and use the brakes at the same time. 
 

A light hardtail 29er, with a 80-100mil fork, and a 2x crank is superior to a gravel bike in any conditions where you wouldn’t be able to ride your proper road bike. But that’s just my opinion. 

in my eyes I see it like this:

Road bike = Sports car (or supercar, depending on what you ride). Fast and fun and very good looking, but only practical under perfect conditions. 
 

XC Hardtail = Bakkie based SUV (fortuner/Everest etc). Sensible and practical on all roads and conditions. Obviously no match for the sports car on the road, but still able to ride it with ease. Perfectly capable on any gravel road and jeep track, and it can take on some proper 4x4 trips with relative ease also.

XC/Marathon Dual sus = Proper SUV (Prado/Discovery/Pajero or VX200/RangeRover if you wanna pay a bit more) very comfortable, much more so than the hardtail on every road type, but not as efficient, costs a lot more to own/run, but also much much nicer place to be when the going gets tough.

Trail Bike = Defender/Cruiser76/wrangler massively compromised in terms of performance compared with its XC stablemates, can still do everything they can do, but it’s not ideal. But shines when things get really wild. 

Enduro Bike = overland prepped 4x4. It’s still able to handle everyday use if you really only have one vehicle, but it’s not great at anything except getting out into the back country and taking on the really tough trails. Does everything the trail bike does, but with a bit more ease, but it could also take on most of the downhill bikes routes too, with a skilled pilot. 

Downhill Bikes = purpose built/ highly modded 4x4. Useless for everything except what it is actually built for. Not a practical day to day bike at all.

 

Gravel Bike = Single Cab fleet Bakkie. It’s does tar and gravel just fine, but it’s not ideal an either. It can cruise on the road all day long, at the average speed with everyone else, but It’s no match for the sports car on the road, or the 4x4 with decent ground clearance and bigger tires off road. So it’s left behind in both these roles. And it definately can’t do anything the other more off road biased vehicles can do. If you fit a canopy/panniers, it’s not actually too terrible to use for a long road trip, but, the SUV/XC bike would be just as good at this role, and more comfortable too, and, if you take a wrong turn, or the road conditions suddunly gets much much worse, your still good to go if you in an SUV…

 

I guess I’m gonna run and hide from all the gravel grinders now????

 

(please note, this was just a bit of fun, while I wait for my next zoom call….I don’t care what you ride, as long as you ride. But, I do get annoyed when marketing types invent new niches just to drive new sales, when they could have just sold more of an existing product that works)

Brilliant. 

You're obviously not a roadie though. Drop bars are great on the road when you want to get out of the wind, and have multiple hand positions, or lower your center of gravity around a corner. 

There are different types of road bikes too though.... The few that come to mind are:

• aero racing bikes - think Italian sportscar - aggressive, built for speed, but rigid and uncomfortable if the road isn't smooth
• lightweight climbing bikes - made to be light for when things go uphill, and decent on pretty everything else. Not as aggressive and fast as an aero bike, but still a racing machine, like a BMW M2?
• endurance bikes - comfort is king. made for long rides. Like an old camry. Not fast, but you'll forget you aren't in your lounge while the miles past by
• time trial bikes - The equivalent of a downhill bike. Unbelievably good at what it's made for. Crap at everything else.

What the car equivalent of a BMX? One of those motorized kids cars that technically an adult can drive but really shouldn't? Or a golf cart? 

Your description of a gravel bike is exactly what I experienced though - A bike that can technically go anywhere, but that will make you wish you were on something else 95% of the time. But that might have just been the bike I had seen as other guys seem to have had better experiences.

 

[Mountain Bru]

44 minutes ago, Stretched@Birth said:

I may just take up this offer.  Whereabouts is your factory?  If I'm not mistaken you're at the Heidelberg airfield?

Me too.... Once el Presidente changes the lockdown limitations. 

[Jewbacca]

4 minutes ago, Mountain Bru said:

Brilliant. 

You're obviously not a roadie though. Drop bars are great on the road when you want to get out of the wind, and have multiple hand positions, or lower your center of gravity around a corner. 

There are different types of road bikes too though.... The few that come to mind are:

• aero racing bikes - think Italian sportscar - aggressive, built for speed, but rigid and uncomfortable if the road isn't smooth
• lightweight climbing bikes - made to be light for when things go uphill, and decent on pretty everything else. Not as aggressive and fast as an aero bike, but still a racing machine, like a BMW M2?
• endurance bikes - comfort is king. made for long rides. Like an old camry. Not fast, but you'll forget you aren't in your lounge while the miles past by
• time trial bikes - The equivalent of a downhill bike. Unbelievably good at what it's made for. Crap at everything else.

What the car equivalent of a BMX? One of those motorized kids cars that technically an adult can drive but really shouldn't? Or a golf cart? 

Your description of a gravel bike is exactly what I experienced though - A bike that can technically go anywhere, but that will make you wish you were on something else 95% of the time. But that might have just been the bike I had seen as other guys seem to have had better experiences.

 

A BMX is a Volksie Beatle...... It can go anywhere, do anything and in the right hands, do it better than more suited cars in other hands. It won't be the most comfortable, or the fastestest, but it will get you there and you can't help but smile while piloting one.

If you watched the TopGear where they trash a bunch of cars in Africa but the beetle just goes and goes and goes, you will know.

[MTBeer]

9 minutes ago, Mountain Bru said:

Brilliant. 

You're obviously not a roadie though. Drop bars are great on the road when you want to get out of the wind, and have multiple hand positions, or lower your center of gravity around a corner. 

There are different types of road bikes too though.... The few that come to mind are:

• aero racing bikes - think Italian sportscar - aggressive, built for speed, but rigid and uncomfortable if the road isn't smooth
• lightweight climbing bikes - made to be light for when things go uphill, and decent on pretty everything else. Not as aggressive and fast as an aero bike, but still a racing machine, like a BMW M2?
• endurance bikes - comfort is king. made for long rides. Like an old camry. Not fast, but you'll forget you aren't in your lounge while the miles past by
• time trial bikes - The equivalent of a downhill bike. Unbelievably good at what it's made for. Crap at everything else.

What the car equivalent of a BMX? One of those motorized kids cars that technically an adult can drive but really shouldn't? Or a golf cart? 

Your description of a gravel bike is exactly what I experienced though - A bike that can technically go anywhere, but that will make you wish you were on something else 95% of the time. But that might have just been the bike I had seen as other guys seem to have had better experiences.

 

I see okes coming down from the Blockhouse on Table Mountain (for the up-country guys, it's a high speed rocky jeep track) on Gravel Bikes, getting the sht shaken out of them, and I think to myself "why?"

[Stefan Cremer]

In reference to the topic, I don't believe that such a bike exists.

Said bike is dependent on your riding preferences, your preferred terrain and preference for cycling category, so to even think that one bike could rule them all is unfounded in its totality; albeit an interesting discussion...

There can never be any sort of agreement, as each perspective on this is unique and related to personal preferences. What holds true though, is that there may be a single bike that one person may prefer over all other bikes, but this is unique to personal preferences.

A trail bike can never be the 'one bike' for a trans continental tourer, inasmuch as a gravel bike will never be an option for a die hard downhiller. The list goes on...

My love of cycling is deep and I have little preference for one discipline over any other, with my riding reflecting different seasons and preferences as time goes by. At times a down country trail bike would be all the rage, then a racy XC bike, other times a long distance gravel bike, then a light road bike, all depending on what my mood is like and where I want to travel to and what experience I am seeking.

In the end, the one bike to rule them all is the one that you own and ride the most.

For the theoretical discussion around it, well it has to be your first BMX...

Edited July 6, 2021 by Stefan Cremer
Typographical errors.

[AllTerrain]

16 minutes ago, Mountain Bru said:

 

Your description of a gravel bike is exactly what I experienced though - A bike that can technically go anywhere, but that will make you wish you were on something else 95% of the time. But that might have just been the bike I had seen as other guys seem to have had better experiences.

 

I’m not so sure, see my post on the Anthem thread about South Africans obsession with “sukkeling” and then wearing it as a badge of honour. I think this gravel bike justification thing is very similar to the MAMIL obsession with seriously compromised XC race bikes, when they would be far better off on a marathon or Trail bike. 
 

The Saturday before this lockdown, a small group of us did a 120km ride out to harties and back. I had planned the route to include a few little “secret” footpaths, on the broederstroom side, and lots of really bad gravel tracks. I told the guys this ride was more suited to mountain bikes, but a gravel bike would work. One of our mates insists his gonna ride it on his gravel bike, even though he has a very decent MTB also. He did the whole ride. He made it. But he suffered. On the way home the corrugstions very nearly got the best of him. He broke a couple of spokes too. But he says it was lekker, and it was a much easier ride than if he was on his trail bike, because he would never have made the distance…. Ja swaer. Sunday morning the same group went to ride Rosemary hill. He is the only one who didn’t join us, and it wasn’t because he was busy, his missus confirmed, he was broken after the Saturday ride….and he is a lot fitter then what I am.

[eala]

8 minutes ago, AllTerrain said:

I’m not so sure, see my post on the Anthem thread about South Africans obsession with “sukkeling” and then wearing it as a badge of honour. I think this gravel bike justification thing is very similar to the MAMIL obsession with seriously compromised XC race bikes, when they would be far better off on a marathon or Trail bike. 
 

The Saturday before this lockdown, a small group of us did a 120km ride out to harties and back. I had planned the route to include a few little “secret” footpaths, on the broederstroom side, and lots of really bad gravel tracks. I told the guys this ride was more suited to mountain bikes, but a gravel bike would work. One of our mates insists his gonna ride it on his gravel bike, even though he has a very decent MTB also. He did the whole ride. He made it. But he suffered. On the way home the corrugstions very nearly got the best of him. He broke a couple of spokes too. But he says it was lekker, and it was a much easier ride than if he was on his trail bike, because he would never have made the distance…. Ja swaer. Sunday morning the same group went to ride Rosemary hill. He is the only one who didn’t join us, and it wasn’t because he was busy, his missus confirmed, he was broken after the Saturday ride….and he is a lot fitter then what I am.

That pretty much sums up they way i see it also .It is so much easier to decide at the spur of the moment ,today i am taking another route than the usual and i don't have to worry if my skinny gravel tyres will make it ,or this road might become really bad for twenty km and i will be stuck with no suspension and skinny tyres on rocks and sand .Don't forget that a thin tyre does not work in sand ever and carrying speed through a ditch is the way to go with suspension and strong tyres ,but cannot be done on a gravel bike .I have had many opportunities to go the gravel bike route and every time i realize that they are imo only a rugged replacement for a road bike and nothing more  

[bozzopi1]

1 hour ago, MTBeer said:

I see okes coming down from the Blockhouse on Table Mountain (for the up-country guys, it's a high speed rocky jeep track) on Gravel Bikes, getting the sht shaken out of them, and I think to myself "why?"

Coz just before the flight from Johannesburg wife decided to add some small things in your bike bag Coz her one is too full. And mtb is just to heavy to deal with wife issue's. ????

[MTBeer]

7 minutes ago, bozzopi1 said:

Coz just before the flight from Johannesburg wife decided to add some small things in your bike bag Coz her one is too full. And mtb is just to heavy to deal with wife issue's. ????

99% of them are bearded hipsters. definitely not from Jo'burg

[bozzopi1]

31 minutes ago, eala said:

That pretty much sums up they way i see it also .It is so much easier to decide at the spur of the moment ,today i am taking another route than the usual and i don't have to worry if my skinny gravel tyres will make it ,or this road might become really bad for twenty km and i will be stuck with no suspension and skinny tyres on rocks and sand .Don't forget that a thin tyre does not work in sand ever and carrying speed through a ditch is the way to go with suspension and strong tyres ,but cannot be done on a gravel bike .I have had many opportunities to go the gravel bike route and every time i realize that they are imo only a rugged replacement for a road bike and nothing more  

Couple of weeks ago I done Tanqua Kuru gravel race. Second day was 50 km of deep sand. Almost all of us  were  on the Gravel bikes and didn't had any problems with sand at all.

[Mountain Bru]

1 hour ago, AllTerrain said:

I’m not so sure, see my post on the Anthem thread about South Africans obsession with “sukkeling” and then wearing it as a badge of honour. I think this gravel bike justification thing is very similar to the MAMIL obsession with seriously compromised XC race bikes, when they would be far better off on a marathon or Trail bike. 
 

The Saturday before this lockdown, a small group of us did a 120km ride out to harties and back. I had planned the route to include a few little “secret” footpaths, on the broederstroom side, and lots of really bad gravel tracks. I told the guys this ride was more suited to mountain bikes, but a gravel bike would work. One of our mates insists his gonna ride it on his gravel bike, even though he has a very decent MTB also. He did the whole ride. He made it. But he suffered. On the way home the corrugstions very nearly got the best of him. He broke a couple of spokes too. But he says it was lekker, and it was a much easier ride than if he was on his trail bike, because he would never have made the distance…. Ja swaer. Sunday morning the same group went to ride Rosemary hill. He is the only one who didn’t join us, and it wasn’t because he was busy, his missus confirmed, he was broken after the Saturday ride….and he is a lot fitter then what I am.

Is that the post about breaking fingers in orifices?

I have to agree with you. We are a strange bunch when it comes to taking pride in making things work after intentionally making them more difficult for ourselves. (like being proud of doing long rides with only 1 bottle cage, when 2 is clearly better ????) I do understand the argument of gravel bikes making tame trails feel more fun when compared to a 120mm travel dual sus though, but there's definitely a line where you're compromising fun by being on a narrow tyre, rigid gravel bike, so it's not all a win. And also the point where your insistence that you can go everywhere on a gravel bike becomes a nuisance because while you technically can, you're twice as slow as everyone in your group that is on a mountain bike. 

[Mountain Bru]

On 7/3/2021 at 9:35 AM, Jewbacca said:

I also don't own a BMX

 

2 hours ago, Jewbacca said:

A BMX is a Volksie Beatle...... It can go anywhere, do anything and in the right hands, do it better than more suited cars in other hands. It won't be the most comfortable, or the fastestest, but it will get you there and you can't help but smile while piloting one.

If you watched the TopGear where they trash a bunch of cars in Africa but the beetle just goes and goes and goes, you will know.

Exactly like a Beatle. There's a certain appeal to them, but would you actually want to own one? No. ???? (But you're always looking for one nonetheless)
 

[Mountain Bru]

1 hour ago, bozzopi1 said:

Couple of weeks ago I done Tanqua Kuru gravel race. Second day was 50 km of deep sand. Almost all of us  were  on the Gravel bikes and didn't had any problems with sand at all.

Didn't you say your gravel bike has 2.4 tyres on it... Which is awesome! But at some point it's dangerously close to just being a hardtail with drop handlebars.