More and more people are looking at gravel bikes for the next bike. Whether it’s to explore more, switch up the commute, take on multi-day trips or simply get off the road during winter, there’s loads of reasons to give gravel riding a go.
But where do you start when picking a gravel bike? With a whole host of new gravel bikes being launched by all the big manufacturers recently most gravel bikes fit into two categories. Adventure gravel or speed gravel. If you’re looking at multi-day tours or just want to hit some gnarlier terrain you want to be looking at bikes with extra mounting points, slacker geometry and solutions to help smooth out bumps. If you see yourself at the pointy end of rides such as Dirty Reiver you want to be focussing on more race inspired bikes, such as the Cervelo Aspero and Specialized Crux.
Here’s a few bikes from our range that are great places to start when shopping for a gravel bike.
Specialized Crux
The all new Specialized Crux is the world’s lightest gravel bike, with the S-Works model weighing in at only 7.25kg. This is an all out race tuned machine for the rider who asks what can I leave behind rather than what can I take. Borrowing technology and design cues from the road going Aethos, this is a bike for the roadie who wants to go fast off road and link up those nice gravel roads with the odd tarmac section.
Specialized Diverge
The Specialized Diverge is equipped with Future Shock 2.0 to smooth out the rougher gravel and bumps whilst egging you on to find even more technical terrain to truly test it’s limits. There’s also mounting points galore, making it the perfect bike for the multi-day off road trip.
Cannondale Topstone
Cannondale’s Topstone is one of the most capable gravel bikes on the market, truly blurring the line between road and mountain bike. Depending on the build it can be specced with a Lefty suspension fork and all the carbon frames have suspension built into the rear triangle. This combines to make a bike that can go pretty much anywhere you can think of taking it.
Scott Addict Gravel
Super fast on tarmac, yet able to take on rough gravel and terrain, all with sublime handling. The Addict Gravel is a quiver killer. With clearance for upto 45mm tyres, hidden bottle and mudguard mounts, internal cable routing on select models, aero tube shapes and progressive geometry, the Addict Gravel is whatever bike you want it to be.Stick on some fast rolling 35mm tyres and you’re good to hit the road and some gravel, or go all out and mount a 45mm tyre and take on some super gnarly terrain.
Cervelo Aspero
Cervelo launched the Aspero with the line ‘haul ass, not cargo’. As soon as you ride this bike you’ll know exactly what they mean. It encourages you to push that little bit more and rewards you every time you do with it’s smile-inducing handling. What’s more it will even take 650b wheels whilst keeping the all important geometry thanks to the clever flip-chips at the axles.
Check out our current gravel bike range here.
As always, get in touch with the team if you need any help picking your next bike. Call us on 01977 679998, email on sales@jscycleshack.com or drop into one of our stores.
