Senior technical editor, and long-time mountain biker, Tom Marvin shares his controversial gravel opinions
23 years of mountain biking – 10 of which have been as a tester for MBUK and BikeRadar – have taught me a few things about what makes a good off-road bike.
However, I’ve also done plenty of road cycling – in fact, the first few years in my role here were firmly under Warren Rossiter’s wing, rattling out plenty of words about – and miles on – curly bars.
That I eventually caught the gravel bug should come as no surprise, but my foot is still firmly in the mountain bike camp as a writer, reviewer and rider.
That off-road first mindset often leaves me scratching my head when I survey the world of gravel bikes today.
Unlike mountain bike tech, which has changed immensely in even the last 10 years, the trajectory of gravel tech has been dominated by technophobe roadie purists.
The roadie-inspired tech that’s wholly inappropriate for most gravel riding has also proliferated, adding no meaningful improvement to the riding experience.
Some myths also persist around exactly what gravel bikes are and what purpose they serve, and it never ceases to wind me up.
Summing all of that up, these are my top controversial gravel bike tech opinions.
1. Gravel bikes without suspension are archaic
!["Niner]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/21/2019/04/Niner-MCR-3-a1ee45f-e1574331574548.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413" "\"Niner")
As far as I can tell, (most) gravel bikes are the only vehicle designed for off-road terrain without some sort of suspension.
Heck, even super-smooth surface-going vehicles such as F1 cars have a bit of bounce.
The science is pretty clear – suspension systems isolate the bike and rider from the bumps and lumps under the tyres. This smoothes the way, boosting comfort and control.
They also enable your tyres to remain in contact with the ground, meaning that lovely sticky rubber you’ve invested plenty of cash in can do its job properly.
The result is you go further and faster, for the same effort – surely everyone wants that…
!["Rå]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/21/2021/08/SRAM-RockShox-XPLR-24-1a565d4.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413" "\"Rå")
Despite this, gravel bikes (and their riders) have been slow to adopt suspension.
Fox, RockShox, Lauf, SR Suntour and others all offer gravel suspension forks but, in my experience, they are rarely seen in the wild. This is a great shame.
If gravel riders want to go faster in greater comfort and with more control, the future is suspended.
2. Go electronic
!["SRAM]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/21/2023/03/DSC00087-ff387dc-e1679478834195.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C412" "\"SRAM")
I spent a lot of time last winter grinding through the slop on my gravel bike.
My bike would be caked in muck for hours on end and, when I got home, I would hastily spray the mud off with a hose before chucking it in the garage with minimal further maintenance.
In years gone by, such abuse would have resulted in gritty, lazy shifting, with my fingers working overtime to push a lever, grimly pulling a cable through its housing.
Fortunately, electronic drivetrains have consigned such miserable shifting experiences to the history books.
So long as you remember to charge the battery, your shifting should be as consistent as the day you fitted it, regardless of how careless your maintenance is.
This is, of course, true of electronic road and mountain bike groupsets too, but the advantages have been most apparent when testing gravel bikes equipped with SRAM’s electronic gravel bike groupsets.
Shifting is as light as you could ever wish and, without the physical push-back of an unhappy shift lever, you can change gears in wonderful ignorance of just how knackered your drivetrain is.
!["BMC]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/21/2023/05/BMC-Kauis-01-One-10-db56f4a.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413" "\"BMC")
Going cable-free also makes for easier maintenance, particularly on today’s increasingly complex fully integrated bikes. In my view, there are no disadvantages.
I speak from a position of privilege, but I can safely say never again will I have cables on my gravel bikes.
3. Ditch the power meter
!["Factor]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/21/2023/05/Factor-Ostro-Gravel-01-87c4a77.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413" "\"Factor")
As should be clear, I’m not one to shy away from new tech, but power meters leave me cold.
They certainly have their uses in cycling, but for 99 per cent of gravel riders, they offer no tangible improvement to the riding experience.
Unless you have a coach who understands how to use power for training purposes, nobody really cares that your FTP is 370 watts, and that on your last ride you squeezed 983 watts’ max power out of your middle-aged thighs.
When we throw gravel into the mix, this stuff becomes even less relevant.
A lot of gravel riding involves slipping and scrabbling around off-road on narrow curly bars with tyres often wholly inappropriate for the terrain you’re on – how do you expect to get useful consistent data from that?
Unless you really know what you’re doing with the data and take part in gravel racing at the highest level, leave the data for the no-surprises-here-please road world – you’re far better off spending the cash on a suspension fork and having some fun.
4. Front derailleurs are obsolete
!["Giant]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/21/2022/05/Giant-Revolt-Advanced-Pro-0-04-c225b21.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413" "\"Giant")
The front derailleur went the way of the dodo on mountain bikes nearly a decade ago.
Alongside reducing drivetrain complexity, ditching the front derailleur enabled engineers to design mountain bikes with shorter rear ends, better suspension linkages, altered seat tube profiles and improved mud clearance.
1x drivetrains have also made their way to gravel bikes and I think their wholesale adoption could bring similar benefits.
Look at the Lauf Seigla as an example. It’s a true gravel race bike, built for events such as Unbound, yet it has snappy chainstays, loads of tyre clearance and clean lines. Ditching the front derailleur mounts played an important role in enabling this design.
Purists will say they need two rings up front to get the close ratios found commonly on road bikes. However, modern gravel bike drivetrains make that a moot point.
!["lauf]("https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/21/2022/04/lauf-seigla-stood-up-sprinting-de29d89-e1671467449383.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413" "\"lauf")
In terms of range, Shimano’s GRX groupset will enable you to run up to a 46t sprocket (though that range looks set to expand with the likely imminent arrival of new GRX), while SRAM’s wireless and wired options now go up to a whopping 52t.
I can’t believe anyone truly needs more range than that.
The optimisation of cassette steps and move to 12-speed has also made the front derailleur less important. Is that very slightly sub-optimal cadence on the constantly shifting terrain that characterises gravel riding really an issue?
If you really need closer ratios, I reckon the future is not with front derailleurs but the likes of the Classified Powershift two-speed rear hub.
This offers front-derailleur like functionality in a much neater package that doesn’t impact frame design.