An old-style touring bike. They do most things, including carting a big shop home from the supermarket. My daily ride is a 1990s Dawes Audax, and it will do club rides, mild off road, a daily commute, long distance Audax rides, light touring and shopping. I'd happily put it up for a challenge like this!
I must be doing it wrong I have a bike I ride road, ride gravel, ride trails, same tyres average around 28-30kph on the road which is fast enough for me and take it down some rather steep narly off roads tracks, ( top of Crowcombe down to Adscombe ) and then on forest gravel tracks the only thing I have trouble with is deep sand
Gravel formerly known as all-road - which was formerly known as endurance road bike - which was formerly known as cycling tourist or randonneur. Those styles are not exactly the same but I feel the same idea stands behind all of those.
They are all the same. You just change the tyres. This is all about selling willier bikes and therefore they have to go along with the bullshit marketing
I feel like i missed the memo when the industry renamed all endurance bikes all-road. Great way to sell more of them by capitalizing on offroad tailwinds
Si: “When All-Road bikes became a thing 15 years ago…” Have I been in a coma for 15 years or just not paying attention to the cycling industry marketing machine….I had never heard of All-road referring to road bikes before today!
After a mix of 8 gravel and cross bikes, ranging from $800ish to $4000ish, Ive gone to an inexpensive Domane AL3 with a spare set of Bontrager carbon gravel wheels with “slick gravel” tires and chunkier gravel tires on the stock wheels. I feel that is a great way to stretch the capabilities of an endurance bike. A comparison between gravel and adventure bikes would be interesting to watch. Nice video, lads. Cheers.
I think Gravel bike wins by a big chunk in this scenario because, not everyone can ride road bike through rough terrain as good as them. For most people they will struggle more in on rough terrain and gravel bike's extra control definitely will help more.
I was a dedicated roadie with carbon framed bike and 23/25c tires. My triple roadie was giving me shifter problems so I jumped in during the summer of 2020 getting a gravel bike. I figured it would open up more riding while I fixed the old racer. I was so impressed with the performance I squeezed 28c onto the roadie last winter to smooth out the ride. It helped a little, but the compliance was still far from the gravel. So I bought a canyon gravel frame and built a road bike around it. Can you say All roads! At 17lbs and 28s on 25 internal rims, this bike is light, fast and smooth. I put 650b's with 2.1" tires onto the gravel bike. This setup cuts into MTB territory. Now I could use the canyon as my gravel bike but I set it up with 2x12 gears white the gravel is 1x12. I love the simplicity of the 1x12 for off road and the 2x12 for on.
yep, choice of road / path is key: ideally no cars, but otherwise I do prefer tarmac over gravel, bigger stones, bumpy rocks, gradient matters too, and then I‘d like to not be regularly covered in mud ..
The conclusion to this video is why I bought a "Gravel" bike when my road bike needed replacing (crack in frame re-appeared after repair) - I got one to do it all. With two wheel sets (Hunt Aerowide for the road, Roval Terra C for rough stuff) my Specialized Diverge does gravel, long distance bikepacking and I keep up on my club run too...
The newest gen diverge is really cool. Too bad spec has done about 4 price hikes in the last year or so. The arbitrary hike on the carbon models to keep separation with Al (its really metals that have increased most in production costs) just shows how detached retail pricing is from production cost and how overpriced they've gotten. I think now its probably looking like a winspace in the future for me. Though I'd prefer the geo on the diverge
Same here. My old road bike is permanently affixed to the trainer. Salsa Warbird with two wheel sets handle everything else, including mild singletrack. Still can keep up on group road rides just fine.
@@Outsideville My old faithful (three "l'étape du tours" and a "Grandfondo Stelvio" under her before crashes broke her) is on the turbo too. The Diverge does EVERYTHING else 🙂
@@c8ake , I really like the Warbird. Stock for dirt and then swap out for my Roval C38's with 28mm Continental GP5000TL for fun on the road. When the original tires wear out, I'll likely go to 45 mm. I love taking this on a mtn bike trail just to get strange looks. Still setting road PRs on the Warbird that I set with my TCR ADV1. So yeah, I really like this bike.
I have just managed to purchase an Orbea Gain M30 electric Road bike (luckily which seems to have been in short supply) and changed the tyre size from 32mm to Schwalbe g-one 38mm and this has opened up the options to ride road, trail and gravel. I do like the option to have an all-in-one bike. I now have much more space in the garage. It was the review on GCN on the Orbea Gain M20 that made me decide to change. Thank you GCN.
Love my Cervelo Caledonia-5 which I am riding with two different wheel sets. One with 35 mm gravel tires and one with 28mm road tires. The bike is ridiculously fast and versatile with these setups. A change over takes me about 2 min. Never reached a limit with the beast mode gravel setup and are able to ride trails that 10 yrs ago I only rode with a MTB.
Just checked the price of the Cervelo Caledonia 5, yikes! ~$7k CAD...I'll stick to my $99 MTB for now...it also has 2 wheels, handlebars, brakes and gears 😆
What an absolute marketing win two bikes identically apart from the stem. In the old days you’d buy a cx bike and swap the stem to get the position you needed to run the terrain you liked short abd high for technical course longer and lower for windy gravel rides. Now a £10 fifteen minute mod can’t ge done so you have to have another bike. Well done cycling industry. We even managed to get the marketing statement implying wider tyres are just as fast and linear rolling resistance drag can compensate for the exponential aero drag.
"Now a £10 fifteen minute mod can’t ge done so you have to have another bike." No, I don't think that's the point. Parts can always be swapped. The point is that, if you don't have a road bike to begin with (as I didn't last year) you can buy exactly the bike that suits your needs without having to swap a bunch of parts.
I mean, no one is forcing you to buy an internally routed gravel bike with proprietary components. Lots out there with external routing or a combination of internal with generalized component spec to still give you that customization. A lot come in steel too, which imo, is just more stylish.
@@cjohnson3836 That was my point without integration you could make these bikes with a simple stem change. The manufacturers with the help of you tube are taking us for a ride with another iteration of road bikes and the endless wider tyre has less rolling resistance rhetoric the manufacturers could easily make three bike genres just with a stem handlebar change how gullible we are to think these frames don’t come out of the same mould. Let’s face it you could take any bike with non integrated cables and alter the ride characteristics easily with a stem flip and an angle shift head set. Then instead of having 2 bikes you’d have one with variable stack height abd headstock geometry.
Hi Toby, I’m not quite sure I see what you’re frustrated about. Why is this bike any different from your point about changing the handling of a cx bike? It’s exactly the same thing, they aren’t hiding it nor charging a premium for it, just saying that a change of bar, stem and tyres transforms the bike.
@@simonrichardson5259 but with the integration your stuck with the bars, and stem that the manufacturers give you. You now have to find the bike that fits you and as your riding transforms over time with either increased mobility or decreased mobility you have to ride in the position the manufacturer has provided. As you say both these bikes are identical. As you know in the old days if you had time off your bike and needed a more relaxed position you could flip a stem or purchase a different one a 10 minute £20 job now because of integration it’s a £200 to £300 job.
“The illicit thrill of taking your bike somewhere it should go”…. Last time I went ‘off road’ on my road bike I ended up with broken fingers (but it was the best ride of the year!)
I changed the tyres on my bike to a more all-round, gravel tyre over the fast pavement ones that came. It slowed me on average about 2mph, but it's so much more secure. I'm not trying to race anyone, I just want to handle gravel, wet leaves, and morning ice
Fantastic video guy's - it explains why I've been struggling on all the vast open fire tracks of northern England for so long.... As there are none. They are in fact MUD tracks and what I've been doing is a form of '"mud-track" riding, but on a gravel bike. This explains everything. So I'm looking to buy a road bike now 🤔
What I did for my winter trainer was a Specialized diverge, fitted a single speed road crank, SRAM Force AXS HRD shifters, and an Eagle AXS rear derailleur and cassette, finished with Zipp 303’s and some fairly slick Schwalbe G-One 700x38C’s. Huge range of gears, designed to cope with mud, grit, etc, and has just giggled at the worst conditions through winter.
In the quest for "one bike to rule them all", I think one has to start with where the majority of one's rides are. I ride 90% road with occasional gravel trails and so an endurance road bike with two wheelsets works well for me. However, if you live in an area where there are a lot of gravel roads or trails, a gravel bike would likely be a better starting point.
This, 100% this. Bikes form a spectrum, terrain forms a spectrum. Accurately chart the operating terrain window and pick the bike to match. An individuals answer will always be individual. But that doesn't make videos... :-) (or rather it does, but it needs a heap of marketing)
I live deep within a metro with potholed and cracked roads worse than offroad at times. To get to the gravel I need to traverse 20 miles of a myriad of surfaces, shoulders, trails, PBLs, tarmac, sidewalks, etc. A road bike that can handle every surface imaginable was the obvious choice for me and the bike I chose and love is the Cannondale topstone lefty carbon.
18:25 love how Si felt brave enough to ride through all the mud and managed to make it pretty smoothly, quite impressive stuff. 32mm slick tyres can be somewhat decent on "gravel", even the Continental Ultra Sport III 32mm slick tyres are defined as Road/Gravel tyres whereas their 28mm and below counterparts are just defined as Road by Continental themselves
Gravel riding is what I did 55 years ago on my single speed Healing as a lad we were forbidden to go near a bitumen road but sure covered some countryside in my local area.
I have take my Giant CFR2 TT bike gravel grinding and I have rode 22.5 mph with a group of roadies while on my 40+ lb Salsa Marrakech touring bike and had a blast doing both. Goes to show any bike can be a do all bike. It’s all about the adventure.
I went more the adventure riding route (lightweight Columbus steel with numerous bike mounts for bikepacking). The differences I found when riding with my road bike friends are: bike weight, higher speed gearing vs. 1x drivetrain and off-road wheelset with my knobby tire selection. However, my bike provides greater versatility to take the path less travelled.
Awesome comparison Alex and Si. I was extremely intrigued when I saw this video go up. As my wife and I do mainly gravel trails and just a few paved bike paths, she has the gravel bike and I have a mountain bike. I am just converting the mountain bike tires to gravel tires and waiting for next season to see how the mountain bike improves on the trails and paths. Road biking is pretty much a suicide mission around here where I live so we just seek out those quieter runs and just love exploring. Thanks for the video. Keep up the great work.
Good video. Nice to Simon showing that you can ride through muddy sections on smooth fairly narrow tyres if you know what you're doing. I bought a Giant Anyroad a few years ago. I specifically wanted sufficient clearance to stop mud clogging the wheels, and I wanted the slightly raised bottom bracket to reduce pedal strikes on rutted tracks. Everything else on the bike is over engineered for my needs. I took off the knobbly tyres and put 28 mm Gatorskins on. The bike is now good on tarmac (although not very aero) and more than good enough for my needs off road. I'm very sceptical of knobbly tyres on a bike. They seem to collect the mud rather than giving more grip.
Really enjoyed this clip, discussion and performance comparison. I have been toying with the idea of getting yet another steed, as one does when your adhere to the principle of n+1 in bike ownership, and was in a little bit of a dilemma about gravel versus all road. I have access to hundreds of miles of path / trail here in Chicagoland and have become increasingly disenchanted by riding my 29ER as I run out of oomph and top-end speed. So now I can, with an open mind, go shopping and look for a deal that makes sense irrespective of whether it is all road or gravel. Thank you.
Having had my Gravel and road bike stolen recently I am looking at replacements, having watched your video I am now thinking that perhaps moving to an all road bike may be an option, so thank you very much for the insight of all road bikes. very enjoyable fun and helpful video for me.
I can soo realted to the underbike observation. Soo true and why many of us, especially with off road backgrounds get into some proper trail rides on our Gravel bikes. This new Wilier is stunning. Hope they do a budget version of it like they do for Zero.
As a recent purchaser of a Specialized Diverge gravel bike, having ridden exclusively a hard tail for all my life, I couldn't be happier. My routes are an even mix of tarmac, canal tow paths, gravel, grass. I still do my local MTB trails, some of the drops on the black sections are sketchy but just need more technical input and more fun!
My TCR does crits and all day gravel adventures. One set of carbons with Vittoria and latex tubes and another set of aluminium hoops with Rubino's for the gravel/offroad rides.
I just switched to a Cannondale Topstone. I have the stock wheelset with chunky gravel tires that can handle light single track and a set of aero wheels with road tires for faster rides. Great way to get the best of both worlds if you are not overly concerned with being aero. The main draw back is picking between Road or adventure gearing. I have it biased toward Road gearing which keeps me off some of the steeper trails.
Yup, I've got a trail bike and a gravel bike - simply because between those you I can pretty much do anything from road to enduro. THe funniest thing to me, though, is whenever I join roadies they are amazed that my gravel bike, with its 47 tyres running 2.5bar can keep up at 30kph. Admittedly, 35kph is A LOT harder, but that's the thing - when you're not racing, a gravel bike on the road is just fine.
Quite glad GCN did what I have done a little over 2 years ago when I got Domane SL5 2020 in September 2019 out of the catalog not even seeing a bike. I was sold on the concept of the endurance bike with front and back isospeed “suspension” and ability to put up to 38mm tires (with 5mm clearances). To date I have upgraded the rear derailleur to Ultegra RX with the clutch (now you can do the same putting GRX) personalized with the saddle and upgraded to carbon handlebar. With now three set of wheels with different rim profiles and tires styles and sizes (GP5000 25mm for the road on carbon wheels; Gravel Kings SK 35mm for gravel and Gravel Kings SK and 32mm Hutchinson slicks) I have a bike which can do it all. Just swapping the wheels for the type of ride I go to. 50/34 crankset with different cassettes for the three wheel sets 11/28, 11/32, 11/34 gives me all rations I need for the type of ride. The only downside is that in the lightest setup my Domane is about 1kg heavier than my road rim brake racing bike with 25mm GP5000 so for climbing club rides I stick to my old racer. But if one can afford one bike or has no room for n+1 bikes I do recommend road endurance bike with second set of wheels.
Just went to a Canyon Grizl as my Swiss Army knife bicycle. Geometry is just right to do everything well. You can also run narrow or wide tires to suit whatever you want to do.
@@tr4nnel752 It might be for some people. I had a grail and while the hover bar was nice I wasn’t able to do much with it. I like wider bars with some flare for rougher gravel. I could have gone with the aluminum Grail for a standard handlebar but I want carbon fiber.
Tbh it kinda feels annoying that companies try to force the community to pay more for these "newer models" because they are called all-road or gravel. Not gonna lie, they are beautiful machines but hardly worth the higher price for the basic wider tires and derailleurs (like shimano GRX). If you want a gravel or all-road bike for cheap (and perhaps for bikepacking) just buy a road bike with endurance frame, swap the tires to at least 32 mm and there you go, you have 2 bikes in 1.
@@PhiyackYuh I've done a decent amount of gravel riding / racing. 33mm cross tires are fine for fast gravel when you aren't going too far. I found that as I approach 100km on gravel, wider tires are really helpful for comfort - and very nice on faster sections. I've done a few events with some single-track, and wider tires provide much, much more confidence.
@@PhiyackYuh Bigger tires work better at faster speeds on chunkier terrain. Bigger tires can also be run at lower pressures, increasing grip on low traction terrain. I've got a gravel bike with two sets of wheels - slick 32mm Conti GP5000 on one and 40mm Michelin PowerGravel on the other - and select depending on the route.
For me sure, 36 is better than 32, but they are still both no Mountain bike tire. If it’s loose that’s really what the condition calls for. I go with the 32 for all the paved road in between.
I don’t think gravel bikes do cost more than road/endurance bikes do they? There’s no premium as far as I can tell. You just buy whichever one you want, or none of them. Up to you!
Nice ride - this is my local area, some fantastic riding both on and off road, I love it. I also have what you guys term an allroad bike, a Ribble CGR SL, which I use with 28mm road tyres for winter road riding or summer touring, and 45mm knobbly tyres for gravel (I use a lightweight race bike for summer road riding). Since bikes like this take both types of tyre the biggest importance in the spec for me is the groupset, personally I would choose a road based groupset with low gearing over a 1x gravel groupset as it simply offers more versatility. It can often offer gears just as low as a lot of 1x setups, but with more gears available at the top end so you aren’t compromised on fast road rides.
Lovely area. Left the UK when I was 8 and haven’t returned, but this place looks beautiful and steeped in history. Weather looks gloomy though. Selamat bersepeda (happy cycling)
I have a 2004 Cannondale Six13 and run 28mm Panaracer Gravel Kings. Combined with some ex pro level XC skills. At the last event, I was passing gravel bikes on a gravel descent. Mostly in the corners.
I went from a road bike to a "endurance" bike. which probably is pretty much the same as an all road bike. But I still went for one of the most aggresive models and I've been in real gnarly gravel without any problems beside me regretting my route choice slightly, given how straight and fast the way I really wanted to go was... :P
I know it shouldn't be, but the look of utter dejection on Si's face when reviewing the moving time might be my favourite part of this video! Especially after the comment earlier of " I can't help it, the competitor in me just xomes out"
Would love to see a series of GCN does CX videos. Ollie, Alex and Connor all racing a local series , Si and Dan can be team managers and run the pits. For one race, they could race against a GMBN team - Rich and Blake would be surely keen to race CX !
I was forced onto some gravel going along the Santa Ana River one time (there was a guy throwing rocks at cyclists on the tarmac side, police had it blocked off on my outbound trip) on my "entry level road bike", a Fuji Sportif 2.1. It came with 700x30c tires, and it handled the off road well, such as it was. Aluminum frame, wider tires than it's predecessor, which was a 13 year old Fuji Newest 3.0. Not quite as wide or gravel-built as the Fuji Jari 2.5 that it replaced but considering the Jari was almost 30 pounds "soaking wet" without any accessories..and several cm too big, the Sportif is a wicked good replacement. Anyway, I ended up doing like 3 miles on dirt whilst the cops were looking for the nutter..it performed very well. Now I've added what have become my favorite tires lately, Schwalbe Marathon plus. I really like them, and this combination is awesome. Not gravel, but capable enough for the job
I'm sporting the 2018 Trek Domane 6Disc SLR. For my winter rides changing my wheels & tires. Bontrager Aeolus Elite 35 & Bontrager R3 Hard-Case Lite TLR. I'm looking for more relaxing rides through the winter. Speed is not a factor, but I will be trying to ride at the same watts.
I have both a gravel bike with 700c x 40 tires and a trek emonda with 700c x 28 tires. I feel much more confident on paved downhills on the wider tires the gravel bike has to offer, especially when the pavement is crappy.
"I thought all road bikes were gravel road bikes? I've been riding my bikes on gravel and more accurately---unpaved dirt roads and trails---for decades. It's good to see 25c tires and wider rims coming back, and more importantly the clearance on bikes to run these bigger rims and tires. For some reason the bike industry 'innovated' away from this many years ago, and for a while many top-end carbon bikes haven't even had room for 25c tires, much less a broken spoke. Now we're 'innovating' back to where we started. I'm glad to see it, as this style of riding is what I like to do most and it's what my products are designed for." - Tom Ritchey -
Great one lads, I’m an old mountain bike rider , but prefer your channel to the embn, videos , I like your humour, bouring listening to that Steve Jones , great video , and never thought about a gravel bike , and I’m half way there , I have a hard tail, mtb cheers shane uk 🇬🇧
Love my new Gravel bike, but for me it still feels more than a little sketchy compared to my MTB with massive nobbly tyres on it and wide handlebars. I don't think I would have the skill to ride an All-Road bike on that route without risking coming off in the mud. So I think the assertion that you could choose either, depends on your riding capabilities and history. If you are not Peter Sagan, you might want to err towards the Gravel bike. Or at least be willing to swap the tyres out based on your route.
I must say Si is quite good on technical muddy trails on an all-road/gravel bike, for example, at @18:22. Also, having ridden the KAW on a gravel bike myself, I can personally attest to his skills on muddy trails. Oh wait, an ex-pro roadie who also does MTB might be a clue.
I have what's basically an all road and I can turn it into gravel with a simple wheelset swap. I am not sure the need to market both when they're the exact same geometry. Just let people spec the build on to the frameset no.. idk.
Endurance bikes should be able to start with 32mm anyway but the industry has to confused and finesse the masses so they can get us to pay more money for the marketing bs 🤑🤑🤑
My Fujis - an ‘07 CrossComp, and an ‘11 Cross 3.0 - could suffice as my “one true” bike: they have plenty of width for fatter tires for gravel, but I could throw on some 25s and compete in a road race, if I wanted. But, because I buy older, used bikes, when they’re cheaper, and upgrade them as I want, I don’t have to settle for just one. 😄
I had craved a proper dropped bar road bike for years and eventually sprung for a Kona Jake The Snake CX, it gives me the excuse that I could go faster if I wanted to fit smooth road tires but I just haven't worn the originals out yet. Sure works for me, and the tires and wheelset are not so fragile that our crap roads kill the bike.
Thought I wanted a gravel bike but after watching lots of gravel bike videos, I have concluded that I want an endurance road bike with fenders and a pannier rack. 32mm tires.
Perhaps road bikes became more specialized 15 years ago. But the trick is that older road bikes (1950s - 1990s) were generally much more flexible in terms of tire width selection. For example, I have a bike from 1972, 42mm tires quietly fit there (this is even wider than on a standard urban (40mm)), and probably even 47mm will fit (this is taking into account the installed mud wings / mudguards). Now I have this bike on 37mm rain tires. In fact, I use it as a gravel bike, and a city bike (as well as a highway/training/TT for winter and bad weather). I also have a classic 1990 road bike (this is a degraded pirated copy of the 1950s - 1960s Colnago, with a chrome-molybdenum frame, produced in the USSR (in Ukraine)), the same 37mm tires are freely included there (although initially, this bike came from the factory on 23mm tubes), only there may be problems with installing mud wings / mudguards (with a mud gap between the tire and the mudguard)(I didn't try to put 37mm tires with a mudguard there, because I just don't need it, now there are 25mm tires on this bike, and I have another one for wider tires). So, we can say that in fact, we have now come to what was already in the 1950s - 1990s. Although I will not argue and claim that ALL road bikes produced in the 1950s - 1990s allowed the possibility of installing tires wider than 32mm. Perhaps there were some on which it is impossible to install wide tires.
If you could only have one bike for all types of riding, what would it be?
An old-style touring bike. They do most things, including carting a big shop home from the supermarket. My daily ride is a 1990s Dawes Audax, and it will do club rides, mild off road, a daily commute, long distance Audax rides, light touring and shopping. I'd happily put it up for a challenge like this!
Motorbike😀
I'll choose all road bike. It's a good training bike 👍
I must be doing it wrong I have a bike I ride road, ride gravel, ride trails, same tyres average around 28-30kph on the road which is fast enough for me and take it down some rather steep narly off roads tracks, ( top of Crowcombe down to Adscombe ) and then on forest gravel tracks the only thing I have trouble with is deep sand
Cyclocross bike 😉
On next week's GCN, can a blue bike do the same as a red bike?? Or can one multi coloured bike do it all?
It's like with red brake calipers on a car - the car gets faster just by the red color of the calipers :-)
How did you manage to guess that! It was going to be an end of year special! Although surely everyone knows red is fastest
That's a funny quip, but in all seriousness, cromovelato for the espresso. :)
🤣
Lol
Gravel formerly known as all-road - which was formerly known as endurance road bike - which was formerly known as cycling tourist or randonneur. Those styles are not exactly the same but I feel the same idea stands behind all of those.
And before that it was just bike bike
They are all the same. You just change the tyres. This is all about selling willier bikes and therefore they have to go along with the bullshit marketing
Coming next: "everyroad bike" vs. "grit bike".
@@patientswim6888 You're the kid that failed physics
I feel like i missed the memo when the industry renamed all endurance bikes all-road. Great way to sell more of them by capitalizing on offroad tailwinds
22:54 "The sun even made an appearance this afternoon!"
sky: *completely grey*
„onwards and pubwards“ - This needs to be in the GCN shop as a motivational top tube sticker.
Si: “When All-Road bikes became a thing 15 years ago…”
Have I been in a coma for 15 years or just not paying attention to the cycling industry marketing machine….I had never heard of All-road referring to road bikes before today!
I appreciate that Si’s competitive nature is always present. 😀
After a mix of 8 gravel and cross bikes, ranging from $800ish to $4000ish, Ive gone to an inexpensive Domane AL3 with a spare set of Bontrager carbon gravel wheels with “slick gravel” tires and chunkier gravel tires on the stock wheels. I feel that is a great way to stretch the capabilities of an endurance bike. A comparison between gravel and adventure bikes would be interesting to watch. Nice video, lads. Cheers.
Same - gone with a Canyon Endurace 7 for road and gravel with some deeper carbon rims and the DT Swiss alloys that it came with. Best of both worlds.
what size tires
@@cyrusjison564 700x38c Gravelking SK Slick and Schwalbe G-one all round in the same size.
Did domane al3 fit bigger tire above 32mm???
@@AcahAcahRunner Trek site says 35c without fenders. I fit 38c with room to spare.
Utterly enjoyed watching this. Thanks, Alex and Si!
Love how these superfit and healthy guys end their rides down at the local tavern. Brilliant.
I think Gravel bike wins by a big chunk in this scenario because, not everyone can ride road bike through rough terrain as good as them. For most people they will struggle more in on rough terrain and gravel bike's extra control definitely will help more.
I was a dedicated roadie with carbon framed bike and 23/25c tires. My triple roadie was giving me shifter problems so I jumped in during the summer of 2020 getting a gravel bike. I figured it would open up more riding while I fixed the old racer. I was so impressed with the performance I squeezed 28c onto the roadie last winter to smooth out the ride. It helped a little, but the compliance was still far from the gravel. So I bought a canyon gravel frame and built a road bike around it. Can you say All roads! At 17lbs and 28s on 25 internal rims, this bike is light, fast and smooth. I put 650b's with 2.1" tires onto the gravel bike. This setup cuts into MTB territory. Now I could use the canyon as my gravel bike but I set it up with 2x12 gears white the gravel is 1x12. I love the simplicity of the 1x12 for off road and the 2x12 for on.
The most important thing is that the offroad route was the best to ride 🙂
yep, choice of road / path is key: ideally no cars, but otherwise I do prefer tarmac over gravel, bigger stones, bumpy rocks, gradient matters too, and then I‘d like to not be regularly covered in mud ..
The conclusion to this video is why I bought a "Gravel" bike when my road bike needed replacing (crack in frame re-appeared after repair) - I got one to do it all. With two wheel sets (Hunt Aerowide for the road, Roval Terra C for rough stuff) my Specialized Diverge does gravel, long distance bikepacking and I keep up on my club run too...
The newest gen diverge is really cool. Too bad spec has done about 4 price hikes in the last year or so. The arbitrary hike on the carbon models to keep separation with Al (its really metals that have increased most in production costs) just shows how detached retail pricing is from production cost and how overpriced they've gotten. I think now its probably looking like a winspace in the future for me. Though I'd prefer the geo on the diverge
Same here. My old road bike is permanently affixed to the trainer. Salsa Warbird with two wheel sets handle everything else, including mild singletrack. Still can keep up on group road rides just fine.
@@Outsideville My old faithful (three "l'étape du tours" and a "Grandfondo Stelvio" under her before crashes broke her) is on the turbo too. The Diverge does EVERYTHING else 🙂
@@Outsideville how have you liked the Warbird? thats the exact bike that brought me to this video
@@c8ake , I really like the Warbird. Stock for dirt and then swap out for my Roval C38's with 28mm Continental GP5000TL for fun on the road. When the original tires wear out, I'll likely go to 45 mm. I love taking this on a mtn bike trail just to get strange looks. Still setting road PRs on the Warbird that I set with my TCR ADV1. So yeah, I really like this bike.
I have just managed to purchase an Orbea Gain M30 electric Road bike (luckily which seems to have been in short supply) and changed the tyre size from 32mm to Schwalbe g-one 38mm and this has opened up the options to ride road, trail and gravel. I do like the option to have an all-in-one bike. I now have much more space in the garage. It was the review on GCN on the Orbea Gain M20 that made me decide to change. Thank you GCN.
Level of production is off the charts on this one! Gcn should be aired on tv if you continue like this!
So it should be, GCN is ultimately owned by Warner Bros! 😄
Love my Cervelo Caledonia-5 which I am riding with two different wheel sets. One with 35 mm gravel tires and one with 28mm road tires. The bike is ridiculously fast and versatile with these setups. A change over takes me about 2 min. Never reached a limit with the beast mode gravel setup and are able to ride trails that 10 yrs ago I only rode with a MTB.
I love my Caledonia 5 too!
I have the predecessor bike-Cervelo C3, very similar, but limited to 32 tires. Very versatile bike, comfy, sturdy, faaaast.
Just checked the price of the Cervelo Caledonia 5, yikes! ~$7k CAD...I'll stick to my $99 MTB for now...it also has 2 wheels, handlebars, brakes and gears 😆
What an absolute marketing win two bikes identically apart from the stem. In the old days you’d buy a cx bike and swap the stem to get the position you needed to run the terrain you liked short abd high for technical course longer and lower for windy gravel rides. Now a £10 fifteen minute mod can’t ge done so you have to have another bike. Well done cycling industry. We even managed to get the marketing statement implying wider tyres are just as fast and linear rolling resistance drag can compensate for the exponential aero drag.
"Now a £10 fifteen minute mod can’t ge done so you have to have another bike."
No, I don't think that's the point. Parts can always be swapped. The point is that, if you don't have a road bike to begin with (as I didn't last year) you can buy exactly the bike that suits your needs without having to swap a bunch of parts.
I mean, no one is forcing you to buy an internally routed gravel bike with proprietary components. Lots out there with external routing or a combination of internal with generalized component spec to still give you that customization. A lot come in steel too, which imo, is just more stylish.
@@cjohnson3836 That was my point without integration you could make these bikes with a simple stem change. The manufacturers with the help of you tube are taking us for a ride with another iteration of road bikes and the endless wider tyre has less rolling resistance rhetoric the manufacturers could easily make three bike genres just with a stem handlebar change how gullible we are to think these frames don’t come out of the same mould. Let’s face it you could take any bike with non integrated cables and alter the ride characteristics easily with a stem flip and an angle shift head set. Then instead of having 2 bikes you’d have one with variable stack height abd headstock geometry.
Hi Toby, I’m not quite sure I see what you’re frustrated about. Why is this bike any different from your point about changing the handling of a cx bike? It’s exactly the same thing, they aren’t hiding it nor charging a premium for it, just saying that a change of bar, stem and tyres transforms the bike.
@@simonrichardson5259 but with the integration your stuck with the bars, and stem that the manufacturers give you. You now have to find the bike that fits you and as your riding transforms over time with either increased mobility or decreased mobility you have to ride in the position the manufacturer has provided. As you say both these bikes are identical. As you know in the old days if you had time off your bike and needed a more relaxed position you could flip a stem or purchase a different one a 10 minute £20 job now because of integration it’s a £200 to £300 job.
“The illicit thrill of taking your bike somewhere it should go”…. Last time I went ‘off road’ on my road bike I ended up with broken fingers (but it was the best ride of the year!)
I changed the tyres on my bike to a more all-round, gravel tyre over the fast pavement ones that came. It slowed me on average about 2mph, but it's so much more secure. I'm not trying to race anyone, I just want to handle gravel, wet leaves, and morning ice
Well hi I'm interested about know each other if that not bad thing
Fantastic video guy's - it explains why I've been struggling on all the vast open fire tracks of northern England for so long.... As there are none. They are in fact MUD tracks and what I've been doing is a form of '"mud-track" riding, but on a gravel bike. This explains everything.
So I'm looking to buy a road bike now 🤔
What I did for my winter trainer was a Specialized diverge, fitted a single speed road crank, SRAM Force AXS HRD shifters, and an Eagle AXS rear derailleur and cassette, finished with Zipp 303’s and some fairly slick Schwalbe G-One 700x38C’s.
Huge range of gears, designed to cope with mud, grit, etc, and has just giggled at the worst conditions through winter.
these bikes are identical lol i love it. im perfectly happy with my ‘92 mountain bike with drop bars as my gravel bike
Me too.. And for pennies.
When I watch GCN, i always remember cycling must be fun !!!
This was way too much fun thanks Alex Si and amazing crew. !
In the quest for "one bike to rule them all", I think one has to start with where the majority of one's rides are. I ride 90% road with occasional gravel trails and so an endurance road bike with two wheelsets works well for me. However, if you live in an area where there are a lot of gravel roads or trails, a gravel bike would likely be a better starting point.
This, 100% this. Bikes form a spectrum, terrain forms a spectrum. Accurately chart the operating terrain window and pick the bike to match. An individuals answer will always be individual. But that doesn't make videos... :-) (or rather it does, but it needs a heap of marketing)
Couldn't agree more!
A lightweight XC MTB also works well in those situations and is objectively more comfortable to ride
@@M3PH11 Not for me. My wrists do not get along with MTB handlebars...
I bought an all road OBED bike because of potholes, cracks and bumps in the pavement. This fact often gets overlooked. Roads are rarely perfect.
I live deep within a metro with potholed and cracked roads worse than offroad at times. To get to the gravel I need to traverse 20 miles of a myriad of surfaces, shoulders, trails, PBLs, tarmac, sidewalks, etc. A road bike that can handle every surface imaginable was the obvious choice for me and the bike I chose and love is the Cannondale topstone lefty carbon.
18:25 love how Si felt brave enough to ride through all the mud and managed to make it pretty smoothly, quite impressive stuff. 32mm slick tyres can be somewhat decent on "gravel", even the Continental Ultra Sport III 32mm slick tyres are defined as Road/Gravel tyres whereas their 28mm and below counterparts are just defined as Road by Continental themselves
Clever exploration of the two bike styles! A gray area for sure. Nice work guys!!
Great job on this video! It really gives me a lot more confidence to do some gravel riding with my all road bike.
Having fun on a bike. Who’d have thought it!
Great video, Si and Alex on top form. Love it.
Gravel riding is what I did 55 years ago on my single speed Healing as a lad we were forbidden to go near a bitumen road but sure covered some countryside in my local area.
I haven't seen Alex celebrate a win that ecstatically since he beat Conner's boy at racing sticks in a stream.
😂😂😂
I have take my Giant CFR2 TT bike gravel grinding and I have rode 22.5 mph with a group of roadies while on my 40+ lb Salsa Marrakech touring bike and had a blast doing both. Goes to show any bike can be a do all bike. It’s all about the adventure.
I went more the adventure riding route (lightweight Columbus steel with numerous bike mounts for bikepacking). The differences I found when riding with my road bike friends are: bike weight, higher speed gearing vs. 1x drivetrain and off-road wheelset with my knobby tire selection. However, my bike provides greater versatility to take the path less travelled.
Awesome comparison Alex and Si. I was extremely intrigued when I saw this video go up. As my wife and I do mainly gravel trails and just a few paved bike paths, she has the gravel bike and I have a mountain bike. I am just converting the mountain bike tires to gravel tires and waiting for next season to see how the mountain bike improves on the trails and paths. Road biking is pretty much a suicide mission around here where I live so we just seek out those quieter runs and just love exploring. Thanks for the video. Keep up the great work.
I am with you mountain bike and just change the tyres to suit the expected terrain.
You need drop bars, though...
Good video. Nice to Simon showing that you can ride through muddy sections on smooth fairly narrow tyres if you know what you're doing. I bought a Giant Anyroad a few years ago. I specifically wanted sufficient clearance to stop mud clogging the wheels, and I wanted the slightly raised bottom bracket to reduce pedal strikes on rutted tracks. Everything else on the bike is over engineered for my needs. I took off the knobbly tyres and put 28 mm Gatorskins on. The bike is now good on tarmac (although not very aero) and more than good enough for my needs off road. I'm very sceptical of knobbly tyres on a bike. They seem to collect the mud rather than giving more grip.
Good piece...well done...i luuuuvvvv my Cipollini AllRoad...two plus years now...and yes, tires / tyres are key here to enjoying !!!
Really enjoyed this clip, discussion and performance comparison. I have been toying with the idea of getting yet another steed, as one does when your adhere to the principle of n+1 in bike ownership, and was in a little bit of a dilemma about gravel versus all road. I have access to hundreds of miles of path / trail here in Chicagoland and have become increasingly disenchanted by riding my 29ER as I run out of oomph and top-end speed. So now I can, with an open mind, go shopping and look for a deal that makes sense irrespective of whether it is all road or gravel. Thank you.
Having had my Gravel and road bike stolen recently I am looking at replacements, having watched your video I am now thinking that perhaps moving to an all road bike may be an option, so thank you very much for the insight of all road bikes. very enjoyable fun and helpful video for me.
how is that your takeaway?
I can soo realted to the underbike observation.
Soo true and why many of us, especially with off road backgrounds get into some proper trail rides on our Gravel bikes.
This new Wilier is stunning. Hope they do a budget version of it like they do for Zero.
So well said: sometimes have the wrong bike for a certain kind of ride makes the ride more fun. True that!
As a recent purchaser of a Specialized Diverge gravel bike, having ridden exclusively a hard tail for all my life, I couldn't be happier. My routes are an even mix of tarmac, canal tow paths, gravel, grass. I still do my local MTB trails, some of the drops on the black sections are sketchy but just need more technical input and more fun!
Same. Love it.
Another fantastic video. Coincidently, I just learned about "tracklocross" in Japan. Using fixed gear bikes on the trail.
Fantastic chemistry between these two. More please!
My TCR does crits and all day gravel adventures. One set of carbons with Vittoria and latex tubes and another set of aluminium hoops with Rubino's for the gravel/offroad rides.
Exactly what Alex said….UA-cam gold. 😊👍
I just switched to a Cannondale Topstone. I have the stock wheelset with chunky gravel tires that can handle light single track and a set of aero wheels with road tires for faster rides. Great way to get the best of both worlds if you are not overly concerned with being aero. The main draw back is picking between Road or adventure gearing. I have it biased toward Road gearing which keeps me off some of the steeper trails.
Do you have the 1x or 2x group set?
Yup, I've got a trail bike and a gravel bike - simply because between those you I can pretty much do anything from road to enduro. THe funniest thing to me, though, is whenever I join roadies they are amazed that my gravel bike, with its 47 tyres running 2.5bar can keep up at 30kph. Admittedly, 35kph is A LOT harder, but that's the thing - when you're not racing, a gravel bike on the road is just fine.
Pretty sure Alex would have been far far ahead if he did stop every so often to do piece-to-cameras!
Hahaha, I just had to ride even faster inbetween! Good job we had ebikes for the GCN crew!
Quite glad GCN did what I have done a little over 2 years ago when I got Domane SL5 2020 in September 2019 out of the catalog not even seeing a bike. I was sold on the concept of the endurance bike with front and back isospeed “suspension” and ability to put up to 38mm tires (with 5mm clearances). To date I have upgraded the rear derailleur to Ultegra RX with the clutch (now you can do the same putting GRX) personalized with the saddle and upgraded to carbon handlebar. With now three set of wheels with different rim profiles and tires styles and sizes (GP5000 25mm for the road on carbon wheels; Gravel Kings SK 35mm for gravel and Gravel Kings SK and 32mm Hutchinson slicks) I have a bike which can do it all. Just swapping the wheels for the type of ride I go to. 50/34 crankset with different cassettes for the three wheel sets 11/28, 11/32, 11/34 gives me all rations I need for the type of ride. The only downside is that in the lightest setup my Domane is about 1kg heavier than my road rim brake racing bike with 25mm GP5000 so for climbing club rides I stick to my old racer. But if one can afford one bike or has no room for n+1 bikes I do recommend road endurance bike with second set of wheels.
Just went to a Canyon Grizl as my Swiss Army knife bicycle. Geometry is just right to do everything well. You can also run narrow or wide tires to suit whatever you want to do.
Wouldn’t the Grail make more sense then? You probably made the right decision, just interested.
@@tr4nnel752 It might be for some people. I had a grail and while the hover bar was nice I wasn’t able to do much with it. I like wider bars with some flare for rougher gravel. I could have gone with the aluminum Grail for a standard handlebar but I want carbon fiber.
That looked like fun. And such beautiful bikes.
Tbh it kinda feels annoying that companies try to force the community to pay more for these "newer models" because they are called all-road or gravel. Not gonna lie, they are beautiful machines but hardly worth the higher price for the basic wider tires and derailleurs (like shimano GRX). If you want a gravel or all-road bike for cheap (and perhaps for bikepacking) just buy a road bike with endurance frame, swap the tires to at least 32 mm and there you go, you have 2 bikes in 1.
I heard 32 mm is enough for everything comfort and bigger than that is basically overkill unless going for really rocky gravel off road. Any thoughts?
@@PhiyackYuh I've done a decent amount of gravel riding / racing. 33mm cross tires are fine for fast gravel when you aren't going too far. I found that as I approach 100km on gravel, wider tires are really helpful for comfort - and very nice on faster sections. I've done a few events with some single-track, and wider tires provide much, much more confidence.
@@PhiyackYuh Bigger tires work better at faster speeds on chunkier terrain. Bigger tires can also be run at lower pressures, increasing grip on low traction terrain. I've got a gravel bike with two sets of wheels - slick 32mm Conti GP5000 on one and 40mm Michelin PowerGravel on the other - and select depending on the route.
For me sure, 36 is better than 32, but they are still both no Mountain bike tire. If it’s loose that’s really what the condition calls for. I go with the 32 for all the paved road in between.
I don’t think gravel bikes do cost more than road/endurance bikes do they? There’s no premium as far as I can tell. You just buy whichever one you want, or none of them. Up to you!
Nice ride - this is my local area, some fantastic riding both on and off road, I love it.
I also have what you guys term an allroad bike, a Ribble CGR SL, which I use with 28mm road tyres for winter road riding or summer touring, and 45mm knobbly tyres for gravel (I use a lightweight race bike for summer road riding). Since bikes like this take both types of tyre the biggest importance in the spec for me is the groupset, personally I would choose a road based groupset with low gearing over a 1x gravel groupset as it simply offers more versatility. It can often offer gears just as low as a lot of 1x setups, but with more gears available at the top end so you aren’t compromised on fast road rides.
Lovely area.
Left the UK when I was 8 and haven’t returned, but this place looks beautiful and steeped in history.
Weather looks gloomy though.
Selamat bersepeda (happy cycling)
So this is a tyre and stem comparison.
I’m out.
Lovely vid! Well done GCN folks - not really sure why but it put a genuine smile on my face. 👍
Awesome Route! Awesome Race! Awesome Bikes! Awesome content! 👍👍👍
I have a 2004 Cannondale Six13 and run 28mm Panaracer Gravel Kings. Combined with some ex pro level XC skills. At the last event, I was passing gravel bikes on a gravel descent. Mostly in the corners.
I think your best video so far truly just full of smiles
I went from a road bike to a "endurance" bike. which probably is pretty much the same as an all road bike. But I still went for one of the most aggresive models and I've been in real gnarly gravel without any problems beside me regretting my route choice slightly, given how straight and fast the way I really wanted to go was... :P
So much fun to watch you guys!
The clock at the pub reads 4:05 just as they enter it to enjoy a coffee, then still 4:05 when they exit. Gotcha!
Used to live in that area, fabulous riding. Si and Alex are still so competitive! 😅
Great you two!! Enjoyed this one, Thank you.
I know it shouldn't be, but the look of utter dejection on Si's face when reviewing the moving time might be my favourite part of this video!
Especially after the comment earlier of " I can't help it, the competitor in me just xomes out"
Perfectly timed video. I'm searching for a gravel or All road bike right now 😁
I'm Still struggling. Any recommendations for a gravel under £2k?
@@blackcyclist trek checkpoint maybe?
Cannondale synapse
@@blackcyclist Orro Terra C ?
Cannondale Topstone
Would love to see a series of GCN does CX videos. Ollie, Alex and Connor all racing a local series , Si and Dan can be team managers and run the pits.
For one race, they could race against a GMBN team - Rich and Blake would be surely keen to race CX !
This was an enjoyable video, and both bikes are great.
Great video! Thanks. The banter though 😂
I was forced onto some gravel going along the Santa Ana River one time (there was a guy throwing rocks at cyclists on the tarmac side, police had it blocked off on my outbound trip) on my "entry level road bike", a Fuji Sportif 2.1. It came with 700x30c tires, and it handled the off road well, such as it was. Aluminum frame, wider tires than it's predecessor, which was a 13 year old Fuji Newest 3.0. Not quite as wide or gravel-built as the Fuji Jari 2.5 that it replaced but considering the Jari was almost 30 pounds "soaking wet" without any accessories..and several cm too big, the Sportif is a wicked good replacement. Anyway, I ended up doing like 3 miles on dirt whilst the cops were looking for the nutter..it performed very well. Now I've added what have become my favorite tires lately, Schwalbe Marathon plus. I really like them, and this combination is awesome. Not gravel, but capable enough for the job
Jeez when was that? I ride the SA river trail too...
@@JustcallmeDebbieB oh it was like 3 months ago near Honda Center
I'm sporting the 2018 Trek Domane 6Disc SLR. For my winter rides changing my wheels & tires. Bontrager Aeolus Elite 35 & Bontrager R3 Hard-Case Lite TLR. I'm looking for more relaxing rides through the winter. Speed is not a factor, but I will be trying to ride at the same watts.
Fantastic video fellas. Such fun.
Got a 2020 Domane SL5. 38mm tires
About to go down to 32mm. I primarily use it for wet conditions. Over 8000miles on it. Still does great
I have both a gravel bike with 700c x 40 tires and a trek emonda with 700c x 28 tires. I feel much more confident on paved downhills on the wider tires the gravel bike has to offer, especially when the pavement is crappy.
I think Si could have bought himself a new pair of overshoes in the GCN black Friday sale!
what an entertaining story. liked it. 👌
"I thought all road bikes were gravel road bikes? I've been riding my bikes on gravel and more accurately---unpaved dirt roads and trails---for decades. It's good to see 25c tires and wider rims coming back, and more importantly the clearance on bikes to run these bigger rims and tires. For some reason the bike industry 'innovated' away from this many years ago, and for a while many top-end carbon bikes haven't even had room for 25c tires, much less a broken spoke. Now we're 'innovating' back to where we started. I'm glad to see it, as this style of riding is what I like to do most and it's what my products are designed for."
- Tom Ritchey -
Thanks Si and Alex...Si..you did the " Dun du naa " on the mud , that was awesome ! Peace
Great one lads, I’m an old mountain bike rider , but prefer your channel to the embn, videos , I like your humour, bouring listening to that Steve Jones , great video , and never thought about a gravel bike , and I’m half way there , I have a hard tail, mtb cheers shane uk 🇬🇧
Love my new Gravel bike, but for me it still feels more than a little sketchy compared to my MTB with massive nobbly tyres on it and wide handlebars. I don't think I would have the skill to ride an All-Road bike on that route without risking coming off in the mud. So I think the assertion that you could choose either, depends on your riding capabilities and history. If you are not Peter Sagan, you might want to err towards the Gravel bike. Or at least be willing to swap the tyres out based on your route.
The idea is not to be a mountain bike, but to be a better compromise when tarmac comprises a significant portion of the route.
I must say Si is quite good on technical muddy trails on an all-road/gravel bike, for example, at @18:22. Also, having ridden the KAW on a gravel bike myself, I can personally attest to his skills on muddy trails. Oh wait, an ex-pro roadie who also does MTB might be a clue.
what a great video, love the contant your team produces.
man your videos are good. so well filmed and rich in infos.
Glad you like them! What video are you going to watch next? This is great for gravel content 👉 ua-cam.com/video/56XQINXGGFg/v-deo.html
All around bike is just a endurance bike with 32mm fitted 🤷 what a marketing genious
I have what's basically an all road and I can turn it into gravel with a simple wheelset swap. I am not sure the need to market both when they're the exact same geometry. Just let people spec the build on to the frameset no.. idk.
Don’t forget the “earthy” colour schemes. Very important
Endurance bikes should be able to start with 32mm anyway but the industry has to confused and finesse the masses so they can get us to pay more money for the marketing bs 🤑🤑🤑
@@PhiyackYuh My endurance road bike came with 32s stock
Who cares. Its not some secret they're trying to hide.
Haha! We rode that route recently and Alex got the better deal for sure, great fun...
My Fujis - an ‘07 CrossComp, and an ‘11 Cross 3.0 - could suffice as my “one true” bike: they have plenty of width for fatter tires for gravel, but I could throw on some 25s and compete in a road race, if I wanted. But, because I buy older, used bikes, when they’re cheaper, and upgrade them as I want, I don’t have to settle for just one. 😄
Have fitted to my Canyon endurace CF slx a set of 35mm gravel king SS on zipp 303 firecrest , works great with room to spare.
I had craved a proper dropped bar road bike for years and eventually sprung for a Kona Jake The Snake CX, it gives me the excuse that I could go faster if I wanted to fit smooth road tires but I just haven't worn the originals out yet. Sure works for me, and the tires and wheelset are not so fragile that our crap roads kill the bike.
I find a gravel bike tempting. Love the idea of a pub bike ride.
Thought I wanted a gravel bike but after watching lots of gravel bike videos, I have concluded that I want an endurance road bike with fenders and a pannier rack. 32mm tires.
fun watching and you both have great personalities
If you compare things make sure to set the conditions as far apart as humanly possible. Always works.
These videos are so much fun.
Really enjoyable video and fun to watch the bants. Great work guys 👌
“Thrashing around on normal but slightly crap roads” describes the area where I live perfectly. I would love to have those tires on the all-road bike.
At first I thought the sheep was also named Simon.
Me too lol
Ive got a Focus Paralane Ultegra, and Ive stuck 35 gravel kings on it, and hit some pretty sketchy gravel with no issue at all.
been riding my BMC roadmachine 02. on 32m tubless setup on gravel and forrestroads for years, no problems what so ever
Perhaps road bikes became more specialized 15 years ago. But the trick is that older road bikes (1950s - 1990s) were generally much more flexible in terms of tire width selection. For example, I have a bike from 1972, 42mm tires quietly fit there (this is even wider than on a standard urban (40mm)), and probably even 47mm will fit (this is taking into account the installed mud wings / mudguards). Now I have this bike on 37mm rain tires. In fact, I use it as a gravel bike, and a city bike (as well as a highway/training/TT for winter and bad weather). I also have a classic 1990 road bike (this is a degraded pirated copy of the 1950s - 1960s Colnago, with a chrome-molybdenum frame, produced in the USSR (in Ukraine)), the same 37mm tires are freely included there (although initially, this bike came from the factory on 23mm tubes), only there may be problems with installing mud wings / mudguards (with a mud gap between the tire and the mudguard)(I didn't try to put 37mm tires with a mudguard there, because I just don't need it, now there are 25mm tires on this bike, and I have another one for wider tires). So, we can say that in fact, we have now come to what was already in the 1950s - 1990s. Although I will not argue and claim that ALL road bikes produced in the 1950s - 1990s allowed the possibility of installing tires wider than 32mm. Perhaps there were some on which it is impossible to install wide tires.