Do We Even Need Gravel Bikes? Why I Race Gravel on a Drop Bar MTB

Alright, it's finally time to talk about The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Emphasis on the ugly of the hardtail bar I'm racing this season as a professional

gravel

race

r whose main concern is speed. In fact, I think you could probably say that's my only concern: I chose to

race

a

drop

bar hardtail mountain bike in certain

gravel

races where the rest of my competition was on traditional gravel

bikes

and I use this bike in certain mountain bike races where the rest of my competition was on regular mountain

bikes

. Why, despite what you may think, wasn't this for publicity or to make some kind of statement or to get more views on YouTube or

even

for comfort or a more enjoyable driving experience?

This was because I thought this bike would help me from the beginning. line to the finish line in the shortest time possible and that's what we're going to talk about today and at the end of the video I'll discuss whether the cycling industry should adopt the

drop

bar mountain bike category. industry and whether or not this style of bike will slowly replace the traditional gravel bike. I can feel your eyes rolling across the camera. Welcome back to the channel. This video is powered by Power Drop Bar. Mountain bikes are not something new that I invented. It's actually a fairly common bike setup to see in ultra-distance off-road races such as the Tour division, however it's rarely seen in shorter distance races and especially not used by professionals.

Shorter is a relative term in some of the races I use this bike on. because they are now over 100 miles long, certainly part of the reason you don't see pros on bikes like this is because they have sponsors and bike companies don't sell drop bar mountain bikes. Luckily, my sponsor Factor doesn't mind me taking his beautiful Factor Lando hardtails and turning them into this unsightly Franken bike in the pursuit of the fastest bike setup possible. The other reason that might surprise some people is that, in general, pros are not as big of a bike nerd as you might think, probably the more accurate the statement is that they are not as big of a nerd as me, and in general Generally, they just go with the flow.

I think the

even

more accurate statement would be that they're not that annoying. Can you imagine sponsoring this guy? Even if their sponsors would allow them to experiment with their equipment, they either don't because they don't have the interest or they just assume that whatever bike setup everyone else rides is the fastest setup and sometimes they're right about that. but if you haven't realized by now, I'm that guy who constantly questions the status quo and tries to find an advantage that my competitors haven't found yet and since gravel is a fairly new sport, there are a lot of them.

Before we get into the details of this bike, let's talk about why you would choose a drop bar mountain bike for gravel racing or mountain bike racing. First of all, anyone who competes in or follows gravel racing knows that the terrain on a gravel racing circuit varies. Of course they are mostly pavement with maybe some light gravel sections up to courses that have mountain bike style single track roads or Jeep roads and extremely rough gravel and of course you have everything else, given this, It only makes sense that a wide variety of bikes are

need

ed to compete in gravel at the highest level.

Sure, you could probably get by if you just had a generic one-size-fits-all gravel bike, but if you wanted the optimal bike for every ride, it would probably make sense to buy it. have something like an endurance road bike with ample tire clearance for tame rides, a gravel bike for most rides, and a drop bar mountain bike for rides that are so tough they're calling. On the verge of simply being called a mountain bike race or mountain bike races that are so easygoing they could justifiably be called gravel races, this is probably a good time to point out that whatever label a race promoter chooses to your race will determine what bike almost all racers show up on, just as an example: Leadville 100 is a mountain bike race because when the race was created gravel bikes didn't even exist, but I personally think that if the race was organized for the first time in 2023, they would call it a gravel race, everyone would show up on the gravel. bikes and you'd be the crazy one if you showed up on a mountain bike on the other side of one of the races I did this summer.

The Big Horn Gravel Grinder was, as the name suggests, a gravel race, but it had numerous singletrack sections that were honestly much worse than anything seen in Leadville, as well as extremely difficult, but effectively gravel sections. , because of how it's advertised, almost every racer showed up with their gravel bike, even though that probably wasn't the right bike for the job. I don't care what the race is called. Road mountain bike, gravel, whatever, zwift straa to the coffee shop on a recovery ride vs old ladies beach cruisers on the bike path. What too much. I just want the bike faster than the race rules.

Allow point, of course, this is why I was a big fan of using Arrow bars for gravel racing, that is, until almost all gravel racing. Ban them, there's nothing wrong with that, if it's written in the rule book then I'll comply, but it just means I'll have to think a little more outside the box to get that advantage and that's exactly how I see the use of a drop bar mountain bike for gravel racing. Now obviously a drop bar mountain bike has suspension, but the main advantage of using one comes from Wider tires using a pair of fast CrossCountry mountain bike tires will generally give you lower rolling resistance than the equivalent gravel tire.

Half of you are probably looking at me like I just said the Earth was flat, so let me explain what I proved. This personally and this has been confirmed by Bicycle Rolling Resistance.com. Generally a fast pair of CrossCountry mountain bike tires can get away with using a thinner casing without increasing the risk of a puncture because the volume of the tire is much larger and generally a thinner casing. means a faster tire, in fact the carcass of a tire actually has a bigger impact on rolling resistance than the tread pattern. Most people will try to determine how fast a tire is by looking at how smooth it is.

I'm just going to say this. bluntly, if you're doing that, you're showing that you know next to nothing about tire rolling resistance, oh damn burnt friend. I mean, God forbid, I don't know anything about the rolling resistance of tires, for example, the maximum is garbage, which is about the same. slippery as can be but it has such a thick casing it's the slowest gravel tire you can buy but at least you won't get a flat which brings me back to mountain bike tyres, not just the rolling resistance is low, but also the risk of puncture. is also lower, it is a win-win, however, it is not a win-win.

There is one drawback to having wider knobby tires and that is the reduced aerodynamics in the Silkon wind tunnel. I found that at 35km per hour a 10mm increase in tire width costs about 5 watts, a 55mm mountain bike tire is 10 to 15mm larger than a standard gravel tire and has larger knobs. aggressive, so there is certainly an arrow penalty and, furthermore, a drop bar mountain bike is not as Arrow as a gravel bike, so if you take the whole package into account, we could easily be talking about a 10 to 20 watt difference between the two bikes at high speeds.

This means that choosing between these bikes depends largely on the demands of the course, the smoother and faster the course becomes, the less rolling resistance matters and the more Arrow matters and the more the balance tips in favor of the bike. gravel, but on rougher and slower courses the opposite happens and the mountain bike with a drop bar becomes more advantageous, then on the other side of the coin we have easy mountain bike races are good, at least technically easy. I think Keegan Swenson might be the only one who thinks climbing almost 13,000 feet in the middle of the Leadville 100 is physically easy on flat 2 bars no less.

I mean come on does this guy even watch your videos oh no that's right he's too busy winning why would anyone choose to ride a drop bar mountain bike for a race that may not require much riding skills but still is it considered a mountain bike race again? It all comes down to aerodynamics. I really don't think I

need

to convince you that a drop bar position is more aerodynamic than a standard flat bar mountain bike position. I think every serious cyclist already knows this, however, many people probably assume that the speeds in these races are very low.

Well, we can take some of the data I got in the wind tunnel to try to figure this out at 25 km/hour or 15.5 miles per hour, which is a very respectable average speed for a race like Leadville. and it's actually not even as fast as this year's winning speed, you would save five watts from hood position to drop position which is over 6 minutes over a 100 mile distance and let's not forget that hood position It is even more aerodynamic. In addition to the mountain bike position, we now have to take into account that races like Leadville are not done on a flat road, there are ups and downs, braking and corners, but there is no doubt that there are still some savings, if not many, for It is due to the improved aerodynamic position before the race.

In fact, I calculated the difference by taking into account the speed of each section, including the time lost on the technical downhill sections with the drop bars and eliminating the sections that were easy enough to do. them in the puppy paw position or with your elbows in the bar position, regardless of which bar you choose, and I pegged the difference at around 6 minutes in favor of the drop bars. 6 minutes may not seem like a ton over the course of a 6 hour race, but for me personally, 6 minutes would be the difference between getting the 17th place I got and the 21st place, so four places doesn't mean it would be more. fast for everyone, although I have the option of running with downhill bars or standard mountain bike bars for a mountain.

Bike racing really comes down to how technically challenging the course is and this will vary from person to person and will depend on how much experience and confidence you have using drop bars. For me personally, I practiced enough on drop bars before Leadville that I really got it. My downhill times were pretty much in line with my flat bar times from the previous year and I actually had a faster time on the downhill bars this year on the most technical Downhill of the race, so the decision to use them was a no-brainer for me. , however. It may not be so simple for everyone.

I've been babbling on a lot in this video about things you've already heard me talk about all summer in these race report videos, but let's get into the details of this particular drop bar mountain. bike setup starting with the frame, I used the Lando Factor hardtail mountain bike frame and something a lot of people have asked me is whether or not I use a different size frame than I would normally use for this drop bar setup, the answer No, I still use the same medium-sized frame that I would use with flat handlebars; however, I use a shorter stem to compensate for the longer drop reach so I choose a 70mm stem instead of the typical 90mm stem I used on this bike when it had flat bars, the bars are 40cm long wide which may seem narrow but to put it into perspective I use 36cm bars on my gravel bike so these bars are actually significantly wider and that is to improve handling on technical terrain in that same spot .

Vein The Reach from saddle to handlebar is about 20mm shorter on this bike compared to my gravel bike to further improve handling. The other good thing about this bike is that it fits a chainring as large as 42 to a chainring that not many mountain bikes. Shifting bikes can obviously be a limiting factor for using a mountain bike on a gravel race inthe one you don't want to miss out on and, fortunately, with a 42 to 52 chainring and a 10 to 52 cassette and larger diameter tires, which increases the gear ratio. This gearing is roughly equivalent to using a 48 and 32 tooth chainring at the front and an 11-38 cassette at the rear on a standard gravel bike with 40mm tires and this means I'm not really losing anything on gear terms. and Sham makes it very easy to set up a drop on our mountain bike.

Your Eagle AIS mountain bike derailleur is designed to pair with Sham Force axle shifters and shift to tires. I have used kti race King 2.2 sources like Leadville just to be able to escape By using a lower tire pressure, the speed gained by using a lower tire pressure on rough terrain is much greater than the speed lost by adding 60 to 100 G to your bike. With the inserts this, along with the Sila tire sealant, makes for a fairly flat setup, the other notable part of the bike is the fork at the moment. I have the bike in more mountain bike mode with a standard 100mm Fox 32 stepcast mountain bike fork, but for some Tamer courses I'll use Fox's 40mm.

Instead, the gravel fork is a bit lighter, lowers the handlebars and makes the bike feel more like a gravel bike. This, of course, increases the head angle from 68 and a half degrees to 71 degrees, which brings it more in line with a typical gravel bike head. The seat tube angle also tilts, but I already put my saddle as far forward as possible, so it's not a big deal to move the saddle back when using this setup. You may have also noticed that I used fox. Transfer the SL dropper post onto this bike along with its Ax lever, which is designed for drop bars and allows you to access the dropper post from the hood or drops.

I don't use a dropper post for every ride I do on this bike. but for those who are more technical and have longer descents, it helps with descent speed and actually makes getting into a super bent position much easier and safer. We'll probably continue to delve into every little detail of this bike and some of you probably like it, but some of you are probably thinking that this video is already a little long and confusing, so I'll get to the CR of the video. I think ditching our mountain bikes should be a new category of bikes that the bike industry should embrace or we will see gravel bikes looking more and more like mountain bikes in the near future, after all we are already seeing that they become more capable and current.

The internet meme about gravel bikes is that they essentially look like mountain bikes from the '80s. At what point will we come full circle and realize that we never needed gravel bikes in the first place? Personally, I want to see the gravel category expand. Most companies have an escalation. road bike, an Arrow road bike and an endurance road bike and on the mountain bike side it gets even crazier with XC bikes, trail bikes, enduro bikes, downhill bikes, from field to country, etc. I think the same should and will happen with gravel as well and we are already seeing it with some companies that have two different gravel options for different terrains.

I think it makes sense to have an Arrow gravel bike for fast racing. Basically, it will look like the company's aerrow road bike, but with much larger tire clearance. There is a lightweight gravel bike, but for the demands of most gravel racing, I don't really think it's necessary. In between, you probably have a standard gravel bike that takes into account aerodynamics, weight, comfort, and tire clearance, but doesn't go overboard in any case. Of those fronts, it's the gravel bike that most people will buy and it handles most gravel terrain and then I think it would make sense to have an aggressive gravel bike category.

These bikes would have clear mountain bike tires. Looser angles may come equipped with a dropper. posts or suspension forks and generally feel more like mountain bikes. So how much do you think the bike industry paid this guy to say all this? What I don't want to see is what is already happening with many companies that have a grave. offering that supposedly does everything you could compete with Unbound or you can go pack the bike with it, no, no, no, maybe this is an elitist bike racer option, but I personally prefer it when a bike does one thing and does it. does extremely well rather than the opposite. to a bike that does a lot of things quite well.

I guess I don't necessarily think drop bar mountain bikes should become their own category, however, I would love to see aggressive gravel bikes become a new category as well as further categorization. of gravel bikes in general, as we see with road and mountain bikes, and this should probably go without saying at this point, but this means that I don't think the gravel bike is going anywhere; There are still many circuits where a gravel bike, as we know today, is the fastest option and, although I understand this is just a joke, there are many differences between a current gravel bike and a mountain bike from the 80s, even if The facial hairstyle hasn't changed much, thanks for watching.

If you want to follow more closely my training runs and strange bike setups, be sure to visit me on Instagram. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to like, subscribe, and share it with your cycling friends. See you at the next one.