Best gravel bikes under $2000

Table of contents:

• Gravel bike - why and for whom

What is a gravel bike and how is it different from a road bike or a cyclocrosser?

Here you are all scolding marketing, and sometimes cool things are born thanks to it. In fact, the entire bicycle market is reduced to three categories:

• 1) mountain bikes,
• 2) road bikes and
• 3) something in between (narrow niches like touring bikes or consumer goods like city bikes for 150 euros are not taken into account).

So, in order to sell, marketers constantly have to look for market shares at the intersection of categories, to do something universal that combines the strengths of different types of bicycles. Thus, a bastard from MTB and a road bike appeared - see the Best gravel bikes under 2000.

At one time, this type of bike made sense and was accepted by the cycling community with a bang. Moreover, marketers caught the signal about the demand for big wheels and after a while we got niners - a significant step in the development of mountain biking, in my opinion.

At this time, a new trend in the road bike market is a gravel bike (gravel bike - a bike for gravel roads). Since the trend is upward, marketers have not yet fully come to a single standard and even a name, in some cases a new type of bike is called adventure bike, endurance bike, performance road bike.

Meticulous forum lovers will now begin to prove that each listed name is a separate type of bicycle, but this is not true - so far, each manufacturer pulls the blanket over itself and calls the type that has not yet taken shape by different names. Apparently, the name gravel bike will take root and become generally accepted. Since I am considering myself as a potential owner of this still ghostly type of bike, I have carefully studied the issue and hasten to tell you what I know myself. Read also this piece of content Wiki.

Gravel bike - why and for whom

A person wise with experience, having once glanced briefly at what is called a gravel bike, will ask: “Well, what is all the noise around a conventional cyclocrosser? Marketing is marketing." And he will be, in general, right: having slightly caught the demand, many manufacturers simply added the word Gravel to the names of their cyclocrosser models, essentially without changing anything in the concept. So what is a gravel bike? At the moment, this is a marketing concept trying to satisfy the airborne demand for a road bike:

• With a rudder ram
• With a longer wheelbase
• With tires in the standard 35mm and more
• With frame and fork clearances to accommodate even larger tires
• Geometry between MTB and road
• with disc brakes

The concept of a gravel bike is a comfortable road bike with a “ram” handlebar, with inflated wheels, which allows you to ride in a relaxed position for a long time, while being able to go off-road. The cyclocrosser doesn't quite match this input. If you have ever ridden a cyclocrosser, then you know what I mean - in fact, this is the same sports equipment as a classic road bike.