Bustedknuckle said:
King Boonen said:
Bustedknuckle said:
If you look at various 'GRoad/Gravel' bike dimensions, they will be very close to identical to other 'categories' of bikes called something different. Particularly bikes called 'Cyclocross' and a lot called 'touring', but with eyelets and such, are really 'all-rounders'. BUT by 'adding' a name, 'Gravel Grinder', they have created another segment to sell into.
PLUS, not a weight weenie at all..but 10.5kg, 23 pounds?..surely one could do better than that.
But CX bikes don't have eyelets/mounts,
and touring bikes don't have discs or the clearance for big tyres, so it's a different type of bike, otherwise a CX bike is a road bike pretty much, so's a tourer. Neither CX nor touring bikes do everything a gravel grinder or whatever you call it does. It's up to you if you need everything it has, but if you're buying a complete bike it is different to both of the classes you listed. The name just helps people distinguish between an CX race bike and something that's more intended for loading up and taking off somewhere.
You could easily do better. Replace the 105 with Ultegra, carbon fork instead of the steel one on there, carbon build kit and some lighter wheels and I reckon you're down in the 8kg region pretty easily. Could no doubt get it lighter if you really wanted, just going to cost more cash.
Look closely-Gunnar "CROSSHairs"..a lot of 'Gravel Grinders' don't have eyelets for fenders either.
Gunnar has a tourer with discs, even a 650b/disc tourer.
http://gunnarbikes.com/site/bikes/grand-disc
You submitted that bike. Not a weight weenie but as a 'fast club ride bike'...I'd like it to be 2-3kg lighter.
I'm just saying the bike makers are trying to increase sales by adding a 'category' that really isn't much different than bikes already in existence. Marketing mostly. IMHO.
This is getting silly or obtuse, I don't know which. I have no idea why you bolded part of my post, it has nothing to do with anything you've said afterwards from what I can see. Gunnar can call their bikes whatever they want, I clearly stated what I see a gravel grinder as and the Crosshairs isn't it. The Grand Disc appears to be from 2014, hardly an old bike, and they clearly think it's different to previous touring bikes as they refer to it as a next generation touring bike.
Don't change quotes, nowhere have I said 'fast club ride bike', I said
club run. Frankly, it doesn't matter if you want it lighter but you can't argue that you'd like a more specific bike and
then argue against brands adding more specific bike to their catalogues. Yes, ideally a bike around 7.5kg would be great for club runs, but I'm hardly going to want to load that up with 15+kgs of bags and do a two week tour on it. The bike I linked to would let me do both as well as I would want to.
Yes, they're not much different to what is out there,
but they are different. I really fail to see how more choice is a bad thing? Is someone wants a specific bike for every single discipline that's up to them.
I get it, you don't like segmentation of bike categories. That's your choice. But bikes these days can come with a myriad of different options and expanding a range lets people pick and choose which of these options they want with less compromise. You can ride whatever bike you want wherever you want, as can I and I do! Having a go at people for offering choices is just silly though.