Where is the gravel?

[blindwilly]

all this talk of gravel, gravel grinding and gravel bikes leaves me to wonder where all the gravel is. I'm sure the more rural you get the more gravel roads you will find but for those of us living in or near major metropolitan areas where are we finding these roads? I live in central Massachusetts and while there are a decent amount of dirt roads i can access from my house none of them are long enough or continuous enough to warrant a dedicated bike. even when i do encounter some dirt its usually more than manageable with 25c tires. Are folks putting their bikes on racks and driving to the country? I guess in short what i am saying is that the amount of gravel talk and gravel bikes i see online seem to be completely disproportionate to the amount of gravel roads i see in life. Is it regional? what am i missing?

[spoonrobot]

Are folks putting there cars on racks and driving to the country?

Pretty much, but it's regional. Much like MTB in that respect. I've talked to a few guys who bought the gravel bike and then found out that all those #roadslikethese are really just short sections of dirt maybe a few hundred yards long. Gotta drive to the good stuff if you live near Atlanta.

So gravel around here is mostly a trend. Lots guys on gravel bikes are on them because they're popular and work fine for regular road riding. Couple/few times a year they can gear up for a race or rally and the bike really shines but otherwise it's mostly just a fat-tire road bike. 10 years ago they'd have been on fixed gears instead.

Somewhere like Colorado or Iowa where there's gravel or dirt all over and it's a different story I suspect.

[-holiday76]

i live in the middle of a major metropolis (in between NYC and Philly) and i have n trouble finding gravel. Granted, I live 1/4 mile away from a 60 mile canal path of gravel, there are other resources. For example, there is a map that shows all the gravel roads in Pennsylvania out there.

Shouldnt you be close enough to the d2r2 routes?

Anyway, look hard enough and you'll find what you seek.

[Mzilliox]

part of the allure of gravel is exactly this, finding new routes. google earth is your friend

[jfranci3]

https://gravelmap.com/

[Mark McM]

Isn't this why many bikes are described as "all-road" bikes (because many rides are actually a mix of pavement and gravel/dirt)? It would seem oddly specific if a bike was built for gravel and only gravel.

[XXtwindad]

Why would the bike industry market something that you don't actually need?
There's actually quite a bit of "gravel" near where I live. It's just called "dirt." I think a disc brake bike with fatter tires and a larger cassette comes in quite handy there.

Having just read the inaugural issue of Cyclist Magazine's "gravel" publication, your subtext about marketing is pretty spot on. The whole issue seemed to be sponsored by Rapha and Grinduro. The few actual bikepackers I know don't wear Rapha. And they definitely don't eat prosciutto and locally produced cheeses on their camping trips.

[p nut]

If I drive out further from civilization, I can get all the dirt/gravel I want. But for typical rides, I am at 80% road and 20% dirt on the average. Good thing is, you can ride gravel bikes on asphalt just fine.

[kppolich]

Originally Posted by blindwilly

all this talk of gravel, gravel grinding and gravel bikes leaves me to wonder where all the gravel is. I'm sure the more rural you get the more gravel roads you will find but for those of us living in or near major metropolitan areas where are we finding these roads? I live in central Massachusetts and while there are a decent amount of dirt roads i can access from my house none of them are long enough or continuous enough to warrant a dedicated bike. even when i do encounter some dirt its usually more than manageable with 25c tires. Are folks putting their bikes on racks and driving to the country? I guess in short what i am saying is that the amount of gravel talk and gravel bikes i see online seem to be completely disproportionate to the amount of gravel roads i see in life. Is it regional? what am i missing?

https://gravelmap.com/#@38,-97,11,hybrid

[berserk87]

Road cycling: I can leave from my front door and go for a good couple of hours, or more. To get into the boonies takes less than 5 minutes for me. Zero downtime other than loading bottles and putting on my kit.

Gravel cycling: I can leave from my front door and take an hour to get to the nearest gravel road. So to make it worthwhile, I would have to commit to a three or four hour ride, mixing about half pavement and half gravel.

Or I can pack up and drive 30 minutes and park someplace, and then ride on gravel. That adds more than an hour of non-riding time to my commitment, between packing my stuff, loading the car and driving.

This is one reason that I don't have a gravel road bike. I don't want to take the time messing around with driving to a ride anymore.

[prototoast]

I live in the SF Bay Area, and on some level, we're lucky here because there are a lot of open spaces around here, but there are also a lot of limitations. It's not like I can ride out my door and do a 60 mile loop on various levels of "gravel". Generally, my gravel riding falls into two buckets:

I live near Mt Diablo, which has a lot of fire roads that are bike legal. Unfortunately these are often incredibly steep, and rutted with ossified hoof prints from when the grazing cattle pass through during mud season. It's basically Paris Roubaix up a 25% grade.

If I want really good "gravel" stretches, usually these are relatively minor segments in a long ride down in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This might end up being an 80-ish mile ride total, of which there are a handful of dirt segments of between 2 and 10 miles. A good ride might be 25% dirt, but 10% is probably more common. Sometimes I take my road bike, sometimes I take my gravel bike. Each has tradeoffs, in particular between how quickly I get to the dirt stuff, and how quickly I want to traverse the dirt stuff.

When I used to live closer to the bay, there were a lot of gravel trails along the water where I could play around after work, but this was more like riding around a park than actually traversing a route.

So I have a gravel bike to open up new options, because there aren't enough roads to ride over here. I wish I had the luxury of New England roads, both paved and dirt, to string together more exciting rides--certainly you live close enough to D2R2 that you could borrow a lot of its routes and segments if you're looking for dirt. That dirt is generally going to be much friendlier than the stuff we have out here, and sure you can ride most of it on your road bike, but that doesn't mean that it might not be more fun with some bigger tires.

[happycampyer]

Originally Posted by jfranci3

https://gravelmap.com/

That’s the map I use. Bing maps also show unpaved roads/sections, but gravelmap is much better visually.

Originally Posted by Mark McM

Isn't this why many bikes are described as "all-road" bikes (because many rides are actually a mix of pavement and gravel/dirt)? It would seem oddly specific if a bike was built for gravel and only gravel.

Be careful what you ask for! Like the fractionalization of the mtb market (XC, downhill, etc.), pretty soon you’ll have dirt-road, gravel-road (fine gravel, coarse gravel), and potholed-road specific bikes!

[-holiday76]

In June of this year a few buddies of mine left my house and did a gravel tour for 4 days, ending in...guess where? NYC.

That's my story.

[DRZRM]

I moved to central PA a few years back, and there are hundreds of miles of dirt out my door. Getting full use of my gravel bike. Wish gravelmap was an app. I use the MTB Project and Trailforks apps all the time. Waiting on a custom ti gravel frame that will take much bigger 650B tires for days that include double-track and easy XC trails to compliment my Parlee Chebacco which shines on harder faster dirt roads.

[blindwilly]

just to be clear i don't mean to knock the idea of gravel riding or gravel bikes. just making an observation and looking for some insight into the who, what, when, where, why, and hows of gravel riding.