The history of “gravel riding”...

[kingpin75s]

Seems all they are really inferring is that the modern trend of gravel taking off as a specific and significant marketing segment has its recent roots in races like the Almanzo 100 and the Dirty Kanza 200.

Regardless of whether people have been riding off road since the bike was first built, seems like a fair inflection point to note as related to the current market.

[kingpin75s]

Originally Posted by BobbyJones

I’m relieved that we can finally put to rest WHERE this new style of adventure started. I’m hoping the next email promo will tell me WHO “invented” it.

Based on their WHERE comment I would assume the WHO would be Jim Cummins and/or Chris Skogen.

[gdw]

A lot of the rural roads in this country are actually dirt without gravel so we need to come up with a catchy new phase to discribe the act of riding on them. We also need to design a special bike optimized for that type of adventure.

PS - I invented dirt road riding in Upstate New York back when Nixon was President.

[Joe Remi]

Originally Posted by kingpin75s

Seems all they are really inferring is that the modern trend of gravel taking off as a specific and significant marketing segment has its recent roots in races like the Almanzo 100 and the Dirty Kanza 200.

Regardless of whether people have been riding off road since the bike was first built, seems like a fair inflection point to note as related to the current market.

Yes, but that's not as much fun as giving Sinyard crap

[MattTuck]

Originally Posted by kingpin75s

Seems all they are really inferring is that the modern trend of gravel taking off as a specific and significant marketing segment has its recent roots in races like the Almanzo 100 and the Dirty Kanza 200.

Regardless of whether people have been riding off road since the bike was first built, seems like a fair inflection point to note as related to the current market.

Weren't Tour of the Battenkill and D2R2 started before those two, and also featured off pavement sections?

Seems like an attempt at myth making. Which is all fine and good for marketing, but as informed consumers we don't have to believe everything we are told.

[Joe Remi]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

Weren't Tour of the Battenkill and D2R2 started before those two, and also featured off pavement sections?

Seems like an attempt at myth making. Which is all fine and good for marketing, but as informed consumers we don't have to believe everything we are told.

Maybe Specialized can invent the cobble bike.

[kingpin75s]

Originally Posted by Joe Remi

Yes, but that's not as much fun as giving Sinyard crap

Agreed

[kingpin75s]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

Weren't Tour of the Battenkill and D2R2 started before those two, and also featured off pavement sections?

Seems like an attempt at myth making. Which is all fine and good for marketing, but as informed consumers we don't have to believe everything we are told.

Sure. D2R2 started in the 90s.

However, the Almanzo and DK are reasonably considered the modern catalysts for what gravel has become. Again a key inflection point.

Heck. I get the idea of everything has been done before. I spent much of my riding time on my Willits Scorcher this past year. Looks about the same as the 1890s bike in Jan Heine's Competition Bicycle. All dirt then. I personally give a ton of credit to guys like Bruce Gordon and Wes Williams of Willits again for the Rock-n-Road bikes and tires as well as the Willits 28 Incher. Charlie Cunningham another pioneer who was ahead of everybody in so many ways including bikes that look a lot like a modern gravel bike, all things considered.

[unterhausen]

my guess is that mountain bikers really deserve the credit for the modern resurgence of gravel riding since the early '80s. Mtb'ers do a lot of gravel road riding.

[owly]

Didn't it start with the Australian goldrush in the late 1800s?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclin...miner_1895.jpg

This guy was Benedict before Benedict.

[MattTuck]

Originally Posted by kingpin75s

Sure. D2R2 started in the 90s.

However, the Almanzo and DK are reasonably considered the modern catalysts for what gravel has become. Again a key inflection point.

Heck. I get the idea of everything has been done before. I spent much of my riding time on my Willits Scorcher this past year. Looks about the same as the 1890s bike in Jan Heine's Competition Bicycle. All dirt then. I personally give a ton of credit to guys like Bruce Gordon and Wes Williams of Willits again for the Rock-n-Road bikes and tires as well as the Willits 28 Incher. Charlie Cunningham another pioneer who was ahead of everybody in so many ways including bikes that look a lot like a modern gravel bike, all things considered.

For sure. My point was just that there is little room for nuance in the kind of sweeping generalizations about the American Midwest in the OP.

The rise of off pavement riding in general (and off pavement racing in particular) was not something the big guys saw coming -- and kind of threw the "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" philosophy a curve ball. These were not races that were being broadcast, they were driven by participation.

That the industry saw the chance to create a new "gravel bike" bike category to sell N + 1 bikes is not something that I hold against them - they are businesses trying to make money. But to your point, the guys that made it happen on the technical level were the small guys. The bike industry was still trying to sell bikes with 23mm tires.

[saab2000]

I love that my home state of Wisconsin is crisscrossed with endless, quiet, winding paved roads. No need for a gravel bike there. There aren’t very many unpaved roads, at least in the southern 2/3 of the state.

[kingpin75s]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

For sure. My point was just that there is little room for nuance in the kind of sweeping generalizations about the American Midwest in the OP.

The rise of off pavement riding in general (and off pavement racing in particular) was not something the big guys saw coming -- and kind of threw the "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" philosophy a curve ball. These were not races that were being broadcast, they were driven by participation.

That the industry saw the chance to create a new "gravel bike" bike category to sell N + 1 bikes is not something that I hold against them - they are businesses trying to make money. But to your point, the guys that made it happen on the technical level were the small guys. The bike industry was still trying to sell bikes with 23mm tires.

Generally agreed with the added thought. There seems to be some history of the little-big guy being in tune with a roots movement and having the ability to bring it to market.

Specifically, QBP is a big company. Local to me. It owns Surly and Salsa among many other brands. Each of these brands has been instrumental to taking a niche movement and bridging it to the masses. Surly and the Fat bike. Salsa and the Adventure and Gravel. I have known a couple generations of these guys through my local shop and I think that has helped the big guys I assume you are referring to the ability to jump in with more confidence. They can see it develop and the many arms of QBP does have influence.

[93KgBike]

Originally Posted by kingpin75s

Generally agreed with the added thought. There seems to be some history of the little-big guy being in tune with a roots movement and having the ability to bring it to market.

Specifically, QBP is a big company. Local to me. It owns Surly and Salsa among many other brands. Each of these brands has been instrumental to taking a niche movement and bridging it to the masses. Surly and the Fat bike. Salsa and the Adventure and Gravel. I have known a couple generations of these guys through my local shop and I think that has helped the big guys I assume you are referring to the ability to jump in with more confidence. They can see it develop and the many arms of QBP does have influence.

100% agree. And QBP continues to expand brand identification in their niche - I'm thinking about All-City, which has that big little-guy vibe; and they make quality interesting bikes (I really don't need it, but definitely yearn for a Gorilla Monsoon).

[happycampyer]

Originally Posted by MattTuck

Weren't Tour of the Battenkill and D2R2 started before those two, and also featured off pavement sections?

Seems like an attempt at myth making. Which is all fine and good for marketing, but as informed consumers we don't have to believe everything we are told.

The unpaved roads around Battenkill and Deerfield (and the northeast in general. in my experience) are more hard-packed dirt than gravel, and those are the nicest roads to ride on. Riding on long stretches of crushed gravel sounds miserable—like a cyclocross course that is mostly one long sand pit, or skiing on ice. Are the roads in the midwest more gravel than dirt? If so, maybe it’s fair to say that “gravel grinding” is more of a midwest thing. If the unpaved roads around me (and in Litchfield, CT, western MA, VT, etc.) were mostly gravel, I’m with saab—I’m staying on the pavement.