Yep, some gravel bikes really are turning into old mountain bikes, but that’s not a bad thing
And let’s not forget that “gravel” is anything but one-size-fits-all.
We certainly are living in interesting times right now.
You’ve likely caught wind of a new full-suspension gravel bike that Trek has apparently been testing at the Trans Balkan Race – and not so surreptitiously, I should add, given there’s a rather obvious Trek logo on the down tube.
The race itself sounds like one hell of a challenge, an unsupported point-to-point event covering 1,400 km (870 mi) of distance and 27,000 (88,600 ft) of elevation gain over terrain that’s “82% off-road” and “99% rideable,” traversing north-to-south through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Montenegro. This year’s winner, Justinas Leveika, finished with a new fastest known time of 4 days, 8 hours, and 39 minutes. Unsurprisingly, one of the event sponsors is a chamois creme brand called Ass Magic.
In short, the Trans Balkan Race sounds… hard – and not just on the body, but also on the equipment given the rugged terrain and self-supported format. As is pretty much standard fare for an event like this, it seems most participants were on short-travel full-suspension mountain bikes.
Trek hasn’t released (or even confirmed) any technical details on Leveika’s as-yet-unreleased bike, but a few things are clear: It’s a carbon fiber frame using a flexstay rear end and a linkage-driven RockShox SIDLuxe rear shock, it’s UDH-equipped and compatible with standard gravel components (like flat-mount brake calipers and road-width cranksets), it only works with 1x drivetrains, and the open front triangle leaves heaps of space for frame bags.
There’s also clearance for at least 29x2.2” knobbies, and by my calculations, rear wheel travel could be as much as 80 mm (double the amount of the fork). However, the curiously high pivot also suggests heaps of anti-squat for efficient pedaling, potentially even being designed to run at zero sag.
Leveika’s full-suspension Trek gravel bike has received an awful lot of attention for obvious reasons, and much of it not of the good kind given some of the comments people have posted.
“Another stupid bike.”
“Didn't Trek say they were going to downsize their lineup? And the answer to that is adding a new hyper-niche model in an already super-stratified market?”
“Why don’t people just buy a hardtail or full-suspension mountain bike if they want shocks, wider tires, etc.? It seems like gravel bikes are just evolving into mountain bikes more and more each year.”
“They’ve finally become mountain bikes.”
Heck, a good friend of mine even told me just the other day that his 16yo daughter – 16! – is all up in arms about the idea of putting suspension on gravel bikes.
Gravel bikes are continuing to evolve – and at breakneck pace most recently, I might add. Yet as unusual as this new bike from Trek is, I don’t think the shade is warranted. This continued development is not only a good thing, but one we all should have expected.
The more things change …
Think back to when Trek introduced its first-generation Checkpoint back in 2018. It was impressively prescient with room for 700c tires up to 45 mm-wide, frame geometry that wasn’t just entirely cribbed from a cyclocross bike, and lightweight frames in both carbon fiber and aluminum. They didn’t feel overly cumbersome on tarmac, but yet still offered the expanded capabilities on unpaved roads that people were seeking (even though they came with rather modest 35 mm-wide tires stock).
Fast forward to now, and despite the flurry of gravel-oriented product introduced since then, gravel bikes really haven’t changed that much. By and large, they’re still basically just fatter-tired road bikes with rigid double-diamond frames and tweaked geometry. Short-travel suspension forks (typically just 40-50 mm) are slowly becoming a bit more common, but the more prevailing wisdom has been to just boost the tire clearance to around 50ish mm so as to minimize weight elsewhere.
We’ve seen some tiptoes into suspension, mostly up front with short-travel suspension forks, suspension stems, and more integrated systems like the Specialized Future Shock. Out back, it’s largely been compliance elements like flexy (or occasionally telescoping) seatposts, or frames with integrated flex features such as from Trek, Cannondale, and BMC. Specialized’s Diverge STR was a more radical approach to the idea in 2022 with a tiny shock integrated into the top tube, but even that was still basically a hyper-bendy seat tube. Proper full suspension of almost any kind (as in, with physical pivots and stuff) has been akin to a third rail to the bike industry, somehow a step too far, perhaps exemplified by Niner’s ill-fated MCR 9 RDO from 2019, a bike I’ll freely admit that I didn’t exactly love.
Even so, I might argue Niner had the right idea, but the wrong execution – and was probably a few years too early, too.
Mountain biking isn’t what it used to be
I’ve been around long enough to remember firsthand what those old mountain bikes were like, and truth be told, the peanut gallery isn’t entirely wrong.
If you compare the numbers, the geometry of new-school gravel bikes isn’t all that different from when mountain bikes still had 135 mm-long stems. I owned softails and suspension seatposts (not on the same bike, mind you), both of which have enjoyed a second shot on gravel bikes. I had mountain bike suspension forks with barely more travel than a RockShox Rudy. My Answer Hyperlite handlebars probably weren’t much wider than the flared drops many are using now. And the 26x1.9” Continental Twister Pros I used to swear by for trail riding? I thought they were crazy-fast (and definitely light), but they were absolutely a couple of millimeters narrower than the 50 mm-wide Specialized Tracer gravel tires I’m riding right now.
That all said, I wouldn’t dream of attempting with any of my old bikes the stuff I’m riding now with ease on my shorter-travel mountain bike, which is already a far more capable setup than the full-suspension bikes I was riding just a few years ago. However, as an unintended consequence of that quantum leap in capability, trails and terrain that I used to consider fun on those old mountain bikes are soporifically dull on new ones.
But you know what makes them fun again? Gravel bikes – specifically, the ones that are butting up against mountain bike territory, like my Santa Cruz Stigmata with its MTB-inspired frame geometry, short-travel suspension fork, bendy seatpost, and 50 mm-wide tires. In fact, it makes those trails an absolute riot, and the suspension is not only beneficial in terms of my own comfort, but it also helps me go faster and reduces the chance of stupid crashes.
That all said, while some (emphasis on “some”) gravel bikes have been straying into MTB territory, I don’t think it’s an inevitability that they’re going to “turn into mountain bikes” en masse. If that were the case, we’d already see hordes of mountain bikers doing big mixed-terrain rides on the bikes they have now. However, that’s not what’s happening. I don’t regularly put in 40, 60, 80-mile days on my mountain bike because it’s simply not a great tool for that job. Drop bars are better for covering long distances at higher speeds – particularly when it’s a mix of (mostly non-technical) terrain.
There’s also clearly market demand for cross-breeds given the rising popularity of so-called drop-bar hardtails in the custom community. As the name suggests, these are basically mountain bike hardtails (with the same high-volume and fast-rolling tires, more stability, and more generous amounts of front suspension travel than typical gravel forks), but often sized down so as to better accommodate drop handlebars. Almost by definition, they exist because they aren’t widely available in the mainstream market, which the custom world has historically reliably predicted.
If there really is such a demand for more of an MTB-gravel mix, then why aren’t we seeing full-suspension gravel bikes like that Trek from custom builders? Simple: those sorts of things are harder for small cottage operations to execute: lots of pivots, lots of tooling, lots of additional hardware, lots more engineering work. It’s just not their forte.
Point being, I not only believe there’s space for something like that Trek full-suspension gravel bike to exist, but I also think it’d do well.
Enough with the purity already
I say all the time that gravel riding exists on a broad spectrum. On one end, we’ve got so-called “champagne” gravel – hardpacked dirt roads that are often smoother than paved ones (these are thankfully plentiful in Colorado, and I can assure you they’re as glorious as they sound). On the other end, we’ve got so-called “underbiking” terrain, which basically comprises anything and everything a smaller subset of relatively sane people might consider doable on drop bars with medium-volume tires, sort-of-knobby tires, and minimal (if any) suspension.
At either extreme, there’s ample crossover between neighboring genres. Could you ride smooth dirt on a road bike with 25s or 28s? Sure, I did it for years, and as a good friend of mine likes to say, “gravel is where you ride, not what you ride.” Likewise, could you ride easy trails on a short-travel full-suspension bike (or even a hardtail) with flat bars and 2.25” semi-slicks? Of course. But again: boring.
Those bookends leave an awful lot of space in the middle to which we apply a single “gravel” moniker. While I’m as averse to model bloat and hyper-segmentation as anyone, when you sit back and think about it, does it make sense that “gravel” bikes should be as narrowly defined as so many people seem to want them to be?
Let me put it another way.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to n-1 to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.