Why You Might Be Wrong About Gravel Bikes!

We’ve been invited to @MondrakerTV HQ in Alicante to sample the local area and everything it has to offer by gravel bike. The Arid is Mondraker’s first gravel bike and they have not held back, applying their trademark Forward Geometry to the genre. They’ve crammed this bike with cool features, making it a beast for all-day gravel adventures and multi-day bike-packing trips. Owen Coutts was on hand to try it out, and see if simpler bikes can make for better rides!

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⏱ Timestamps ⏱
00:00 – I Love Gravel
01:40 – Our Route Around Alicante
02:21 – City Slickin’
03:12 – What Actually Are Gravel Bikes?
04:43 – Heading Off-Road On The New Mondraker Arid
06:25 – No Suspension, No Worries
08:51 – Some Finer Details On The New Mondraker Arid
10:35 – Mondraker Geometry Rules!
11:56 – Why Not An XC Bike?
13:45 – So… Will Your Next Bike Be A Gravel Bike?

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whoa whoa hold on there before you swipe to the next video I’ve got something to tell you are you ready okay I love gravel there I’ve said it not only that I think your next bike should be a gravel bike thanks to mandrea I’m here in the beautiful southeast of Spain to explain myself and to show you what you might be missing out on [Music] [Applause] [Music] there’s a trend on YouTube to make everything faster Quick Cuts changes of scenery and we can see this trend in the rest of Modern Life everything immediate infinite scrolling always wanting more that next dopamine hit and life just moving at you faster and faster and gravel riding might be the antidote It Gets You Back to Basics gets you to focus on the important things of course you can chase the mes on a gravel bik too be that distance speed or even elevation to me though the MS that are important are different it’s adventure it’s places and ultimately it’s more fun don’t get me wrong a gravel bike is a great way of covering distances fast and you can’t really beat that feeling of speed and efficiency on a mountain bike it’s just not the same but by focusing on that you’re missing out what a gravel bike can give you just like the tap pass dishes Spain is famous for my root features some nice little tasters of everything that alakan and the new mandrea arid have to offer from the mandrea HQ we’re going to take the road out of elch into the beautiful countryside nearby after some smooth tarmac we’re going to ease ourselves into the off-road part by taking some gravel tracks into the back country from there we’ve got a nice Loop exploring some of the hills and surrounding the city taking in an aqueduct a river crossing and more before spinning back to base on that note time to get the bike and let’s get riding and hit the road or gravel or single track or just dirt roads let’s crack on [Music] just rolling out of town and the gravel bike is really good it’s really fast at stuff like this cover the ground really nicely we’ve had lots of heavy rain overnight there’s lots of detritus on the road but unlike being on a road bike with these gravel tires they don’t have to worry just straight through all the driers it’s great fun now before we get too much into things I’m going to try and answer the big question that some of you might be asking what is gravel riding the first answer is popular for The Last 5 Years running it’s been the fastest growth Market within cycling safe to say sales figures aside what actually is gravel riding is still up for debate for many so is it Road riding for mountain bikers or is it Mountain Biking For Road Riders In some ways that’s the actual point there is no simple definition of what gravel riding is because gravel riding can be so much gravel covers everything between smooth tat roads through to technical mountain bike Focus single track and within that broad spectrum well the choice is yours short blasts or Epic Adventures head down for Speed or head up to look around racing or roaming with the these different design requirements gravel bikes take their cues from both road bikes and mountain bikes an obvious influence from our Roadie friends are the drop bars the drop bars add a lot of comfort and you might wonder why well it’s because you’ve got loads of different hand positions and because we got a rigid Fork we need different hand positions to make sure that we can stay comfortable of course there is the added benefit that we can get down into the drops and be a little bit more aerodynamic so we get a bit of free speed from the off-road side we’ve got much wider tires you can fit a 50 mil Tire into these and they provide lots more grip than the really slick really skinny tires that you’d normally find on a road bike well there’s a lot more Bike Tech to talk about but we’ best crack on [Music] there’s a quote that’s attributed to Einstein and that’s that things should be made as simple as possible but not simpler this new mandrea arid is a great example of that philosophy it’s got everything you need and nothing that you don’t we’ve got a sturdy yet lightweight frame made from mre’s stealth air carbon fiber it rolls on tough 700c wheels and it’s got grippy 45 mil wide tires mandrea describes the Arid as one of their origin bikes why because it takes you back to the purest form of sport and I think they’ve got a point gravel bikes take things back to their simplest form and I think that’s really great for me it reminds me of my first bike when my bike was just my bike and you could go everywhere and anywhere now it might sound well limiting I think it’s liberating [Music] if you’re used to a full suspension mountain bike the lack of suspension might be daunting but don’t let it put you off you might be surprised at how much Trail chatter these gravel tires and wheels can actually absorb Plus mandrea have got a couple of clever tricks up their sleeve mrea say that they’ve optimized the tube profile and wall thickness for a tailored ride feel they’ve also use their stealth carbon fiber to create a damped and smooth ride this is where some of the magic happens this Junction between the seat stays and the seat tube down to well the special shape and design of it and also the layup of the carbon fiber self is said to give more Small Bump compliance what does that mean should reduce some of the chatter and feedback through the rear wheel and potentially Aid rear wheel traction too whilst it won’t take the big hits like a full suspension system would it probably will take out lots of the trail chatter that’s tiring over a long gravel ride [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow feels like we’re really into the ride now and even though we haven’t been riding that long we it’s like we’re in the middle of nowhere it’s amazing sections through that Valley behind me was uh was wonderful but quite muddy and boggy thankfully this bike has got a lot of mud clearance because I think in another bike well I’d be walking because the the wheels would be clogged up tough stuff oh it was oh ooh right wait see this is a good Adventure sketchy Bridge oh [Music] Shivers oh wow look at this terrain look at all the kind of levels of wash that’s come through and sediment oh gee hopefully I’m going the right way double check yes we [Music] are I mentioned mandre who’ve got a couple of tricks up their sleeves actually got one in the dam tube the Arid is well specked it’s got ball cages Galore we’ve got two in the frame and we’ve got a multi cage Mount here and on the fork on both sides but we’ve also got the brand new carryon baggage system on the inside of the D tube behind this watertight dust proof cover are three separate bags for all your Essentials so what have we got we’ve got three different dedicated bags and you can put whatever you want in them so we’ve got one here with a tube and tie lever we’ve got another here with a CO2 but you could put in a mini pump uh and then we’ve got a mult tool we’ve got everything that you need it’s versatile I think this is great for short rides it means you’ve got pretty much everything that you might need in the bike already and for those longer rides it means that well it’s an extra bit of packing that you don’t have to do because it’s already on [Music] board you know what’s really nice about well the bar is so many different positions it’s very comfy and wow look at this landscape it is really incredible and I think it’s easy to uh to kind of like look at the surroundings and just forget on an XC bike you always kind of head down and looking for that X corner on a gravel bike you do get to look up it’s awesome this being a mandrea shares the same forward geometry that their other bikes were made famous for forward geometry was the name that mandrea gave to its pioneering mountain bike geometry while longer lower slacker bikes with SH stems are now common place when they debuted over a decade ago they were revolutionary if you’re used to mountain bike geometry figures then the 70° head angle 74° seat angle and 386 mm reach for a medium might not sound Progressive but for gravel low those numbers are pushing the envelope more than you’d think and keeping mre’s ethos [Music] [Music] alive oh wow look at that for a view oh absolutely magic place is gravel bikes can take [Music] you a question you might be asking is why not just just ride an XC bike you certainly could ride an XC bike for a lot of what we’ve done today but there’s a couple of caveats firstly if this was a longer multi-terrain ride I think the extra comfort of the drop bars and the extra efficiency of the gravel bike would just pay out secondly it’s that versatility Point again I talked about Tapas before and how it’s a great analogy for gravel but I think we can expand on that point much like Tapas by changing some of the ingredients we can change what flavors we want and we can pick choose and I think that’s where gravel bikes are really fantastic we could get some bike packing bags and maybe change the tires to something much faster rolling and we’ve got a fantastic weekend Adventure away bike packing or we could take those bags away and stick on some chunky grippier attires and then test ourselves on some siney single track there’s so much variety with just some subtle changes that’s why gravel bites can be really fun all this chat about food has got me very hungry time to wrap things up [Music] so past a stunning waterfall I think we’re heading through the last bit of the mountains back towards the city [Music] oh what an awesome ride Little slice of everything that alante gravel can offer little bits of single track little bits of double track obviously some gravel okay at the start of this video I try to convince you that potentially your next bike would be a gravel bike maybe one like this arid from mandrea for me I feel this ride is a perfect example of why gravel bike is so good A bit like Tapas you can get a bit of everything that you like it’s awesome but are you already a convinced gravista or are you yet to try the wonders of gravel let me know in the comments