This photo is from 2016. I was riding a Prorace cyclocross bike off road. It got me thinking about what everyone was riding before gravel bikes were really a thing. It feels like a lot of gravel riders came from road cycling, but I’m not sure that’s true. Did gravel bring in many first-time riders? What were you riding back then, or were you riding at all?
by epicroadrides
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20 years before that photo I was riding my cross bike on 27s or 33s on fire roads and single track. Just like I do these days on my “gravel” bike.
And decades before I was doing that there were folks riding their touring bikes all over the place, on dirt(see Jobst Brandt et al)
I had a Ridley Crossfire CX bike with knobby 35mm tires. It was great. Tall stack, but short wheelbase and very sharp handling. V brakes were terrible tho. Went up and down an MTB trail once in Vail. Somehow survived.
I’ve never owned a proper road bike. Before gravel bikes it was cx bikes. A Gunnar Crosshairs mostly
* Cannondale Cyclocross, circa 2000 – love that baby blue fade colour scheme. That bike was my pavement, gravel road, trail and singletrack bike. Still in use on my trainer. My Norco Search is *way* better on gravel than the Cannondale is; I think it’s more than just tire width.
* 1995 hard tail Giant Sedona ATX mountain bike. Recently retired and donated to the local bike co-op.
* 2010-ish Norco commuter. Still in daily use (but the gravel bike is more fun to ride so I use that a lot for commuting in the less icy months).
For the last thirty years, I have ridden two bikes. Yes, just two. A Schwinn High Sierra and a Trek OCLV 9700. I bought the trek in 2000 after my High Sierra was stolen.
I recently purchased another High Sierra, it is going into the shop soon for some braze-ons and paint to turn it into a gravel bike.
I used 28mm’s on my Ti road bike, until I got into ‘cross. It all started back in ‘03 with a Bianchi Cross Concept, then a Specialized Tri-Cross. Cannondale figured it out with the venerable CAAD X, and Santa Cruz had a MTB/CX fusion in the gen 2 Stigmata. Specialized went for the throat with their CX focused Crux. Once CX concluded, they all became my fenderized winter commuter/trainer and all-road adventure bike. The Stig was a particularly good gravel racer, while the Crux I found a bit too stiff and twitchy for my liking.
I’m on a Diverge STR now, and it’s like butter with its gravel geo, 47mm Tracer treads and full suspension goodness.
Novara Zealo. Only just sold it a few months ago. I could ride a little gravel on it, although I never tried to put wider tires on it.
A Seven a put over 200k miles on, a Shiv TT, a Chinese carbon gardtail with a Lauf Fork…at least actively when I got my gravel bike. Owned plenty of others before that.
Mountain bike. Was a hard core mountain biker since the early 90’s. Still ride it of course but shocked how much I enjoy the gravel steed.
2009 Scott Team CX with 40mm tires