On Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 11:19:15 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, May 22, 2020 at 6:04:15 AM UTC+2, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, 21 May 2020 23:36:12 UTC-4, James wrote:
On 19/5/20 11:51 am, news18 wrote:
On Mon, 18 May 2020 21:42:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 5/18/2020 6:38 PM, James wrote:

I bought a gravel bike so that I have more variety of routes and places
to explore.Â* I often ride a mix of bitumen and gravel, and the MTB is
just a slug on bitumen.Â* Furthermore my gravel bike has 3 water bottles
in the main triangle, which is really handy around here in hot weather.
It's also good for towing my shopping trailer.

I certainly agree about mountain bikes being "slugs" on paved roads.

If you ride nobbies.

I have a friend who is not an avid cyclist, although he did some 1000
mile camping tours when much younger. He likes riding under a full moon,
and usually invites me to ride with him. I use one of my road bikes, he
uses his mountain bike. In fact, he uses it everywhere, except off road.
He has no interest in riding on dirt.

At one time, he mentioned that he still had his 1970s Trek touring bike,
but it needed lots of work. I said that bike would be much more
appropriate for his riding and offered to overhaul it for him. And I put
many hours into a complete overhaul. (I may have mentioned having to
disassemble the Campy touring rear derailleur to get it working.)

He came to get the completed bike, test rode it once around my block and
said he didn't like it. It didn't feel stable enough for him. AFAIK he's
never ridden it since.

Did you set it up for racing or touring?

Most of the difference is in the steering. The angle of the head tube
and trail is different on a MTB.

I find riding a MTB no hands is challenging, and easy with on a road or
gravel bike.

YMMV

MTBs typically also have suspension forks and almost flat handlebars.
The former adds a heap of unnecessary weight and the latter encourages a
sit up and beg riding position, with little opportunity for change.

--
JS

I have a number of old rigid frame, rigid front fork MTBs that I've converted to dropbar dirt/gravel roads and/or touring bikes. I like the 26" MTB size wheels because tires are so varied in possible choices. I can tires from 50+mm to 25.4mm online if not in the bicycle shop. Anything from slicks to aggressive knobs are available. In my honest opinion that's about the most versatile wheel size there is. Others, well, YMMV

Cheers

Before gravel bikes were 'invented'/became popular the crossbike was the way to go for off road riding if you didn't want to ride a sluggish ATB. Because of the UCI limitation for cross bikes the choice of tyres was very limited. Now with the gravel bikes the choice is huge.

Lou

I'm not quite sure what you mean by limited. The cross bikes I've had all would take 32 mm tires and if you use any larger you end up with the same sluggishness as an MTB.

I have a local course with short uphill stretches of perhaps 100 meters of 24% or more loose rock. NO cross bike will go up those but I could get 7/8ths of the way to the top before carrying them the rest of the way. I did manage to go all the way to the top with a full suspension bike but they are very heavy on the front end and you don't have to worry about them lifting a front wheel.

The shorter 20% I would ride over. The downhill sections are 30% and more in sections and 32 mm tires are too much traction. That is dangerous to try and do more than try to slow yourself for the next hairpin turn. The idea is to wait for a flatter section and cram on the brakes to slow you for the next steep section. One particularly nasty area was only 40 meters long but covered entirely with cross hatched rain ruts and 40%. The idea was to hit that fast enough that you got through it and onto the flat before you lost control.

With a full suspension you just rode through it at any speed you wanted to go.

But climbing I would run away from MTB's. Especially full suspension models which are so heavy. I'm told that the very top end are no heavier than a cross bike but I would have to see them to believe it.

I see people with 36 or even 42 mm tires on cross bikes but I'm sure that they don't ride any real off-road.