As I proceed to hunt the Elusive Spirit of Gravel, I’m happy to report I’ve now moved on to the inevitable “accessorizing” section of my journey. Bear in mind how again within the early a part of this century, on the top of the fixie craze, you may acquire all method of u-lock holsters and coloured rims and high tube pads, permitting you to play Barbie with bikes?
Properly the identical factor goes in your broccoli bike, and taunted by all these empty accent mounts I’ve now acquired and put in…a small high tube bag:
At midnight days earlier than the Gravel Revolution a high tube bag was referred to as a “bento field.” It was used solely by triathletes and was the very pinnacle of dorkiness. However now they’re apparently acceptable, and whereas my company bag could not have the cachet or gravel cred of a designer hobo bindle from Ultraromance that you just connect to your Brooks saddle with a stick, it does bolt on to the bike:
Hey, you don’t turn out to be cool in a single day. You’ve received to pay your dues first. And if meaning using round wanting like the principle character in a youngsters’s guide known as My First Gravel Bike then I’m keen to do what it takes:
That’s the AI’s tackle “a youngsters’s guide known as My First Gravel Bike.” Not dangerous! Certain, there’s the same old mutant cockpit, however that’s a given at this level. Additionally, Niord Bt Galris Mgfleah is considered one of my favourite authors, although he’s finest loved within the unique Gaelic.
Anyway, this bag will enable me to hold a mini pump with out sticking it in my jersey, in addition to some foodstuffs for when it’s lastly heat sufficient to journey exterior for greater than two hours:
[“Two hours? Woosie.”]
I think the actual purpose the entire gravel bike factor took off just isn’t for any of the explanations individuals normally cite (individuals don’t need to journey on busy roads with a number of automobiles; individuals need extra versatile bikes; individuals can work remotely and reside the desert hipster life-style…] however fairly as a result of roadie varieties are lastly allowed to place small luggage on their bikes.
Talking of gravel, Life Time Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: LGH) -6,98777%, the corporate that owns all of the gravel, is formally banning drop bars from the Leadville Path 100:
However you’ll nonetheless have the ability to use drop bars in races with the phrase “gravel” within the title:
Detailed in its up to date guidelines for its 2026 occasions, Life Time revealed that drop bars won’t be allowed at each the Leadville Path 100 and Little Sugar mountain bike races this 12 months. The Chequamegon MTB Pageant occasion will nonetheless enable using drop bars, as will the Sea Otter Traditional Gravel, Unbound Gravel and Massive Sugar Gravel.
Now, I ought to make it clear that I don’t actually care if races have guidelines, nor do I care whether or not or not these guidelines make any sense. Races have guidelines, and that’s what makes them races and never rides. In the event you don’t like the principles, then don’t enter the race. So if Life Time desires to ban drop bars, or singlespeeds, or pubic hair, or the rest, that’s fairly actually their enterprise. Don’t prefer it? Discover one other race, or else you’d higher guide that waxing appointment now to keep away from the pre-Unbound rush.
Nonetheless…why?
I did go to the principles web page, and right here’s what they are saying:
“Course compatibility?” Isn’t that as much as the riders? Clearly drop bars had been appropriate with the course, in any other case no person would have used them. As for “security,” had been individuals crashing as a result of they had been utilizing drop bars? I’m not asking sarcastically, I’m actually asking, as a result of I don’t know. And if the final word purpose is to protect the integrity of Leadville as a mountain bike race or one thing, that doesn’t actually make sense, since individuals have at all times raced mountain bikes with drop bars. [I don’t need to insert the Obligatory Tomac Photo here, do I? This isn’t the rest of the Internet, we’re all grownups here.]
After all, not everyone agrees:
I don’t know what’s funnier: placing drop bars on a mountain bike and promoting it as a gravel bike like Pinarello did, or claiming that doing so is someway harmful to the patron, like this text does:
Bike manufacturers then reply by constructing able to go conversions. You don’t must supply elements; you simply must put down your bank card and also you get one thing that’s totally engineered. Besides is it? Is it really totally engineered?
What if you’re a small model that simply desires to capitalize on a development with out a lot funding. That may by no means occur in our small neighborhood, proper?
Gained’t any individual consider the advertising victims?!?
Additionally, what’s Life Time saving individuals from precisely?
Life Time is true to kill this development within the racing neighborhood, however you must also be thanking them. This rule change will prevent from bikes like this. The precise use case is extremely small and Leadville is on the middle of that. Banning the development there means you gained’t be seeing drop bar mountain bikes successful races almost as typically. That may imply much less headlines about it and that can imply much less curiosity. Manufacturers gained’t want to reply.
Just like the “use case” (barf) for many different sorts of mountain bikes isn’t vanishingly small? In 2026 you want separate mountain bikes for using up hills and for using down them. Additionally, if the bikes are successful races then doesn’t that imply…they’re working?
I suppose the actual purpose mountain bikers object to that is that placing completely different handlebars on a motorbike for a particular course is a decidedly low-tech answer, and there’s nothing they hate greater than simplicity.
