Lately I used to be on the YouTube and the ol’ algo served me a video during which somebody asks a bunch individuals at Sea Otter whether or not or not we’ve hit “peak gravel:”

Now even with out watching it you possibly can most likely guess whether or not or not “trade insiders” suppose we’ve hit “peak gravel.” (And in the event you can’t guess, the reply is, “Completely not! The supple-tired gravy practice won’t ever cease a-rollin’!”) Nevertheless, I’m undecided that is the best query. Think about this man’s response:

He’s from Bridge Bike Works, with which I used to be not instantly acquainted, and he makes the great level that individuals usually accuse the bike trade of eager to promote them extra stuff (An trade that wishes to promote stuff? What nerve!), however that having a number of choices is sweet for purchasers. He then talks about their “Surveyor,” which he notes is sweet for “90% of highway to quick gravel:”

Now I’m not saying the Survey is a nasty bike, in any respect. Sure, it’s an costly bike (the body alone is $5,500) but when it’s the bike you need and also you’ve acquired the cash then that’s all that issues. Whether or not it’s a boutique carbon gravel bike or an uber-deluxe Rivendell you’ve run by way of the Ultradynamico/Rene Herse/White Industries/Nitto backyard, in the event you wanna go balls-deep in your subsequent bike buy then by all means go for it. It’s definitely lots higher than throwing your cash away on one thing that may erode your humanity, like medicine or an Ivy League training.

What I am saying nonetheless is that this entire “Gravel bikes open up an entire new world of potentialities for brand spanking new riders!” is beginning to sound like an actual load of crap. A Surveyor isn’t going to mint extra riders any greater than the high-end highway bikes of yesteryear. A race bike is a race bike, and it doesn’t robotically grow to be extra accessible simply because it has extra tire clearance. Some individuals purchase their first highway bike and by no means experience it as a result of they thought it was cool however it seems it was bizarre and uncomfortable, whereas for others it’s the beginning of a lifelong love affair with biking. I don’t see why gravel bikes are essentially any completely different, and regardless of the much-touted versatility I’m positive loads of entry-level fat-tired flared-bar machines will wind up languishing in suburban garages hours from the closest gravel highway, forsaken by riders who discovered the handlebars uncomfortable and who by no means bothered to convey them to the store after the brake piston began sticking and as an alternative simply went again to the Peloton.

So I don’t suppose the query is whether or not or not we’ve hit “peak gravel.” I believe the query is the Passover-adjacent “Why is that this bike completely different from all different bikes?,” and I believe the reply is that it isn’t. Bikes for roads and trails and multi-day excursions and all the remainder of it are nothing even remotely new, neither is the fickle and delusional shopper. Gravel races aren’t any kind of accessible than the criteriums of yesteryear, and for all of the discuss of “variety and inclusion within the gravel area” for most individuals who dwell in cities and suburbs and have full-time jobs and households these occasions may as effectively be on the moon. In the end some persons are cyclists and a few individuals aren’t, and I don’t suppose right now’s bikes are any kind of more likely to unlock your internal bike owner than the bikes of yesteryear simply because they’ve a couple of extra millimeters of tire quantity.

Talking of the highway bikes of yesteryear, I’ve been driving this one lots:

As somebody who’s embraced metal and friction nearly utterly lately it’s a rolling testomony to my hypocrisy. The built-in shifting…

The crabon cockpit…

The wheels with like six spokes…

And naturally the body produced from not one…

…however two costly supplies that aren’t metal:

Bu what can I say? It’s quite a lot of enjoyable to experience, and its 9 speeds transport me with a flick of the wrist proper again to 2003, once I was on the very peak (or depth, relying on the way you have a look at it) of my very own roadiedom:

However I’ve modified lots since then, and a method during which I’ve matured is that I now cease whereas driving and take note of the pure phrase round me. In truth, as I took the above photographs, I turned conscious of motion within the Noticed Mill River:

It was a brown furry mammal of some variety, plying the waters:

I didn’t know what it was, however I believed possibly it was a beaver, so I climbed over the fence and went after it:

As I did so I spotted I used to be abandoning a elaborate highway bike that didn’t belong to me:

Nevertheless, generally in life a person should select between bike and beaver, and on this case I opted for the latter.

Boldly, I pressed on, despite the fact that I used to be carrying highway footwear:

And whereas I overpassed the beaver (assuming it even was a beaver) I did see the type of place they like to hang around, a minimum of in cartoons:

Beaver dam or random pile of crap? I do not know.

Anyway, whereas I could not have gotten that beaver shot, I did a minimum of get an image of this jawbone:

When you’ve got any concept what sort of animal it may need belonged to please let me know.