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. Keep in mind how again within the early a part of this century, on the top of the fixie craze, you would receive all method of u-lock holsters and coloured rims and high tube pads, permitting you to play Barbie with bikes?
Nicely the identical factor goes on your broccoli bike, and taunted by all these empty accent mounts I’ve now acquired and put in…a small high tube bag:
At the hours of darkness days earlier than the Gravel Revolution a high tube bag was often known as a “bento field.” It was used completely 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 into cool in a single day. You’ve acquired to pay your dues first. And if meaning driving round wanting like the primary character in a youngsters’s ebook referred to as My First Gravel Bike then I’m keen to do what it takes:
That’s the AI’s tackle “a youngsters’s ebook referred to as My First Gravel Bike.” Not unhealthy! Positive, there’s the same old mutant cockpit, however that’s a given at this level. Additionally, Niord Bt Galris Mgfleah is one among my favourite authors, although he’s finest loved within the authentic Gaelic.
Anyway, this bag will permit 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 trip outdoors for greater than two hours:
[“Two hours? Woosie.”]
I believe the actual cause the entire gravel bike factor took off isn’t for any of the explanations individuals normally cite (individuals don’t need to trip on busy roads with plenty of automobiles; individuals need extra versatile bikes; individuals can work remotely and dwell the desert hipster life-style…] however slightly 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 be capable to use drop bars in races with the phrase “gravel” within the identify:
Detailed in its up to date guidelines for its 2026 occasions, Life Time revealed that drop bars is not going to be allowed at each the Leadville Path 100 and Little Sugar mountain bike races this 12 months. The Chequamegon MTB Pageant occasion will nonetheless permit the usage of drop bars, as will the Sea Otter Basic Gravel, Unbound Gravel and Large 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. If you happen to 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 ebook 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 have been suitable with the course, in any other case no person would have used them. As for “security,” have been individuals crashing as a result of they have been utilizing drop bars? I’m not asking sarcastically, I’m actually asking, as a result of I don’t know. And if the last 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 all the time 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.]
In fact, not all people 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 buyer, 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 absolutely engineered. Besides is it? Is it really absolutely engineered?
What if you’re a small model that simply desires to capitalize on a pattern with out a lot funding. That might by no means occur in our small neighborhood, proper?
Received’t any individual consider the advertising victims?!?
Additionally, what’s Life Time saving individuals from precisely?
Life Time is true to kill this pattern 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 heart of that. Banning the pattern there means you received’t be seeing drop bar mountain bikes successful races practically as usually. That can imply much less headlines about it and that may imply much less curiosity. Manufacturers received’t want to reply.
Just like the “use case” (barf) for many different varieties of mountain bikes isn’t vanishingly small? In 2026 you want separate mountain bikes for driving up hills and for driving down them. Additionally, if the bikes are successful races then doesn’t that imply…they’re working?
I assume the actual cause mountain bikers object to that is that placing totally different handlebars on a motorcycle for a particular course is a decidedly low-tech resolution, and there’s nothing they hate greater than simplicity.
