Originally Posted by
Lorig20
The Invite 2 is what drew me to the Giant brand. I saw the review in Bicycle Times magazine and researched it. Looks like it has disc brakes? Remember I'm basically a newbie (though I'm learning as much as I can before buying to avoid buying the wrong bike) I'm not familiar with disc brakes and when you say Cyclocross my eyes start to glaze over. The Invite is slightly over budget, but if it's the right bike for me, budgets can easily be stretched.
Disc brakes are common on mountain bikes, becoming more common on cross bikes, and starting to be found on road bikes.
They work fine, and offer some advantage, particularly in wet weather. Personally, I wouldn't make the type of brake, disc or rim a deciding factor.
The Invite will do all you want, it will easily handle your gravel roads, and is up to long rides on the pavement. If you get to the point you want to do fast rides on pavement, it's just a matter of putting narrower tires on it, to make it faster on pavement.
I think it will give you a lot of flexibility.
And the "cyclocross" reference for your purpose basically just means a road style bike that can handle big enough tires to ride in the dirt/gravel.
So don't get hung up on the terminology. Real question is whether it can accomodate the tires you want for the riding you want to do.