con

My steel Salsa Vaya, in this pic it has the 32's on

MileHighMark

Freehub axles are plenty strong. Ritchey and Fisher were using them in the early 80's on real MTBs with great success.

Unless you weigh a lot and are carrying a lot of stuff (panniers), 36 spokes are overkill. I weigh 195#, and my bikes have 20/20, 24/28, and 28/32 spokes. No problems with any of them. Fatter tires run at lower pressures absorb a lot of shock.

Zinger

OK Thanks. I'll keep all that in mind. I kind of skipped the whole MTB scene back then. But the CX thing looks like a fun change of pace

Wouldn't you'd be better to use nutted hubs with solid axles for that or not necessarily ?

MileHighMark

Solid axles would be overkill.

BluesDawg

Fried Green 50

This was a fantastic gravel grinder in and around Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge put on by the fine folks of Ocmulgee Mountain Bike Association (OMBA). It would be hard to imagine a better route or better weather, let alone friendlier support people. The fall leaves were stunning. My first time, but not my last! I took a slight shortcut near the end to avoid a road I knew would be sticky mud after the recent rain and to make sure a few of the faster riders would still be hanging around to talk to at the finish. The full route was 46 miles and I rode 41.

...Ride begins & ends in the small river town Juliette, GA..made famous in the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes".

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluesda...89724824/show/

https://app.strava.com/activities/93066519


riders ahead by BluesDawg, on Flickr


IMG_4230a by BluesDawg, on Flickr


pretty by BluesDawg, on Flickr


uphill tunnel by BluesDawg, on Flickr


creek crossing (one of six) by BluesDawg, on Flickr

plodderslusk

BluesDawg: great pics and what a bike you've got ! I'm green with envy!

Rhodabike

Has anyone turned a pure touring bike to gravel use? My Rocky Mountain Sherpa is a bit heavy, but it already has the cantilevers and room for wide tires. I'd prefer discs, but don't want to buy a new bike at this time. It's about 28 lbs - is that a bit too heavy?
We have smooth river gravel on the grid roads here. Can anyone recommend a tire for limestone ball bearings?
I wish I could talk my husband into trying roads like the one's in BluesDawg's photos. He has a 'cross bike but uses it for road riding on our pot-holed local paved roads. He's nervous about riding on anything not paved, even if the "paving" in this province is bad enough in places to be considered off-road.

Zinger

Thanks Blues Dawg

Probably next winter's project would be a kind of randonneur CX setup of some kind. That'll give me lots of time to change my mind and consider what to use. I Like to baby my old Trek 500 so I probably won't be using that.

Barrettscv 

I've done enough rides on the Challenge Paris Roubaix 27c clinchers to have a informed opinion. They roll very well. The ride quality is stellar, smooth but never soft feeling at 105psi rear & 95psi front. Good traction on wet or dry pavement.

They roll as fast as most road bike tires I've used. They roll like a 700x25 training tire, something like Continental Grand Prix. They might be a little more fragile and less durable than the 700x28 Rubino Pro Tech II I've been using. However, they are faster performers.

Zinger

OK thanks. They are handsome stuff for a vintage ride alright. That "Challenging" tire mounting part is what I'm also considering but having a low rolling resistance tire just might just make me try some on my Trek 500.

I'll probably go with some kind of flimsy 25c tires on your old 970 and see if I can still rough it anymore, lol.

BluesDawg

I have not ridden a touring bike on gravel, but I know people who have Surly Long Haul Truckers that they ride on gravel roads with me. They may be a bit heavy and rigid, but they are certainly tough enough, have stable geometry and good tire clearance. Low gearing can compensate for weight as long as you aren't in a big hurry.

I find that wider tires work best on loose gravel. The Clement Xplor MSO 40s are good for a wide range of surface conditions. Anything but sticky mud.

BostonRoadee

Both my bikes serve just these purposes, with different emphases. My Jamis Quest (reviewed on my blog here) is what would have been called a "sport touring" bike in the old days, and I've recently thrown 28 mm Rolly-Polys from Rivendell on there (tires reviewed here.) and I adore them. I now ride miles of dirt road and semi-tame trail on it, but they also fly swiftly and smoothly down civilized roads. They sink a bit in deep gravel, so I save that for my Salsa Vaya.

The Salsa Vaya (reviewed here) is even more geared toward dirty stuff, including gravel, trails, and a smidge of single-track, but does reasonably well on the road, and doubles as a commuter bike.

In answer to the tire question, no way do you need 40 mm tires for smooth gravel; the Vaya and I together weigh about 190ish lbs, and I've put a ton of miles on it with the previous 35 mm Kenda Small Block Eights. I can't recommend these tires enough; I miss them. Small, useful lugs, plenty of width for everything but deep mud or sand, sensitive road feel, light-weight. I'm currently running the 40 mm Clement X-Plors as an experiment, but I don't love them. They pay off on gnarlier trail or deeper soft stuff, but they're heavy and slow most of the time. (I got the 60 tpi version, which come stock on the Vaya right now; the 120 tpi probably ride much nicer.)

I've gone from sniffy, old-school roadie to mixed-surface fanatic. No matter how road-oriented, a ride ain't no fun if I don't get just a little dirty. And, at 49 (soon to be a legit member of this sub-forum) I'm learning new skills all the time, and having a blast. Just for fun, a random ride report from last season, here.

Terex

+1! Great pics - looks like a lovely area.

On Monday, a friend and I did a 20 mile ride up from the Rio Grande River in Taos, onto the dirt roads on the mesa above. We rode about 20 miles, but we could have ridden those "roads" all the way to Colorado. My friend rode his Surley Pugsley and I was on my Titus Racer-X mtn. bike. I have a Canondale Super-X, XC bike for riding in the Taos area, but the track we were on was better suited to something a little burlier. When we turned around to come back, I drafted him when the surface was safe enough. A beautiful day, but my rear end is sore.

ModeratedUser150120149

Thanks for adding info to the Just In Case data base.

BostonRoadee

Terex, do you live in the Taos area? I did for a while, and have been jonesing for it ever since. Have often thought what delight cycling would be around there.

Terex

Yep. Live between town and the ski area. I usually ride up the ski valley road and the area around Arroyo Seco. In general, road biking isn't too safe. I haven't done much mtn. biking, but plan to do more next year. We've got a bunch of snow on the mountains, and I'm thinking about snow shoeing up to Williams Lake and part of the way up Wheeler Peak today.

BluesDawg

I seem to be in a minority with my preference for wider tires, but I suspect that has a lot to do with terrain and priorities. While the wider tires can be a bit slower on pavement than narrower, higher pressure tires, they more than make up for it in the way they allow me to maintain speed on rougher sections of the gravel roads. For me it comes down to the mix of paved vs unpaved roads and the surface of the unpaved roads. If half of the ride is on pavement and if the gravel roads are smooth and hard packed, I can see the advantages of 32mm or 35mm rubber, but with predominantly dirt roads and plenty of irregular surface and/or deeper gravel or sand, I can ride much faster and more stably with fatter, softer rubber. Most people around here ride these roads on hard tail MTBs with 2"+ tires and front suspension. I find that unnecessary as my tires are my suspension.

MileHighMark

Pneumatic tires are indeed a wonderful thing. I'm a big fan of passive suspension, and high-volume tires are great for smoothing out rocky terrain.

I'm building up a 29er hardtail that will see double-duty as a gravel rig. Said hardtail will have a rigid carbon fork and 2.25" tubeless tires. Since I've spent a fair amount of time off-road on 25-28mm slicks, the new setup should offer plenty of cushion.

BostonRoadee

Blues Dawg, totally agree about suiting the tire to the terrain. Not a lot of sand or deep gravel in my neck of the woods, and, when I do hit the short patches of it, I power through it. Flotation is a low priority. Also factor in that I've ridden MTBs maybe three times, so fat tires seem weird and heavy to me, even on dirt. Like MileHighMark, I've ridden some nasty roads on 28s and 35s (and even some on 25s), and, in a perverse way, kind of like the challenge. If not the stiff neck and sore wrists when I'm done...

Zinger

These early '90s lugged steel Trek MultiTrack bikes look like they'd make good dropbar conversions for this kind of riding. (bike not mine but it's purdy)

geezerwheels

much of my riding is on paved bike trails--mostly flat but some steep little hills and sharp curves. pavement can be somewhat rough, rippled by roots, sunken at the approach to bridges. now they are strewn with wet leaves.

so the Trek Crossrip Elite is a lot of fun--maybe not 4x compared to lighter bikes...but considering how rugged and forgiving it is, it provides enough confidence to attack the curves.

geezerwheels

they're not sexy, but the Bontrager Hard Case 32mm's that came with the Crossrip are awesome on the rough patches. getting close to 2000 miles on them and not a single flat.

h2oxtc

What bike are these photos from? Looks like amazing craftsmanship.

As for gravel - the photo below is from my ride this afternoon. I'm beginning to really enjoy this bike. Kona steel frame with semi-slick 32/30 tires. Really comfy ride.


IMG-20131110-00816 SML by h2oxtc, on Flickr

Zinger

It's a C&V poster's bike that I saw from this thread just today:

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...Commuting-Bike

And yeah there are craftsmen over there with standards to try and live up to.

This is nice and kinda even more modern. I'm liking BlusDawg's modern ride too but this one is steel

tarwheel 

BluesDawg -- I like your photos from Piedmont NWR because I grew up in Georgia and they remind me of home.

I picked up my first cross bike earlier this summer, a Ritchey Breakaway Cross, and like it so much that I recently bought a used Gunnar Crosshairs. I've also got a Waterford RST-22 that has canti brakes and huge amounts of clearance, so it can be ridden on trails with a simple tire/wheel swap. Same goes for my Bob Jackson World Tour. I use all of these bikes for commuting as well, and the tire clearance and mounts for racks and fenders are very useful in that regard.