MileHighMark

More and more folks are exploring dirt/gravel on their road bikes. I wrote up a brief guide on selecting tires for off-pavement use, which you can read here:
Mixed-Terrain Tire Primer

eippo1

Cool. I'm actually finding myself more and more often on my cross bike attempting to find random areas of singletrack around Boston. Of course I tend to go with cross tires for this and have 3 different pairs depending on conditions.

Tunnelrat81

I also enjoy the occasional dirt ride on my road bike. I haven't made any changes to my bike though. Just regular 23mm road tires and a little bit of momentum =) There's a great old road called Mt. Home Creek Rd. (old hwy 38, I guess) that I've recently ridden with a couple of good friends, one who'd ridden it many times. None of it is overly technical, aside from a couple of creek crossings and landslides, and it definitely keeps you sharp. There's nothing quite like charging up a dirt/rocky trail on a bike with ill-suited tires and very little traction.

-Jeremy

MileHighMark

Yeah, I've found that riding skinny/under-treaded tires off road really helps one's balance and general bike handling skills. If anything, it's taught me to relax more, and let the bike choose the path (especially in deep gravel).

dstrong 

This was me riding a dirt road two years ago (top of Montebello Road in the Bay Area).




This is me fixing and booting my tire after a large-ish rock punched through the sidewall.



I really enjoyed this short stretch of road...and I've been toying with the idea of a cross bike for my next purchase. This one from Carl Strong caught my eye at the NAHBS in Austin earlier this year.