Originally Posted by
cameronreddy
FlashBazbo,
Since you race this bike, can you comment on how it handles in a sprint? I’ve read a bit about it not being particularly stiff in the bottom bracket, and in talking with Lynskey, they confirm that the new Pro GR is designed to address stiffness for sprinting… It’s just that its so darn much more money than the regular GR.
What wheels are you using? 700c or 650b? Do you have a thought on how the two sizes might affect racing the bike over washboard and potholes at high speed?
Thanks for any input you can provide!
I think we're probably talking about two different kinds of gravel racing. I spec'd this bike to race Dirty Kanza -- for punishing rock and native gravel that NEVER sees and never has seen a road grader. There, the stiffness challenge is taking steep climbs out of creek/river crossings from 0 mph. For that, it's plenty stiff, so I imagine it would work fine in a sprint -- but sprints very rarely happen in this kind of gravel racing. When you're riding 200 miles on that kind of surface, it's much more important to have some compliance and stability so that you still have something in the tank when you leave the last checkpoint. Asking how it sprints is like asking how a marathoner's shoe would work in the 100 meter dash.
For more civilized gravel, like that pictured above or like that that I've seen in Michigan, I would probably use my BMC SLR01 (or some other road bike with sufficient tire clearance). It's got clearance for 28mm tires and it certainly has what it takes for a sprint. That end of the gravel racing continuum is really just road racing on loose surfaces. I suspect this is where wash boarding would be more of an issue. But for wash boarding and pot holes, I just choose my line carefully. (Even the worst wash boarding usually has a smooth few inches of road on the edges.)