Good lord, you need a mountain bike to ride gravel and dirt roads? Seriously? What do you need to ride actual singletrack?
But I'll go through your list here:
Originally Posted by
Newspaper_Nick
Steel frame,
So... CF and Al work for mountain bikes but not for gravel and dirt roads?
large knobby tires (think MTB large),
What on earth so you need 2.something" knobbies on a dirt or gravel road for? Unless you are riding in mud, anything beyond semi-knobs is just making you work harder for no benefit.
preferably with flat bars (or if you gonna go with drops, a "flared" dropbar),
Most "gravel" bikes come with flared drops.
higher stack and shorter reach for easier control and comfort
....which most gravel bikes in fact have
, depending on how large your tires are, maybe a suspension seatpost to ease road noise on your ass,
some gravel bike in fact do have suspension, either in the frame, fork, or seatpost. But the reality is that even with 38mm tires, many people see zero need. But suspension seatposts are widely available for any bike if you want one.
wide range gearing to tackle hills/mountains (at least a 34 tooth in the cassette, even larger if possible), depending on the size of the chainring, either a 1x (small), or a 2x (a small and a larger one). If you are nostalgic, you can go with 3x.
Most gravel bikes do have wide range gearing and as low as you are suggesting.
If you really mean business, you can even throw a suspension fork in that. Why not? I am all about personalization.
Again, if you want an MTB for riding gravel that is up to you.
Why go with something the market is pushing down our throats under false pretences.
Because we like them? What exactly is the false pretense? They work exactly as described.
Some of the bikes that are sold under the gravel moniker are agressive road bike frames with plain old road groupsets
The road group-sets you are talking about give exactly the gearing you described above. Go look at them.
attached over 700x32 (too thin) tires
Any bike now marketed as "gravel" will take at least 38mm tires, most up to at least 42mm.
on carbon/aluminum rigid frames.
CF is often more compliant and comfortable than steel. And are you suggesting that even though CF an Al works for Downhill, Freeride, and Enduro mountain biking, but can't stand up to a gravel road?
This abomination of a bike is on market because people want to "look cool" to their friends. These bikes do exist because people realized that when you have dropbars on your bike, you look "professional". Manufacturers are all about sales and profit. They do not really care what they sell as long as it is what people want to buy.
No, these bikes exist because the bike industry finally woke up to the fact that the standard "road" bike is not what a lot of people want. In fact these "abominations" are really just a modern update (components) on what "road" bikes used to be 30 years ago before everyone wanted to pretend they were racing in the TdF. People (like me) got tired of having to choose between a mountain bike and skinny-tired road bike to ride dirt and gravel.... both of which are a cludge. Dirt and gravel roads are just roads with a rougher surface. A road bike with fatter tires is the perfect solution for that.
The bike you seem to be describing has been around for years: Drop bar mtbs like the Fargo, and also bikes marketed as "Monstercross". They have been around longer than the recent "gravel" bike craze which started in the early 2010s. But they just never caught on that well, for gravel or singletrack.The problem is that they are way overbuilt for gravel and dirt roads, and the knobby MTB tires are just a drag (literally) on these roads .
From your comment above, you are obviously not familiar with what is currently being offered and what these bikes actually are. You also have very little knowledge of how the market played out, here. The big companies are not the ones that lead the charge. Salsa put out bikes like the Casseroll, Vaya, Fargo, and Warbird, and people loved them, and bought them right up. It actually took a while for the big guys to come around and realize there was a difference between competition-oriented CX bikes and what people really wanted to ride the gravel roads in their areas.
You just see something different and strange to you and are freaking out about it............
