I’m an older rider with about 4K of some pavement and mostly gravel miles on my NRB. No issues on the hard-packed to loose gravel roads in these parts. Many rides here average 1,000’ of climbing every 10 miles and I really like this bike for hills. It doesn’t handle golf ball sized gravel (at least with me on it), but that seems like a tall order. I kept the Horizon Road Plus tires (not running them tubeless) because I like them on pavement and they’re surprisingly good on a lot of gravel - except sand and mud. I had a bike with front suspension, but the NRB is a better ride on rough roads. Some of the reviews for this bike felt is was a bit overpriced for the components it has. Sometimes I have groupset envy and wish for hydraulic brakes, and when I ride a higher end carbon frame I definitely notice the difference in responsiveness. I see this year’s iteration of the NRB comes with a 1X groupset vs. my 2X.