Originally Posted by
Hiro11
Cross bikes are generally very racy and stripped down with twitchy handling and aggressive positions. Gravel bikes are generally touring-bike relaxed, have tons of bosses for mounting stuff, have much more stability and offer more upright positions.
I appreciate you pointing out that cyclocross and gravel are very different* but seeing people all over the internet saying cross bikes have “twitchy handling and aggressive positions” is slowly driving me insane. The selling point for cyclocross bikes, for years, was the nice stable handling and more upright position compared to road bikes. Cyclocross geometry and fit hasn’t changed a whole lot in the years since then and you typically see head angles ranging from 70-72 degrees. Not that different from gravel bikes! If anything, it’s become more common in the last few years for manufacturers to slacken out their CX geometry to be a bit more similar to gravel bikes and even modern MTBs. The original gravel bikes were basically CX bikes with a lowered bottom bracket. You now also see the wheelbase stretching out on a lot of gravel bikes (but also on some CX bikes!). But it’s not like CX bikes have become wild and twitchy in response.
*fun fact, some of the early gravel races, such as Southern Cross, were billed essentially as “endurance cyclocross,” which is kind of a contradiction in terms but nicely illustrates how the progression to modern gravel bikes actually happened.