Originally Posted by
daviddavieboy
What has changed is the way brands have "created" a new market and has sold many on it. On the good side it opened cycling up to a lot of people too timid to ride on the road who might not have known about the aspect of cycling which gravel riding.
The gravel roads have always been there, but the current breed of mainstream drop-bar gravel bikes certainly wasn’t. People used to ride gravel on mountain bikes or road bikes and neither were ideal. Especially when road bikes barely had clearance for 25 mm tyres and rim brakes. Today we are spoilt for choice with no obvious gaps in the vast spectrum from DH mtb right through to road race bikes. Gravel bikes filled the last obvious gap between XC mtb and road bikes. I’m not counting hybrids here, because I think that’s a whole different market that neither roadies or mountain bikers were into.