Sully151

tFUnK

I don't know about where the industry is headed but I've been toying with the idea of building up a front or full suspension gravel bike with drop bars. Being able to keep it light weight is key.

rgconner

Hovering gravel bikes....

sorry, that might be TOO future!

Metieval

Yes, Suspension is king!

Geo will be the separating factor, not drop bars.

LesterOfPuppets

If you've got the dough, 22 lb FS XC MTBs are available. If someone made one of those in gravel geo, that would be the bees knees.

LesterOfPuppets

Actually if you have pretty much all the dough, you can get a 17.33 lb FS XC MTB...



https://bikerumor.com/2018/03/27/bfs...t-spark-scale/

mstateglfr 

0 interest in a suspension fork gravel bike.
I am sure there is a market for a suspension fork gravel road bike, but I wouldn't be part of that market.

I'm definitely not sure what a full suspension drop bar gravel bike would be used for...at that point what sort of ground is being ridden over?

ive ridden gravel in west central CO, all over Iowa, down in KS, down in MO, and in UK too.
none of it has needed a full suspension frame for anything close to that.

if a full suspension frame is needed, why not just ride singletrack instead of gravel roads?

Spoonrobot 

I'll be surprised if the industry can convert anything other than a small fraction of the market to suspension - either classic MTB style with a front suspension fork/rear shock or modified like the Specialized future shock. Much like it was with 1x there will be a big pop in perception where every instagram post/bike website article is about suspension or "new tech" (repurposed from mountain bikes) but the actual bikes that are selling are more in line with regular 2x, rigid, 45mm tire'd road bikes. I ride a lot of events and I'd say that fully 1/3 of any given field is still on old cross bikes even though our scene down here in the SE is pretty well developed having been chugging along since at least 2007/8 and really ramped up since 2015.

Also, take note of the general reaction to the Niner prototype full-suspension gravel bike the MCR. It was lambasted both here and elsewhere as being overkill for "gravel." Road rider converts don't see the point of full-suspension because they usually don't ride very technical courses. Mountain bike converts don't see the point of drop bars since their MTBs are usually so good. Only the weird 1-2 guys who already home-brewed a drop bar mtb out of stock components were excited. That's not a good market to pursue.

I think the market is going to be self-limited in the future anyway. With the economy as good as it is there's going to be less gravel in the short-term as pavement replaces dirt and long-term sprawl, even with slower economic growth, is driving disconnected suburban growth further into what were once isolated country areas. Locally, from Atlanta, GA, there's about 50ish miles of (very disconnected) gravel that one could conceivably ride to (makes about a 100 mile round trip) near Dallas, Pine Mountain, Chatthoochee Hills and Lawrenceville. In the past 3 years between 8-10 miles were lost to pavement due to development. There's no replacement of this and barring any new land leased as WMA land this will continue to decline as development moves outward from the urban center. People will buy gravel bikes right up until they realize there's no where to ride their unnecessarily heavy and stiff "road" bike and then just go back to regular road race bikes while routing around the short sections of gravel.

The manufacturer building the frame decides this as the CPSC sets standards for bicycle design that clearly demarcate the specifications bicycles must meet to be deemed safe for sale. Tire size, frame tubing and design are two parts of this. There's a reason the suspension gravel bikes we've seen have only had 30/40mm travel forks. Setting up the frame for a typical 100mm fork would require a lot more engineering and significantly heavier frame to accommodate the additional loading. Gravel bike tubing is usually too light to be classed to the same level as a mountain bike. So there's little point in making a bike with a 68mm bb, relatively super-stuff mtb tubing and a 100mm fork that is limited to 45mm tires.

Marcus_Ti

Because single-track doesn't often exist in much of the Great Plains...unless you;re willing/able to drive hours to get to trail-heads. Which is a common gripe about MTB riding--needing to drive to get anywhere to ride. About the only time on MMR/country roads I could see a want for a full-squish bike would be washboarded surfaces from tractor-tires.

I also wonder what kind of murder dust/particulates do to full suspension parts over say 6-12 hours of riding without washing/lubrication. Increasing moving parts increases maintenance, typically.

Lazyass

Cannondale needs to bring back the HeadShok with a modern bike.

tyrion

DK200 vet says "my take is the future of gravel is suspended" for "mitigating fatigue". This is in a racing context.

at about the 1:50 mark they talk about suspension:

Spoonrobot 

The requirements for a 200 mile gravel event are much different than a 50 mile gravel event. Which also brings up an interesting question, is the future of gravel racing extremely long races (15+ hours) a few times a year with 1000+ entrants. Or more akin to local cat3/4 racing where the races are 3-6 hours and happen several times a year with @100 entrants? Look at how the tour divide has changed the industry for a very specific small niche, but overall mtb racing is gathering developmental milestones from shorter more traditionally focused events. Will DK200 do the same thing for long distance gravel?

Also, that guy is a dyed in the wool roadie. People from more varied backgrounds may find that bigger tires are much more beneficial than additional complexity of suspension components. The bias towards narrower tires is waning but still present in a huge portion of the riding population. Couple this with additional tubeless converts and I think tertiary suspension components will increase in popularity before contracting heavily as they wear out or are incompatible with replacement bikes.

tyrion

The guy advising him, Josh Patterson, that said "the future of gravel is suspended" is from the mountain bike world and a DK200 vet. He also said "that [suspension] might mean engineered flex in the frame".

LesterOfPuppets

I'm surprised Moots doesn't have a Routt YBB out already.

LesterOfPuppets

Sometimes you do a ride that's 20 miles pavement, 30 miles gravel, then 15 miles of this. That last 15 miles might be a little nicer with squish.

pressed001

@Spoonrobot

Great, comprehensive responses!

I guess that sums things up. They can't make them suspension whilst maintaining the road-like aspects of the bike which are sought by their market-base.

Facanh

I use my gravel bike more as a mountain bike. On rough dirt roads I would appreciate suspension.

The next question is why don't I just ride a mountain bike? I prefer drop bars on longer rides.

(I would love to ride a full squish enduro bike on singletrack up in 2-3000m high mountains, problem is where I live we have 200-300m hills.)

redlude97

Seems like we already have the equivalent to road, and the types of people that are drawn to each range of distances/times also has a spectrum of riders with some overlap in the categories.

Spoonrobot 

That's some good looking hero dirt. You do that on your road bike? Jk I know it's hard to photograph tech.

Down here we can often get to choose 10 miles of this:



Or keep going straight and get 20 miles of this:



IME unless there's significant elevation changes with a lot of tech, suspension is not going to make you much faster or mitigate fatigue; for most riders at the most common distances they ride. I tested a drop bar hardtail running 2.0 tires for my flat gravel race bike and it was abysmal. I got smoked by my peers (peers when I was on my 1.8" tire gravel bike) and although I could surge ahead on the rough downhills they were too short (even at 2-3 miles long) for me to make any appreciable time once the flats hit. The additional weight and aero penalties are just too great, for me. The discomfort riding a narrower tire/rigid bike was low enough that I could handle it for 3-4 hours while benefiting from tires that were around 350 grams lighter each and a bike that had a more flexible frame and was 5-7 pounds lighter.

This is an interesting point. Is a full-suspension beneficial if the rear and front triangles must be designed to be so stiff that pedaling comfort suffers and when locked out the additional stiffness of the frame reduces comfort such that it exceeds the benefit?

RJM

I'm sure whatever is determined to be gravel "racing" will dictate what gravel bikes turn into....unfortunately, IMHO.

Spoonrobot 

I'm not so sure about that. The Cannondale Slate was poised to ascend as the gravel race bike after it won DK but that didn't really happen. The gravel market seems to be content to wander around, try new things and just kind of:

gus6464

So did he ride tubeless or not? I see everyone says go tubeless but then I see a snippet of him changing a flat.

Facanh

Tubeless saves lives.

redlude97

most people at DK run tubeless but carry tubes and/or plugs for the eventual flats that occur

Sully151

I think this is an interesting take.

I am here in Southern California and we don't really have typical gravel. What we do have is miles and miles of fire roads and horse trailer that are legal to ride on. I can actually do my 8 mile commute to work almost entirely on dirt. If I go the other way its up a mountain and links to miles and miles of fire road.