delbiker1 

The only gravel close to my home is in a wildlife reserve area, 5 mile loop. I have done it with 25mm to 35mm tires. I will never do it on 25's again, terrible ride and have seen many others with flats from it. 28's did ok, 32's were good, 35's, the widest that fit, the best in handling and comfort. I do mups that have a cinder surface, and a bit of pea gravel, no issues with 25 mm tires, 28 to 32 mm, optimal for me.

tFUnK

Bad roads... Well as others have pointed out it's actually fine to underbike a bit and ride some smooth gravel on regular 23-25mm tires but on the other hand I have a 4-mile commute to work that traverses through a busy industrial corridor and there's so much debris and shrapnel on the road that I don't risk it even with tubeless gravel tires.

merlinextraligh

Raced a number of mixed surface races on 23mm tires. Perry-Roubaix, Webster- Roubaix, when the organizers had to call every ride with dirt a play on Roubaix.

Never had a problem flatting narrow tubulars. You need to keep some pace up not to sink into loose sand or mud.

79pmooney

That photo - probably every one of them is riding tubulars. Different game. At a given width, they are much better in adverse circumstances. In the 70s, I rode several races with short (up to t mile) stretches with no pavement on my regular race tires, Clement Criteriums, I never knew what the widths were. I don't think I ever heard a non-geek talk about tire widths in mms or "c". Those tires were "skinny" (the best we had for accurate documentation) and they did fine.

I'm back to tubulars now. Getting reminded of the secure footing, Yes, clinchers have gotten far better but now you can do a direct comparison between the two since Vittoria makes its excellent Corsa G+ and G2.0 tires in both versions. I spent several years on the clinchers and am now riding the same widths on the tubs. And today I went out on an old race bike with a 25c front and 23c rear (big as I want to go in back for clearance). Didn't once feel my tires were too small. 1oo psi in front and 115 in the rear felt dry road perfect. (These rims are 330g and very nice. I won't go wet road lower pressures and dent them. Next wheel to be built will have same hubs but bulletproof GP4 rims. Love that you can bottom out on tubulars and rarely pinch flat.)

Edit: There are photos of Jobst Brandt on gravel in the high Alps. Road surfaces look to have plenty of small rocks. Tubulars. Right tool for the job.

rsbob 

Rather than being afraid of flatting, buy a good set of more flat resistant tires. the site, rolling resistance can guide you, as well as buy a tube repair kit and carry an extra tube in you under the seat bag. There are videos on changing tires and flat repair. Rather than trying to avoid, educate yourself, get the right equipment and practice in advance so you know what to do when the inevitable happens. In that way, you can ride anywhere without limits.

bitingduck

I've gone down the Mt Wilson Toll Road on 23s. Too big of gears to go up it. I've gone up Mt. Lowe on 23s.

(I haven't been on bf in years. Glad to see you're still here and I hope you're doing well!)

big john

Yes! I remember you were legendary for where you rode your road bike!

I'm doing ok for a 69 year old roadie. Still ride 4 or 5 days per week with at least one 60+ mile club ride. Harder to chase those people these days. Thanks for the kind thoughts.

bitingduck

I've mostly switched to gravel bikes - they finally started building "road" bikes for where I ride them. Been doing a bit of bikepacking in the PNW, but I'm still in SoCal about 2/3 of my time and not riding enough.

SoSmellyAir

Well, back in the 1980s there were only road bikes, BMX, and kids' bikes, right? And BF was not around to spread the N+1 creed?

big john

Been thinking about a gravel style bike for a while, maybe a Topstone? Bought an enduro bike 5 years ago but don't do as much rough stuff as I used to.

bitingduck

I hadn't looked at Topstones, but they look ok. I always worry about Cannondale sneaking in things that are too non-standard, but it looks like it takes all regular parts. I have an original carbon Diverge that I got used from a friend, and the things I don't like are not enough tire clearance, and funny shaped tubes combined with not a lot of bottle/pump bosses for attaching things. It rides fine though. I just got a Canyon Grizl and it fixes those problems and rides really nice. I think it's the longest wheelbase road geometry bike I've ever had, and it's got a lot of points to attach things for bikepacking. It's going to live up in Oregon and the Diverge is going to come back here where we don't really get mud.

SoSmellyAir

Not necessarily. The previous Topstone frame has an asymmetric (Ai) frame which is incompatible with almost all other off-the-shelf wheels, which are dished for a symmetrical frame.

Ai (Asymmetric Integration) – Cannondale Help Center
Building a Cannondale AI wheelset - A custom DT Swiss wheelset for the all-new Cannondale asymmetric integration gravel bike (spokecalc.io)
Cannondale Ai Offset FAQ : Hunt Bike Wheels
Cannondale announces a welcome overhaul to the Topstone Carbon gravel bike - Velo (outsideonline.com)

I bought my Santa Cruz Stigmata at the end of last year and its geometry is not that far off from a Trek Domane.