Jeremy: Maybe we haven't given our road bikes enough credit. If you've been watching the
beautiful race that is Strade Bianche, then you've seen the pros out, tearing up the beautiful white
Tuscan gravel roads of Italy on their road bikes with small modifications and seemingly,
no issues. That would make you ask the question, "Do I really need a gravel bike to ride gravel?"
To find out what you can and can't get away with, I'm going to take my brand-new Orbea
Orca road bike on an epic gravel adventure. In fact, we're going to ride the exact same route
that Simon Richardson and I rode last year for the All-American gravel ride. Let's jump into it,
and see what happens.` [music]
We're out here at the top of Massachusetts. This is one of the most pretty areas that I
get to call home technically in riding. I just absolutely love it up here. When I got to come
up here with science show it off last year, it was such a blast. Today, although we're dodging rain,
let me show you guys how sweet this place it is. Join me on one of my favorite rides,
and I'll share some tips a long way to get you guys out on your own road bike gravel adventure.
If you see Instagram social media, all that stuff then you follow a bunch of pro riders and you know
that they ride their road bikes on all kinds of wild terrain, so you're thinking, "Hey, if they
can do it, why can't I? After all, it is a gravel road bike. " Yes, that's true, but you might not
actually need a gravel bike if you know yourself. Now, let's do a test. You're riding down this
beautiful gravel dirt road on your road bike, the rivers on this side, and then off to the left, you
spot a beautifully manicured single-track trail. You look at that and you either
say "[laughs] Whoa," or you say, "Nah." If you said "Nah," then that's a good sign. You
know yourself. You're going to be mature, you're going to be responsible, you're not going to go
out of control, but if you're like me and you see that trail and you know, "Ah, I can't not
hit it. I got to hit it, I got to do it, I got to do it, I got to see where it goes." That
is a completely different video, but if you're mature, if you love to take care of your bike,
if you know that you're not going to cross that line, then in that case, should be in good shape.
We're about an hour in already. If you guys remember the All-American Gravel Ride with Si,
we started down in Greenfield, Massachusetts, and then we flew up here. This is literally one
of my favorite spots. We've already hit one of the covered bridges, just this cascading little river
with those small little waterfalls is dropping everything down. It's absolutely breathtaking
up here. There's not a soul to bother you up here either which I absolutely love, and this is
properly maintained gravel. It's not too gnarly, and the road bike is doing just fine so far.
I know you guys are going to ask me, how do we know if it's maintained gravel, but
outside of Komoot, I think I have the solution, and it's this. If you can ride either one-handed
or no-handed, that's the new international sign if it is maintained, road bikeable gravel. When
I was talking about maintained gravel before, we're on a really good stretch of maintained
gravel. You can see that the township has put down a lot of stone here, but those stones are
now starting to unearth themselves a little bit. You need the stone so the water does drain through
and it keeps the roads nice and strong. They're not getting big potholes, but if you're running
really lean tires or super high pressure or something like that, it's just one of these
off stones that you can catch definitely make a really bad pinch flat. Now, this stuff though,
totally good on your road bike, you just have to do those things that we talked about. Up here,
there's another road where you could take a left onto it, and it's absolutely not the
kind of road that I'd recommend for your road bike, especially if you don't have
a lot of clearance in 28 already rubbing. As soon as you start to get that mud and
stuff in there, not a good look. Let's go check those out. This is that good maintained gravel,
but this was the left-hander that I was talking about. This, just like that, boom. All of a
sudden it switches over and you can see it's a lot more treacherous, big rocks, mud, nothing is
maintained at all. This is still technically a road. It would be a lot of fun on a gravel bike
for a big adventure, but on your road bikes, I have to say I don't think it'd be that great.
I'll tell you, because of that terrible instinct that I have to hit those trails and didn't have
a lot of friendly team owners because there were a lot of broken bikes. Let's dig in more.
Let's talk about one of the big ones, and that is tires. Now, if you're riding a proper road bike,
then the thing that you're going to be limited most by is tire size that you can fit in the bike,
meaning here and here and not rubbing all the paint and the frame to nothing.
You don't want to ride a bigger tire then you can actually fit in your bike because when you get up
and you go side to side, it'll rub the frame and that won't be good for anyone and unfortunately,
it would ruin your frame. The maximum for a proper road bike, you're probably going to
see 28C, maybe 30. On this bike, you can actually get away with 32C tires, which is pretty sweet.
Now, after you've chosen what size tire you can fit in there, you're going to want to start to
think about the type of tire that you're going to be able to fit in there. Obviously, I would
tell you to run two glist tires because you don't want to be running a 21C tire with a tube in it,
you hit a rock at 120 PSI, that's not going to be good for anyone. You want to make sure that
you're running big tires, tubeless with lower pressure, maybe 60 PSI because it's going to get
the tire to have a little deflection. It's going to be able to move, it's
going to give you a little bit better traction and, well, overall, a much better experience.
We're actually in Vermont right now, and these climbs are notoriously steep. Roads fly down and
then they come right into what I'd like to call a brick wall. This one a super tough. Your road
bike was designed for much faster speeds, bigger gears to go faster, far gears because you're not
climbing that steep of roads. This bike that I have here has a 4835 upfront and then it has
1028 in the rear which is this super wide range. Back when I was racing and of what probably many
of you have is a 5339, maybe an 1125, which if you're going to do a big steep climb like this,
you guys can already see my cadence and I'm going pretty hard. It's going to be
a really hard day out and the worst thing that you could do is have to get off and
walk. Coming from someone that's had to do that a lot, when these types of gears weren't available,
it's not fun. Definitely, opt for a wide range on your road bike if you plan on doing a bit of
gravel. They can really make you feel like you did a gym day with 100 squats if you're
not careful because you have to push up pretty little cadence if you don't have the right gears.
Whoo, we are over halfway through this ride and we have some more massive climbs coming up,
that my legs are going to be screaming at me for. On the other side of the coin, we've also
got some really pretty descents as well. We got to the top of the climb here. We're looking out
over here, it's absolutely beautiful picturesque mountains, all just tattered along here but now,
what goes up must come down. This super steep downhill now is in front of us,
and I have to tell you guys that you've got to go slow if you're riding your road bike on gravel.
With 28 to 32C tires, if you hit even a small rock, it could puncture and even worse, could
send you flying. Now, on the other side, if you were riding a gravel bike and you had 45C tires in
a less aggressive position, you'd be able to take a big rock like that like a champ and just keep
motoring, no problems at all, but truly you have to moderate your speed. You've got to be mature.
You've got to get both fingers on the brakes, get your weight back, and go down these slowly.
I've seen so many times riders ripping the descent only to come out with double flats at the bottom.
When you descend on a road bike on gravel with some rocks, you got to go slow. Whoo, love that
view. This is my Orbea Orca road bike. Now, I've got 32C Pirelli slick tires on it. Now,
if you guys are thinking that you're going to take your road bike and you're going to put
some knobs or some semi-slicks on here, that's not going to be a good look for you.
You really do want to stick to completely 100% slick tires. That's going to be the wrong tire
for the wrong bike, definitely, you have to go with slick tires. Now, the other thing
if you're going to do big gravel days, because we get so desolate so far away, consider it an
alternative place to store things. Maybe a frame pack up on the front or down below here, a bigger
bag in the back, and some additional water. Something that's on your back or a third
bottle cage that mounts here on the seat post or even down here in this area are all
good things to add to a road bike that you're going to be using on long gravel days. Now,
it shouldn't have to be said, but I'm going to say it anyways because you see things when you're in
this type of job. As a pro for a long time, I've seen people show up on gravel rides with 120psi,
21C, disc wheels, tri-spokes, hyper light climbing wheels at probably a 1000 grams
total that specifically stay on it for uphill riding only. Just keep those on the road.
We don't want to see those here on gravel, we don't want anyone to get hurt. Truly, you do
have to be mindful and definitely, if you're going to opt for a wheelset that's going to be carbon
fiber, get something that's sturdy and designed for the task that you plan on using it for.
[music] We're here,
this is it. Last climb up to some dirt and all downhill into Greenfield. Let's talk about road
geometry. The thing with road geometry is that it's meant to go super fast on asphalt. That means
that you're going to have a really tall saddle, road pedals, you're going to be very aero, long,
tucked in like a snake just slithering its way down the beautiful asphalt. On a gravel bike,
you're going to be more upright, taller front end. Your arms are going to be more
in an aggressive position, but you're going to have a lot more control of the bike.
When you're on your road bike and you're long and pushed out like that, you're not
going to have the ability to shift your bodyweight if you hit a pothole or rock or something wrong,
so you really do need to think about, and this is one of the most important things I'm going to say
during this video, when you're planning your route, look for maintained gravel roads. Komoot,
our partner here with GCN, could help you out to be able to look for that type of road. Basically,
that's a maintained gravel road where the town drags it with a machine every year, they
make sure that it's a nice and smooth surface. Truthfully, it's better than a lot of the roads,
paved ones, in my town in Massachusetts, but that's for another video as well. Truth be told
though, guys, the most important thing you can do is make sure that you're not going overboard when
you ride your road bike off-road. Anything that's taking only 4x4s, dirt bikes, ATVs, huge Jeeps
and stuff like that, it's not a great place for your road bike, which brings me to another point.
If I talked to any of my friends that have been at a high level about going out and riding gravel,
they'd be totally fine with that. We have plenty of races, events and things that we've done
where we've ridden our road bikes on light gravel before, no problems, but if I ask some of my new,
just getting into cycling friends if they'd take their road bikes out on some gravel with me,
they'd be a little bit freaked out. Really, the thing that you want to do,
just call up some friends if you're just getting into it. Say, "Hey, I want to take my road bike
on some new gravel," and before you know it, the bug will bite, you'll have a T-shirt, you'll have
baggies over your shorts, and you'll be tearing it up and having a blast. Now, all of this is great,
but make sure, my most important tip for you guys to take away from, is make sure that you ride the
right bike for the right terrain. Don't ride your road bike on things that really are designed for
gravel and don't ride your gravel bike on things that are designed for mountain biking. For
mountain bikers, probably shouldn't ride your bike on the road. It just doesn't seem that much fun.
[music] All right, guys, that is a wrap. Finally made it
to Greenfield. The pizzas are waiting and I can't wait. I want to thank you guys all so much for
watching with me. Leave a comment down below. Let us know what you think if you've ridden your road
bike on some serious gravel and gotten away with it and how far you pushed the boundaries. That's
all for me, it's pizza time. See you, guys. Speaker 1: There we go.
Jeremy: Thank you. Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Have a good night.