(Bike cycling)
- Whoa, I hit it.
Morning trainiacs.
Ooh!
What I ended up doing there
was a FTP VO 2 max kind of building session.
Four times eight minutes
just above FTP 2 minutes rest in between.
See, hard, wow.
I did that on the gravel bike here.
Now, gravel biking is really only been around
in the last three, four years, seriously
but it's taking off.
I think it's going to take over the world
because it's so, so versatile.
With a lot of people buying their first gravel bikes.
There's a lot of questions that people are asking online.
What's the difference between a gravel bike and a road bike?
How much faster is a road or triathlon bike
versus a gravel bike?
Can you use gravel bike for all of your training?
What type of gravel bikes should you get?
And what features should you look for
in a gravel bike.
While buying a bike might seem simple.
It can be,
one of the most expensive mistakes that you can make.
I know I made that $1,600 mistake.
Early on in my endurance sports career.
So, if you watch this video to the end.
What I'm going to go through.
Are all of those questions.
What are the must haves?
And the, you know what, don't worry about it
with buying a gravel bike.
What should you be looking for?
So you don't make that mistake that I made many moons ago.
And my answer to a lot of those questions
being someone who is known online
as Triathlon Taren,
is really going to surprise you guaranteed.
Now, you might be saying, Hey, Taren
it's really easy for you to say,
well you need a tri bike and then you need a road bike.
And now you need a gravel bike
because Hey, you are sponsored by Canyon
and you get them for free.
Well, I'm actually going to flip that
on its head and say
that if you can only afford one bike,
it should be a gravel bike.
Not those other bikes.
What?
Watch this video to the end
and you'll find out why.
Buying that bike.
Your first bike
or any bike is a really big decision
because it's a lot of money.
And I made the mistake when I first got into road cycling
and triathlons that I went, you know what?
I'm not going to do a whole lot of thinking about this.
I'm just going to go in and buy an entry-level bike
because I'm an entry-level person.
And that is actually how I made that $1,600 mistake.
We'll go in here.
I'll explain how you should approach buying this bike,
Or any bike.
Let's talk about the differences
between a gravel bike and a road bike?
Because on the surface
they're going to look very, very similar
but they're designed for two slightly different things.
However, you can duplicate the uses.
If you get the right gravel bike.
For starters, the wheelbase
of a gravel bike is going to be a little more slack
a little bit more relaxed.
That means the back wheel and the front wheel
are a little bit further from each other.
That's because on a road bike
you need to be able to handle a little bit better.
It needs to be twitchy so that you can respond quicker.
Whereas on a gravel bike,
you're typically not riding in a pack.
You're not doing really, really sharp turns.
You want a little bit more comfort
so that more slack geometry
gives you that little bit of a smoother kind of ride.
And that smoother kind of ride
is what a lot of the differences between a road bike
and a gravel bike amount to.
A gravel bike is going to have a couple of comfort features
to absorb that chatter on trails and gravel.
So for instance, with the canyon grail here
you can see that I've got a two level base bar.
You spend most of your time actually in here
when you're just riding along.
And this is going to absorb some
of the shock, a really good gravel bike is going to
have something to absorb that shock in the front end.
Also, a lot of gravel bikes are going to have
some sort of feature on the grail here.
It's a bit of a split seat post.
That's going to absorb a little bit of the shock there.
So, you're going to have a little bit less chatter
up front here.
You're going to have a little bit less chatter there
and then combine that
with the other feature that's different is the tires.
These tires are kind of like in between a mountain bike tire
and a road bike tire.
Whereas most road bike tires
max out at a clearance
of around 28 millimeters wide.
This, is actually a 40 millimeter wide tire.
And there's still clearance for even more.
You can get a really, really big tire
and what most people are doing
when they start getting into gravel riding
is similar to what they do with a mountain bike.
They make it tubeless and by making it tubeless
you can put less PSI into the tire
and that's going to allow it to still run just as fast
have just the same rolling resistance as a tire.
That's really, really pumped up
but it's going to be able to roll that bit smoother
and give less of a shock to your body
because the tire is just a little bit softer
and more compliant.
Overall, it's designed for light trail work
but that doesn't mean
that you can't do other riding with this bike.
And that's where it gets super interesting.
Now you might be saying, well, it's only really meant
for light trails and there's more resistance
and it's really just built for comfort, and not speed.
So it's slower.
And it's designed for something that I'm not racing on
and people may be thinking.
Well like, why would you buy a gravel bike?
Well, if you're thinking that,
you're not looking at it quite right.
Yes, it's designed for being slack
and a little bit more comfortable.
So, you can take this gravel bike
and not just do gravel
but you can do long bike packing endurance rides,
like huge adventures.
The Vegan Cyclist, did a seven day bike packing trip
and everything was mounted to this grail, that he had.
You can, also use this for road riding.
If you just switch out the wheels
and instead of having to buy an entire new bike.
If you have the same gear ratio
you still have the same set of brakes.
You just have a narrower tire
and a wheel set that is designed more for road cycling.
We have lots of people that in our group ride
they actually are riding a gravel bike for the road bike.
So, even though it's a little bit more slack
it's not quite as responsive.
If you are a good rider
and you have good bike handling skills
and you know the people around you,
you can ride plenty fast on this.
Now, speaking of speed it is going to be slower,
but not drastically slow.
That ride that I did this morning.
I ended it just under an average of 30 kilometers an hour,
right around 18 miles an hour.
If I had done that on a souped up road bike
probably would have been around 35 kilometers an hour,
somewhere around 21 miles an hour.
So, you can still go fast on this
and that's even with still these gravel specific tires.
So, switch it out to road tires,
and I bet you it would be
almost right up to that 34 kilometers an hour
that I would see on a road bike.
The gear ratio is going to be different,
so that's why I would recommend having a full set
of road wheels.
So you can get the right gear ratio.
If you want to ride this with road.
Now finally, here's the really interesting thing
because it's very similar to a road geometry.
You can theoretically slap a set
of Aero bars on here and do a triathlon.
Now, when we start looking
at a gravel bike that can be on gravel,
that it can be in trails
and you can use it similar to a mountain bike.
You can swap out the wheels and do road riding on it.
You can then slap a set
of Aero bars on it and do a triathlon.
Now, is it going to be ideally suited
for absolutely all of these?
No it's a gravel bike,
it's built for gravel,
but you can set this up
for all of those other different sports.
You can't say that for a tri bike.
You can't say that for a road bike.
It just doesn't work with all of the tolerances
and clearances and the setup of those bikes.
It doesn't allow them to be as versatile as this bike is.
This bike is anywhere like somebody
said to me a couple of weeks ago.
"Well, where do you ride a gravel bike?"
Anywhere you want, bro.
So let's say you're bought in
you're thinking about buying gravel bike.
What are the specific things that you need to look for
when you're buying it?
Number one, you ideally want to make sure
that the wheels are tubeless compatible.
Taking out the tubes, being able to run that lower PSI.
It's going to be way more comfortable
than if you've got tubes in there.
You want to make sure that the handlebars and the seat
have some sort of comfort feature built in.
It doesn't have to be the two-step or the split
but in a lot of cases,
you're going to want some sort of feature
beyond just the low PSI on your tubeless tires.
To get that chatter out of the bike.
If you are looking at using this for a tri bike.
You want to make sure that the handlebar setup
can accept a pair of clip on Aero bars.
This canyon grail doesn't actually really have that ability
but the new Grizl canyon bike.
Does have just a more traditional tube style drop bar.
And you can clip onto that.
As far as price point goes.
This is where I want to make sure
that you don't end up in that situation
where you're wasting a $1000 - $1,500.
I don't look at a gravel bike the same way
that I look at a fat bike.
A fat bike, I look at it as like,
it is not meant for performance.
So, you can go and buy a $800 fat bike.
And it's going to do the same job essentially
as a two, three, $4,000 fat bike.
Albeit just, not as fast and not as nice
but because you're not using it for performance.
And in most cases people are just buying a fat bike
just to get out in the winter.
Hey, 800 bucks. It still gets you out.
Whereas with a gravel bike,
you are probably going to want a little bit of performance.
You are going to maybe want to do some intervals.
You are maybe going to want to do some road riding on it.
You are maybe going to want to actually do
some racing on her,
some group riding or do that triathlon.
So in that case, I start looking at it.
From the standpoint of like, what do you need?
How much do you need to spend to make sure
that you are getting a good enough bike
that it's going to perform well?
While not setting yourself up
to lose a ton of money because of the depreciation
of getting this super expensive bike.
And this is how I recommend
that you approach all bike purchases.
Generally speaking,
I recommend that people stay out of that sub $2,000 range
for a bike that is built for performance.
The reason for that is because they depreciate a lot.
They depreciate for one
because they're group sets are entry-level group sets
and not a lot of people want to buy
a used entry-level group set on the bike.
And they depreciate a lot
because the vast majority of people
that are getting into riding.
Are buying those entry-level bikes
and maybe giving them up more often,
than people who are dedicated to cycling.
So Craigslist, and Kijijis and EBays of the world
are just flooded.
With used entry-level road bikes, gravel bikes, tri bikes
and that just drives down the price.
So, when you buy that entry-level bike
and you want to move up and on from it,
which everyone does I guarantee it.
You're going to be selling it for peanuts.
In my case, I basically sold a $1,500 bike
for I think, 400 bucks, just 15 months later.
So the way that I would approach it is.
If you can buy a bike that is over $2,000 new
and buy it used for under $2,000.
Great! What you want to look for
is a group set that is SRAM force or higher.
This is like Shimano Ultegra or higher.
So Shimano Ultegra, Shimano Dura Ace,
SRAM Red, SRAM Force.
These are group sets and builds
that are not that entry-level SRAM or Shimano group set
that is going to depreciate really, really quickly.
So, save your money where you can,
so that you can spend a little bit extra on.
If you are going to clip on some Aero bars,
or you don't have to do this
but you can get yourself a pair of gravel, cleats and shoes.
Again, you don't have to.
I rode for the first three months of this bikes lifespan
in road shoes and was perfectly fine.
And if you do that, you can save that money to
get yourself a pair of road cycling wheels.
So, definitely strongly consider getting a gravel bike.
It makes riding so much more enjoyable
because you can get out.
You can explore, you can do all different types
of riding on this bike because it is so versatile.
You can still do all of your intervals
and hard training on it.
Like I did today, I went and ripped intervals
as if it was just a regular road bike.
And you know what?
Gravel is my favorite color right.
Now, depending on when you watch this.
Our training app at app.mymotive.com
Might yet have, it should be like beginning of July.
We're hoping the ability to actually put in
specific road rides, crit races,
cycling specific races, Endura races,
Gran Fondo cycling races that are done with plans.
And these plans are done by Dylan Johnson the Youtuber.
Who we've had on our podcast,
who we worked with to create those plans.
So really, really good training.
So if you're seeing this after
and you want some cycling specific training
or triathlon training or run training.
It'll all be there at app.mymotive.com.
So gravel great end plus one bike
or a great first bike have fun.
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Later, trainee acts.