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So a shop near me has a good deal on a nice (prestige name, high modulus carbon) gravel bike with the groupset swapped out for something less glamorous but still totally fine (I'd rather have a nice frame and good enough groupset than a shit frame and top end groupset, and I can't afford a top frame and a top groupset).
I'm not desperate for a third bike but I do intend to get one at some point, and I want something that's ROUGHLY in the same ballpark as my main bike (a road bike), so this could actually fit into my long term plans pretty well.
But here's the thing. I took it for a ride and while it felt really stable, it also felt a little unresponsive because of the ginormous knobby tires and cheaper wheels compared to my road bike, and flared meme bars. So it was hard to make an apples to apples comparison.
The geometry is in most ways extremely similar to my road bike. the main difference is chainstay is 15mm longer, everything else is within 2-3mm or less than 1 degree. Slightly longer headtube, slightly more stack. Oh and obviously quite a bit more tire clearance, though I don't really care about that (if anything it's less than ideal, I don't like big ass clumsy tires)
What I'm wondering is, aren't gravel bikes supposed to be all about low speed agility? On the one hand balance was piss easy at low speed, but the handlebars were really slow to turn and it felt like tight corners were something of a challenge. Why is the chainstay 15mm longer, with all else being about the same, if that's the case? Just for 40mm tires? What could I expect of it if I put my good wheels on it, and put the ok wheels on my new "third bike", like should I just assume the clumsy was from the tires/wheels and not the long chain stays?
