>>1650598I was kinda joking, but fair enough. I've seen lots of weird stuff in bikes recently including a gravel bike with flat bars and insanely long chainstay and apparently that doesn't actually influence responsiveness and agility. It's kinda hard to determine what a gravel bike even is nowadays since there like subgenres coming up - bikepacking gravel bike, city gravel bike (FFS), road plus gravel bike. Manufacturers seem to make all sorts of bikes suited for different needs and applications. The choice is insane, though availability is close to zero (thanks coof).
What always makes me chuckle is with all those novelties, people can't stop arguing about what is a meme, marketing ploy or whatever. Cause apparently, unless you ride strictly road or strictly MTB and Jesus forgive you're running 1x you are in the wrong blablabla.
I couldn't be happier that gravel bikes exist since they seem like something invented specifically for my personal application. Roadies can't stop flexing about being fast, yet in my town they ride like grannies to avoid potholes, patches, tarmac cracks and tram tracks running in the actual road, while I smoothly glide through. Mountain bikes flex their suspension forks and fat tires, while the most hardcore trails they get around here is a forest patch with some roots sticking out and and a few steep hills they still blow their lungs out over carrying those sin-heavy forks and then complaining about wrist pains after 2 hours of riding. They probably write to the mayor every day not to get rid of cobble-stone roads, so that they could still have an excuse for riding an MTB 700 kilometers away from any actual mountains.
Call it a meme, marketing, hybrid, whatever it is you like, but gravel bikes are more and more of a thing, and there are people who find them perfect for what they ride.
Pic-related - tell me how that looks even close to a road bike.
