flying wrote: ↑Sat Nov 02, 2019 11:48 pmThat is good that you feel better exploring that road but we have also been using much skinnier tubulars & rim brakes in races such as Paris Roubaix & worse for over 100 years.
I personally have been smiling a bit at the whole "gravel" movement lately & how they have created that niche needing yet another bike.
Not CX & not Mountain bike mind you but "gravel"
If you want to ride a route with a suboptimal set-up, that’s your business. “We’ve been doing it this way for 100 years” is usually not a great argument. Gravel bikes are fine and most people aren’t going to buy a strict CX bike to do C category races. They’re going to use gravel bikes or even mountain bikes. Gravel bikes are pretty ideal for those increasingly popular mixed surface rides/events...or you know, being an n=1 bike.
Gravel as genre is less niche than a much less versatile road race bike. Add on top of that a weight-weenie sub-genre...that’s a true niche.