I'm in the market for my first gravel bike. I have a carbon rim-brake road bike with clearance for 25mm tyres which I've ridden for 4 years. When it's dry I've used that bike to explore some of my local hardpack trails and have enjoyed that very much. Now I would like to explore some rougher, sometimes muddy or sandy, terrain so it seems that I need a gravel bike. After mullings things over, I decided that a titanium frame would be a good option. My must-haves are a threaded bottom bracket, internal cable routing, preferably also in the bottom bracket area, and mudguard mounts.
My current front runners are:
- J Laverack GRiT (https://www.jlaverack.co.uk/grit-range/)
- Reilly Gradient T47 (https://www.reillycycleworks.com/collec ... nture-disc)
The gravel tracks around where I live are not very bumpy but I also think about using this bike for bike-packing so I would like to be on the safe side positionwise.
The frame stack and reach values of the Reilly actually correspond to the values of my road bike, give and take a few milimetres, so that I would be able to replicate my current positon with the same number of spacers as on my road bike. On the Laverack 58 frame I can replicate my current position with a 5mm spacer. The Laverack 60 frame is both longer and taller. I have attached picture from bikegeo.net. The red bike is my road bike, the green bike is the Laverack in 58, the blue bike is the Laverack in 60. The first image is with 5mm spacers, the second with 10mm spacers on the Laveracks.
My question is: From the perspective of an experienced gravel ride, which bike set up more sense? As I said, I quite like my current position on my road bike and can hold it for a long time but I'm afraid that it may become uncomfortable if I ride bumpy gravel (a scenario which may occur only very rarely). I'm also afraid that on the smaller frames adding more spacers will make the reach toosmall for me. The Laverack 60 frame on the other hand looks very relaxed indeed (and massive compared to my road bike) so that I'm afraid that whizzing over some forest trails for an hour or two on the week ends may not be as fun as on the other two options. Any input?
Many thanks!