My favorites are gravel bike and all-road. All road is a little more generalized whereas gravel bike is a little more specific. But aren't these basically sport touring bikes?
Gravel bike. It speaks to the designed function of the bike. A 'cross bike has features for its designed purpose and as gravel riding evolves most specifically the bikes will become specific to the sport; I like "gravel bike".
I'm not fond of the names that seem to speak to work like "utility". My bike's not a tool. Maybe I am at times, but my bike's a sweety.
"Gravel bikes are basically just cross bikes. That's a road bike. He can't ride that on dirt." -- Said the guy on a full-squish carbon fiber Scott to his wife while I yielded the trail to him and his small child.
There's nothing ground breaking about this genre of bike set up, it's called Randoneering and it's been around for well over 100 years. Ultimately all these mfg's cashing on the "gravel" bandwagon are basically making production Randonée or Audax bikes. That's about it, fast touring bikes. History is made by a selective recreation of the past, and the gravel thing is a perfect example, I just wish "gavel" this and "gravel" that wasn't so overly used. Sounds terrible! No offense to the makers of this website of course. However, I'm also relegated to the fact that French names don't do well in this country unless there's potatoes involved.
![[smile]](http://cdn.websitetoolbox.com/images/boards/smilies/smile.gif "Smile - :)")
Seems like everything else is used already. Gravel bike? Seriously? Excludes many riders better served by this catagory. Anyone else doing a BRB?![[wink]](http://cdn.websitetoolbox.com/images/boards/smilies/wink.gif)
However, I'm also relegated to the fact that French names don't do well in this country unless there's potatoes involved.