"Gravel Grinding" the new enduro?

What do you all think? Is gravel another enduro situation?

They both have grown like wildfire no doubt but the reason is, both can be lots of fun.  One thing that really draws me to "gravel grinder" events is that many of them are free or at the very least you get lots of hours in the saddle per dollar spent.  Not having to give money to USA Cycling is also a very real plus for me.  It is also nice that even though there are clearly bikes that are more ideal than others, it is a run what you brung sort or thing and you will see a huge variety of bikes at the events and the best part, none of the riders are wrong for their choices assuming they have a good time and the bike makes it to the end.

Not to mention that a "gravel bike" is a much more versatile bike than a regular road bike - wider tire clearance, more comfortable geometry, etc. You can do a whole lot more on a gravel bike - which can discourage additional purchases.

Do you enduro, bro? Yeah, of course. Good for the sport to mix it up. There's always going to be the traditional Midwest style gravel road races out on the farm grid where you can see the curvature of the earth from miles of straight roads that disappear into the horizon. But if the geography and terrain is diverse by all means cut it up into stages so you get more competition from the bike handlers as well. The best all-around riders come to the fore in a Grinduro style format, not just legs and lungs from the traditional gravel races. More inclusivity=more fun.

I am coming into gravel riding/racing some from the randonneuring end. I can compare the two in that you will see all kind of bikes and set ups and like somebody said before each bike is right for the person that is riding it. I haven't done the enduro part yet so not sure what that is all about. A few of the things that has drawn me to gravel riding.

1. Low traffic I got hit by a drunk back last Jan. a year ago on a night right on a curvy road here in Pa.
2. Low entrance fees means I can spend that money on other bike obsessions or go to more rides/races.
3. This is listed as 3rd but also a major factor. At my end I will never be a front of the pack racer so you go out and ride with some friends or some riders that are riding the same pace you are take turns doing some of the pulling, discuss life and if you see somebody out there in trouble you try and help them out any way you can.
4. Since you ride together there is no sprint to the finish line to see who is 1st you just all make it there.
5. For me gravel riding is a lot like rando riding I just need now to get in better shape to do the ultra gravel rides/races like I did in the rando riding as you can't fake it out on the road gravel riding.

Hope to meet some of you here on the forum at a gravel ride some day. Thanks for all the pointers and help.


Zman

Realize this was an old thread but my intention was to steer the conversation towards the evolution of gravel racing rather than a straight comparison of gravel to enduro. Basically a gravel race is an off-pavement road race with no real significant chances for bike handlers to shine. Sure, there are some that throw in technical singletrack sections or some other diabolical stuff. But overall a very small percentage in aggregate and usually not enough to determine a winner.

When you add the "enduro" element it turns it into a race within a race instead of the usual first to the line. Enduro chops the day up into timed segments over more diverse terrain and the person with the lowest cumulative time at the end wins. The potential for fun with this kind of format is really intriguing, mtb enduro already proved that. And it doesn't have to be a $200 entry fee with expensive hotels, chef catered handholding and big brand sponsorship either.  

Also, for the sake of keeping it simple lets keep this about the competitive side, not touring or randonneuring.

I think gravel racing will have much longer legs than enduro - true, there's increasing hype right now as the "regular" cycling world has just begun to discover gravel, but there's something more elemental and basic about the appeal of riding a long way through the middle of nowhere. Enduro is neat, but it's a little more contrived. The options for bikes right now is really exciting. Even the bad designs are pushing the envelope to the development of lighter, tougher equipment that can go more places - that will never go out of style.

Enduro isn't any more or less contrived than the modern form of gravel racing, it's just a different way of playing the game that actually levels the field more. I totally agree that the traditional century and beyond gravel races are here to stay, the foundation. But just like with anything there's room to grow. Adding more enduro style gravel events to the calendar totally makes sense to me because it's more akin to how a lot of people I know actually ride from day to day. Mixed surface and multidisciplinary style instead of just straight up 70/30 gravel/paved road loops. And especially so because just like you said how great the bikes have become! 10 years ago most of us were on pretty standard issue road, cross, or 29'r mtb's. Now we have a bunch of long and low 650b gravel-dirt-trail rippers. There's also a growing contingent of new riders that want to be competitive but don't have the time it takes to train for the century+ length stuff. And many are fantastic bike handlers. Enduro format makes it possible to have a ton fun on a more diverse course, rather than the typical gravel loop. And this style of racing reveals the best all-around rider, not just the best road racer.

Now if only somebody can figure out how to throw a world-class event that doesn't cost $200 to enter. I leave that to any one of the Minnesota gravel race organizers where pretty much everything seems to be free.

So you'd have timing chips for the sections?

This kind of sounds like rally racing, where you have transport stages and timed sections? 

For the sake of pointless arguing on the internet my thoughts would be:

- The logistics and complications of the event seem counter to the grassroots simplicity that draws people to gravel events.
- I'm not sure that there's a big venn diagram overlap of "bike handlers" and gravel people. The solution to "I can't train for a 200k" is to have a short course.
- But if you've got the equipment to pull it off, why not? It also could be good for areas where you don't want people racing on parts of the course (going through a town with lots of stop signs) or where a pack would be a bad thing (getting funneled into a singletrack).

drwelby wrote:So you'd have timing chips for the sections?

Sure, timing chips if you're looking to charge for entry. Personally I'm not too keen on pay-to-play, hence the MN reference. Pin on numbers and a few volunteers that know how to use a stopwatch would suffice for a free event.
 

This kind of sounds like rally racing, where you have transport stages and timed sections?

Exactly!  

For the sake of pointless arguing on the internet my thoughts would be:

Huh? I'm here to discuss not pointlessly argue. Not sure really sure what you mean by that comment or how it pertains to anything that has been said here. Please keep in mind that English is my 2nd language and I don't pick up on sarcasm as well as a native might, if that was your intention.  

- The logistics and complications of the event seem counter to the grassroots simplicity that draws people to gravel events.

Avid cyclists are generally very slow to welcome new things or concepts, I'm very aware of that, I've been racing since '86 and working in the industry since '96 and talk to all kinds of people with different motivations through just building wheels. With Enduro it's simply a different way to score a race, doesn't necessarily mean it's any more complicated or less simple or grassroots. Breaking tradition is very hard for people like us, I totally get it.  

- I'm not sure that there's a big venn diagram overlap of "bike handlers" and gravel people. The solution to "I can't train for a 200k" is to have a short course.

Sure, pretty much every larger scale gravel event has shorter options. Already solved in that sense. From what I'm experiencing there's a far greater contingent of people that love to ride, are very deft handlers, but aren't really into the endurance side. That part of the diagram is larger than you think. For all the "all-inclusiveness" that gravel cyclists tout when it comes to community and to include more people I'm just not seeing it. Cycling is notoriously poor with attracting new participants, especially the road oriented genres. Take Millennials for example. Most that I know are working 2-3 jobs just to make ends meet and don't have the time to put in hours of training rides during the week to be competitive at the century+ events. Doesn't mean their slow or scared to race. Many rip pretty hard at crits, cross, bmx, mtb. Another barrier is that the vast majority of these gravel events are over-populated by MAMILs and the podiums are always mobbed by ex pros or current or former road Cat I/II/III's. Doesn't seem all that bad until you step back to look at what's going on a little deeper. To me this kind of stagnation and unwillingness to mix things up is disappointing. The enduro format gives more opportunity to a wider range of cyclists. That is a good thing, that's what being inclusive means. Isn't it?  
      

- But if you've got the equipment to pull it off, why not? It also could be good for areas where you don't want people racing on parts of the course (going through a town with lots of stop signs) or where a pack would be a bad thing (getting funneled into a singletrack).

That is an excellent point about not racing certain parts of a course which proves really problematic for some organizers. Adding an Enduro element solves that. Even if it's just one or two stages to change things up a bit, and make it safer for the participants.

ridemagnetic wrote:
Huh? I'm here to discuss not pointlessly argue. Not sure really sure what you mean by that comment or how it pertains to anything that has been said here. Please keep in mind that English is my 2nd language and I don't pick up on sarcasm as well as a native might, if that was your intention.  

Yes! It was sarcasm, sorry if that didn't come through. I just mean that we can discuss every possible aspect about this and while we might come to some interesting ideas, what really needs to happen is for more people to try it out in different areas and at different scales and see what happens.

My opinion is that it's a little gimmicky, but that wouldn't stop me from participating in one. 

More diversity in events can only be good. I've never been one for purity and I think gravel can be a "big tent".

Alright, I'll just put it out there. For as much as I love the traditional gravel races I just wish there was more to choose from that were slightly less serious and a little more party. Grinduro is the only one doing this, but they very much take the racing part seriously. It's just more compartmentalized and condensed. I'd like to fill my weekends with more social time too instead of the typical... drive for umpteen hours then grind myself into the oblivion for maybe a really lucky top 30 and be too shelled to do anything else but go to bed at 10 then drive home taking naps every 3 hours because I'm still worked over from the race.

I was thinking about how to do this on the cheap and was thinking you could get a bunch of cheapo digital watches in different colors and wrap them around signposts. Then indicate the "time posts" on your cue sheet. When the riders get to that intersection, they take a picture of the watch with their phone. At the finish they provide the photos and the segment times are calculated from that. This way you don't need 2 volunteers per segment.

I've also seen "checkpoint rides" where there's a bunch of different checkpoints with a rubber stamp and you have to go to all the checkpoints and stamp your sheet. But you can take any route in between them, so it was set up that if you were on a mountain bike you could take a more direct route on a trail, or a longer but faster route on a cross bike.

The Farm-to-Fork Fondo series has this style of timed sections, and they used data from the riders' GPS units.  They had the timed sections marked on the course, and you had to upload your ride to ridewithgps afterwards.  They took out the segment data, compiled the totals, and came up with a ranking after that.  If you didn't have a GPS you obviously couldn't participate, which you may not be going for.  I think it would work for gravel, so long as you weren't too deep into any single track section.

ridemagnetic wrote:Alright, I'll just put it out there. For as much as I love the traditional gravel races I just wish there was more to choose from that were slightly less serious and a little more party. Grinduro is the only one doing this, but they very much take the racing part seriously. It's just more compartmentalized and condensed. I'd like to fill my weekends with more social time too instead of the typical... drive for umpteen hours then grind myself into the oblivion for maybe a really lucky top 30 and be too shelled to do anything else but go to bed at 10 then drive home taking naps every 3 hours because I'm still worked over from the race.

CX.  Behold!