Gravel Grinder News: Bikes From Moots, Lauf, New Tires From Tioga

Gravel Grinder News: Bikes From Moots, Lauf, New Tires From Tioga- by Guitar Ted

There have been a couple of interesting new debuts of bicycles recently that bear mentioning. Typically, most new bike offerings in the “gravel/All-Road” category don’t differ much, one from the other, and we generally don’t make any special mentions in those cases. However; with the two bicycles being presented today, there are a couple of notable differences. One having to do with what is missing, and the other having to do with an old design finding new purpose. Plus, we have news of an unusual gravel tire from an old MTB brand to share. Let’s dig in.

Lauf Anywhere Bike: The new Lauf Anywhere bike, a carbon fiber “all-road” model, was recently released and features a standard looking carbon fork. While Lauf made a name for itself initially with their wild looking carbon fiber/leaf sprung “Grit” fork, the new model takes a different route to comfort. This time around an effort was made to make the handle bar compliant and the new fork is said to have a pretty nice feel as well. Obviously those fork mounts are something that many gravel riders will appreciate as well, which were missing on the True Grit model.

Moots announces ROUTT 45 with YBB: Moots, a company with deep roots in mountain biking, announced a tweak to its popular ROUTT 45 gravel/All-Road bike recently and it is an idea which comes from deep in their design catalog. The “YBB” (stands for “Why Be Brazed”) was originally employed back when Moots was making steel mountain bikes. It was a small spring in a sleeve which was inserted at the point where the seat stays would normally have been brazed to the seat tube. Using the chain stays natural tendency to flex, this allowed for somewhat of a smoother ride for the rider. We now know this as a “soft-tail”. It’s an old idea which seems perfectly suited to gravel applications.

Tioga Debuts New Binary Gravel Tire: Tioga, a name from the early days of mountain biking, is back. Besides some other mountain bike tire offerings, one of their new tires is a gravel road tire, but with a bit of a twist. While there are other tires with smoother centers and knobby edges, Tioga seeks to improve on the idea by offering a tire with a better transition from smooth center to edging knobs while cornering on hard surfaces. The Binary is that tire, and Riding Gravel has a set which will be reviewed on the site here shortly.