Canadian Triathletes on Gravel Bikes Spending Money
And we just heard of a brand new wave
We heard it’s heading for an early grave
We’ll have to wait and see if there’s anything we can save .
Chances are if you are old enough to know the title of this song, there’s a bike manufacturer wanting to increase your bike count by one. You certainly have a triathlon bike, probably have a road bike, might even have a mountain bike, and then, there was that thing that you bought when you were going to get into cyclo-cross. You have more bikes than time to ride them all. But now it’s time for one more; the gravel bike..
More versatile than a Swiss Army Knife and more practical than a Kia Soul, the gravel bike couples a swift and soft ride along with a go almost everywhere capability. Sort of like a super-hybrid. That is, if you remember that jack of no trades machine.
Before you plunk down that six-thousand dollar bill for the bike, ten thousand for the extra garage space, and twenty more for that imminent divorce lawyer (for obvious reasons) why not take the little spare time that you do have to critically evaluate whether or not you should go down this plush but pricey path. Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself.
- How frequently do you ride inside? I’ll bet if you are like most working post-Covid Canadians, your indoor riding time has likely increased a lot. Is it 30%? Is it 70%. Of course the inverse of that, is your outdoor riding time which for most in the Great White North is curtailed with somewhere between two and four months of winter. Although some Crazy Canucks do ride year-round, is a gravel bike going to be the best choice for those trips to check your trap lines or travelling to the curling rink? And for those of us who are less mechanically inclined, remember how long it takes you to change a tire in the comfort of your own garage. Now imagine the exciting possibilities of doing it in minus 20 with fingerless mitts. Is that a polar bear you hear?
- Of the time you spend riding outdoors, consider the style of riding you do most of the time, as a triathlete. You are likely going to invest the majority of your precious outdoor time on the aerobars, of the bike that you will be competing on as a triathlete.
- For sake of argument, let’s say you are the “lottery winner” who has enough time to ride your tri bike enough so you can spend extra time on a gravel bike. Another factor to consider is where you live? If your answer is an acreage near the Rockies or Laurentians, or a prairie cottage, you can wheel out the door and gravel to your heart’s desire but if you are like many Canadians living on a suburban island surrounded by a sea of pavement, 7-11’s, and F-150s, your riding environment is much more hostile. How far will you need to ride, to enjoy the capabilities of a gravel bike? Yes, gravel bikes are keenly adept at dealing with the vagaries of urban riding, they can go safely and reliably from your house to the mall to the trails to the road without skipping a beat. Then again, so can your dusty old mountain bike, just more slowly and you ain’t racing. So why IS that mountain bike dusty and not muddy and covered in moose scat from the hundreds of kilometres in our Canadian wilderness? Which leads to my final question for you.
- Are you REALLY one of those “adventure” people that are seen in the gravel bike ads? Male or female. Trim and toned. Confident and capable looking to a fault. Capable of reading topographic maps, tea leaves, or whatever it is that those people do when they think they are lost (or really are) and just want to get home. One of the selling points for many gravel bikes is the capability to carry the accoutrements for overnight expeditions but if you are uncomfortable charting your own path and prefer the certainty of a four-lane and a Hilton to the adventure of a goat trail and a bivy sack, you have some serious questions to ask yourself before whipping out that credit card.
Without question, gravel bikes are practical and versatile, kind of like the ideal partner for a long-term, no-fuss relationship, but when the bed is already full of attractive and willing (albeit finicky and one-dimensional) lovers and you only have so much time (and energy) to invest in your velo trysts, careful considerations must be made.
By the way, the song was The Kid is Hot Tonight by Loverboy.