Can You Use a Gravel Bike as a Winter Road Bike?

My thoughts on using a Gravel Bike (In this case my Fustle Causeway), as a winter road bike!

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Oh road bike road bike Mor another road bike the other boys we’re waiting on will also be in road bikes almost certainly and here I am on my uh my cosway fossil gravel bike for a 30 m road ride I don’t really like doing Road rides in the winter cuz the weather

Is a bit Grim but I also hate being on zft and on the trainer so I do like to go outside when I can if that’s a gravel ride and M bike ride or like a road ride if if I can um but uh but yeah so I’m

Going to see if uh if I can keep up with these boys on their fancy carbon frames and deep section Wheels while I’m on a big aluminium uh 42 mil Tire Bike so uh let’s go for a ride and see if keep up To Show where My Okay coffee stop um stopped at Rover coffee and Rand it’s a new uh new coffee shop in randone so I’m looking forward to find light always a fan of a new coffee shop um you’re uh you’re may be wondering why when I have have a you know a perfectly good

Road bike like if you follow me on Instagram if watch this channel you know that I ride a canyon ultimate so when I have a really really nice good road bike why would I use a gravel bike in the winter well I mean really look at me um

I’m absolutely um absolutely covered in mck from the road like it’s a lovely day it’s cool it’s still it’s not raining but the roads are just so full of grit and salt and mck that just sprays up and you get covered and the bikes as

Well the bikes are a bit Mucky not as Mucky as a m bike ride or gravel ride but they’re still a bit Mucky so I tend to take my Canyon apart during the winter like slowly strip It Down clean it put it away um for the winter and

Then I’ll rebuild it up come springtime so that’s kind of the main reason why I want to have a separate bike as a as a winter road bike and that’s why I’m trying out my gravel bike as a as a winter road bike going okay so far

Managing to keep up but uh yeah going to stop get some coffee and some food now and then head home and I’ll talk to you about the pros and cons of using a gravel bike as a winter road Bike Show E Right see there Bye so hi did I get on today riding my fossil caway gravel bike as a winter R bike well I managed to keep up with the guys um which is great and uh you know didn’t uh didn’t find myself lagging too far behind or or having to put in too

Much extra effort so that was that was great it actually it performed really really well as a road bike um as I said the reason I want a winter road bike is because when I do go out on the roads in winter around here winter quite often

Winter in Northern Ireland is not you know snow and kind of crisp cold days more often than not winter is wet and rainy and gray and just a bit Grim uh and when it is like a nice kind of cool or mild dry day with not much wind like

Today was uh the roads are still covered in all kinds of mck as you saw earlier I was kind of really really covered heads to a mck so um and just like Grit and salt and dirt off the road so yeah um want something that just isn’t going to

Get completely racked when I take when I do take it out on the road in winter you know my Canyon would it would be fine it would do really well but I just I like to keep it really really pristine and really really good um uh so that’s why I

Wanted a winter road bike so yeah it Rod pretty well today um and that was great I guess what are some of the downsides of using a gravel bike as a winter road bike so downsides to start with um I mean really there there’s only a couple

And they’re fairly obvious one it’s a heavier bike you know so um it’s it’s heavier than my than my Canyon ultimate obviously um but not substantially so so this this bike currently with the wheels and everything on pedals and everything on is is coming in at about 10 kilos

Whereas my Canyon comes in with everything on about 8 kilos so you’re only talking a couple extra kilos so it’s not the end of the world it’s not that much heavier um but it is obviously a little bit heavier but the biggest downside rather than the weight

Is actually probably the fact that I am running gravel wheels and gravel tires on this so I’m running hunt uh Four Season extra wide gravel Wheels um and I’m currently running 42 mm tires um and they’re kind of like nobly tires as well so obviously

That is going to add a bit of rolling resistance to my ride those are probably the main downsides to to it often for me the kind of Road riding in the winter though is not about you know smashing PBS not about doing big hill climbs not

About you know trying to uh increase my average speed or anything like that um Road riding in the winter is just about being out keeping the legs turning through the winter going for a kind of an easier ride you know more gentle ride uh a coffee ride you see today we

Stopped at a coffee shop had a coffee bit of a social ride so it’s much more about the enjoyment and kind of just enjoying being out in your bikes the downsides of having a heavier bike with bigger Wheels not that big a deal for me anyway for uh for a winter ride another

Potential downside actually is possibly gearing um I know a lot of gravel bikes have one byy gearing setup I actually have a two by setup on this bike and explain why in a minute um if you have a one by setup you might have an issue

With gearing and today because I’m on a 2X setup I didn’t have an issue with gearing and actually the only issue I had with my gearing was um on a couple of downhills I was spinning out that was that was really the only issue that I

Had so I have a a 2X uh 48 to 31 on the front and a 12 speed 11 to 36 on the back so at 48 11 I was spinning out um so that was the only real issue I had with um with gearing some of the the

Good points of using a gravel bike as a winter road bike um well as I mentioned with the RADS being covered in grit and grime and and all that kind of stuff um a gravel bike is just that little bit more rugged than you know maybe a ro

Bike like a delicate carbon Ro bike this is an aluminium bike I know you do get carbon gravel bikes as well but um yeah just with the bike being a little bit more kind of rugged and designed for rougher terrain it’s going to handle you know the the winter roads with no bother

At all it’s not going to have any hassle um you know quite often you’ve got poth holes and rough surfaces more often in the winter um as well it’s all the great and grime so gravel bike’s just that little bit more durable um and the the components are maybe that little bit

More um rugged and hopefully uh hopefully durable as well uh so that that’s one of the the great points I know that I said earlier the wi tires and the additional weight is a kind of a downside it can be a positive as well because it means you have to work that a

Little bit harder so it means you’re keeping warm so on those cooler cooler days you’re having to work that a little bit harder um to kind of keep up with the group uh all that kind of stuff and uh yeah so that that keeps you warm on

The cooler days and also you are then getting a bit more of a workout so the additional we and The Wider Tire can actually be uh a positive if you want to look at it that way as well uh another good point is if you want to you can do

A bit of a mixed ride mixed surface rid you can do a road ride and throw in a little bit of off-road a little bit of gravel as well if you want so I was out with the guys today they were all in road bikes to throw it in a little

Gravel section wasn’t going to happen but yes you could um do a bit of a mixed surface ride some Road some gravel and actually Northern iseland that works really well because while we do have some good sections of gravel they’re kind of bit further apart and and not

Really connected up so that means you can do a ride kind of on some gravel and some roads so that that’s pretty pretty good um and yeah all around I think it’s a really really solid option for a winter road bike now there are a couple of improvements that you could make and

I probably will make um to make it even more suitable for a road ride I guess the most obvious and easiest change you could make would be to um throw a set of road tires on um so get yourself a set of Road tires and replace your nobly

Wide tires with uh you know like I set 25 or 28 mil tires um downside of that is then swapping your tires every time you want to do a road ride versus a gravel ride probably a better option if you can stretch sh than swapping tires

Is get a spare set of wheels um so I’ve got a spare set of wheels I’ve got another 11 to 36 12 speeed cassette set up on those Wheels another set of disc routers set up on those Wheels which means when I get them set up with uh

With the tires I can just swap the wheels out so if I’m doing a gravel ride I put these wheels on if I’m going to do a road ride on the bike I just swap out and put my road wheels on um so yeah that that’s uh a pretty pretty handy

Thing to do that’s one of the reasons I got this bike with 2×12 setup because the 12-speed 11 to 36 cassette in this Arrangement is just the normal Shimano hyperg setup whereas the uh the one speeed was using a micros Spain M mic setup so it wouldn’t have been able to

As easily swap the wheels in and out so yeah swapping swapping your tires um to Rude tires or swapping get a spare set of wheels so you can swap them in and out would be a significant uh Improvement to using it as a winter Ro

Bike other thing you can do uh is stick a set of Road pedals on I’ve already done that normally I ride this bike with a set of mountain bike pedals on Shimano spds um but today I’ve got my asoma par meter pedals on and or I can stick my

Look Kio pedals on so yeah stick a set of Road pedals on means you can use your road shoes rather than mountain bike shoes when you’re doing a road ride the other thing you could do just to make it that little bit more winter prooof would

Be to stick a set of mud guards on for a couple reasons one again just protecting the bike a bit from all the the mck and stuff being kicked up from the road but also if you’re out in a group as you saw from earlier footage there was lots of

Spray coming off the road um You probably saw on my camera and yeah we recovered kind of head to toe and that wasn’t because it was raining or anything that was just spray off other people’s wheels so sticking a set of mud guards on if you’re going to be riding

In a group as well in the winter on the road is maybe just a kind of common courtesy to your other um riders in your group uh so apologies to the guys this morning that I didn’t have mudguards on I will do better next time all well but

Yeah that’s it I mean can you use a gravel bike as a winter Ro bike 100% absolutely without any changes you can use a gravel bike as a winter R bike and with just a few small tweaks or modifications it could actually be a really really capable um winter road

Bike and never mind winter road bike actually to be fair if you have a gravel bike and want to consider Road riding rather than buying a a road bike you could just adapt your gravel bike and use that as your road bike they are really really good all around options um

They can handle uh gravel obviously and they can handle gentle mountain bike trails I’ll probably do another video about that but yeah you can take them on gentle mountain bike trails that are not too Technical and they do well on the road so the gravel bike option is actually a

Really good allr single bike option good for bike packing as well obviously so so yeah gravel bikes as a winter R bike thumbs up for me 100% absolutely doable that’s it for me for this video uh thank you very much for watching if you have made it this far in my ramblings I

Really really appreciate it please uh do leave me a comment down below let me know where you ring kind of a gravel bike as a winter road bike um or what do you do through the winter uh don’t forget to like the video and please subscribe as well it really

Helps my channel grow and share it with any of your your friends who maybe are into cycling and that sort of thing as well um but yeah as always guys thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next Video