7 Tips To Be SURE You’re Buying The Right Gravel Bike

Shocker… buying the *right* gravel bike is hard! There are a lot of… flavours. Race-y, singletrack-y, and endurance (read: comfortable). On this gravel bike ride in beautiful Bobcaygeon in cottage country (the last on a mtb, I hope, I’ll share my 7 tips, the most recommended bikes from our 50+ cycling group, plus a pro tip that’s helped seal the deal on my preferred bike.

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Recommended action camera: Insta360 X3: https://www.insta360.com/sal/x3?insrc…

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#gravelbike #bikepacking #centuryride
00:00 Bobcaygeon, baby!
00:35 How boats from Florida get *HERE*!
01:12 The Quintessential Gravel Ride
02:00 Gravel Riding is SO Popular
02:38 Step one: tap the community for bike suggestions
03:53 Tip #1: what do you want it for?
05:12 Tip #2: Test, test, test
06:28 Tip #3: Bikepacking
07:46 Tip #4: Drivetrain decisions
09:04 Tip #5: Build Quality
10:37 Tip #6: Carbon wheels
11:29 Tip #7: Price $$$
12:25 **PRO TIP**
14:23 Top suggested gravel bikes

I’m on the hunt for a gravel bike.  Everything I know about mountain bikes   translates to gravel bikes, and the bike  industry makes it so damn hard. Today,   I’m going to share what I’ve learned and sort  of the seven things that I’ve boiled it down to  

What I’m looking for. So hopefully, if you’re on  the hunt for a gravel bike too, it will help you. We’re in beautiful Bobcaygeon, about two  hours northeast of Toronto, and we’re   going on a gravel ride. The whole beautiful  – oh, but I have to tell you about this body  

Of water. This is the Trent-Severn Waterway,  and it goes from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron.   We’re in the middle of Ontario, in the middle  of Canada, and yet we regularly see boats from   Florida go by this dock from the Atlantic via  the St. Lawrence Seaway. Boats from the world  

Over make their way along the 385 kilometers of  Waterway, navigating up to 60 Lakes and 44 locks,   one of which we’ll end up at at the  end of this ride. Come on, let’s go. I haven’t started yet, and I’m already thirsty.  

So what I love about this ride, and it’s such  a beautiful day, this is the quintessential   gravel ride. There’s some pavement, there’s some  legit gravel, as you can see now, a little bit   of trail. We’re gonna go by some Lakes and into  the farm country where there’s like such a good  

Example of Rolling Hills workout, and then back  to the locks. I call it the Tour de Bobcaygeon,   hot Strava. I’ll link to it in case you want to  ride it too if you’re in one neck of the woods.   Maybe the one spot I think, what  would this be like on a gravel bike?

Hey! Gravel riding has exploded in  popularity. It’s so versatile. I mean,   I’m really kind of getting excited about  the adventures that we’re going to go on.   It’s going to be fun. Last summer, we  rode on our mountain bikes to Kinmount,  

The town north of here. But next summer, on my  gravel bike, I’m riding to Halliburton. Okay,   I’ve said it. I’m doing it. It’s never as  easy as walking into the bike shop and going,   “I’d like a gravel bike, please.” It’s  always so damn complicated, isn’t it?

So the first thing I did was reach out to the  50 plus cyclist group on Facebook with this:   “Hi gang, I’m a 55-year-old mountain biker who’s  discovered she also enjoys road and gravel biking.  

On the hunt for my first gravel bike now. As a  matter of fact, feel free to weigh in on your   fave bike. I cannot take getting passed on the  bike trails here in Toronto one more time. God,   and hello to you, sir.” So I was hoping, you know, to get a few  

Suggestions for a bike. Check out the response  I got. It was crazy. Between me and ChatGPT,   we organized them into a list, and  I’ll share that with you in a bit.   In order of popularity, there were so many  bikes, it was almost overwhelming. I thought,  

“I gotta figure out what’s important to me and  find a way to get all this down into some focus.” Oh my God, this is so pretty through here.   It’s called Nogi Nogi’s Creek.  Oh, I love this little bridge.

Gravel bike tip number one: get clear on what  you want it for. Of course, there isn’t just   one gravel bike. There are racy gravel bikes,  there are endurance gravel bikes. When you hear   endurance, that’s more comfortable, like you  could go longer. Even gravel bikes that are  

Trying to verge into sort of trail-worthy. Some  of those will have suspension on the front fork.   I don’t want that. For me, my gravel bike, just  for my purposes, is the Goldilocks bike. That’s   what I’m calling it. I spend probably 60 percent  of my fitness rides on pavement in the city,  

So I want it to go fast so that we can go far.  So we could go from Toronto to Hamilton if we   wanted to up here. I want to be able to go on  legit gravel and rail trails because we’ve got  

A lot of that here. But where I draw the line  is I don’t want anything that has any kind of   suspension. I’ve got a mountain bike. If I’m going  to be on anything like a trail, I’m going to be  

On my mountain bike. So that’s my perfect bike,  and I think you just need to get clear on that. Tip number two is test lots of  bikes. Lots of bikes. We tested   five bikes. I have to interrupt this gravel ride  with an important update. I was just about to talk  

About the importance of going to different bike  shops and trying different bikes. All important,   but things are moving fast over here, and  I think I just unlocked a new level of the   game. Let’s get back to the ride, and I’ll  share that Pro tip with you momentarily.  

Back to gravel. This is a pretty hard pack  though. I can’t wait to feel what this feels   like with tires that aren’t 2.4 inches wide.  The only bummer is that you’re always buying   too expensive mountain bikes, too expensive gravel  bikes. It’s not built up around here at all.  

Think about how much speed we’re going to carry  down and then back up these Hills when we’re on   skinnier tires, like 37 or 40 millimeter tires,  and our bikes weigh 10 pounds less. 10 pounds. I used to skate on this lake as a kid. Yeah,  

Sometimes it was nice and frozen.  Sometimes it was a little mushy. On these bikes, a lot of them have these little  attachment points, let’s call them nipples. No,   we’re not calling them nipples. Okay, lugs.  Little attachment points for bags and accessories,  

Panniers, bottles. Bottles. I don’t know if  I want to try bikepacking and loading my bike   up with 50 pounds full of gear and camping by the  side of the road. You know, going on overnighters.   But I want the option, right? And  a lot of them do. You say most.

So but that’s kind of a deal-breaker, I think  for us, right? Yeah, I just, we might try it. I love this road. It’s so beautiful.   Thank you, foreign. Skinnier tires. I know I’d be flying up that hill.  So this is probably the perfect setup then to talk  

About the kind of gearing you wanted. And I went  into this thinking, “Oh great, gravel bikes have   one-by setups just like my mountain bike.” So one  sprocket up here and then a platter with all your   cassette back here with all your different gears,  right? So clean, so simple. You’re never changing  

Gears up here. There’s not a shifter up here.  Now I’ve kind of changed my mind on that, and I   think I want a two-by setup, meaning that there  are two chainrings up here and fewer gears back   here. Imagine if your bike’s all packed up with  bags, and you’re doing the bikepacking thing, and

You’re going up a big steep hill.   You’ve got to have enough gears to get yourself  up there. And so I’m on the side of thinking that   it’s going to take a two-by setup to achieve  that. And the other benefit of that is I think  

That there’s no more nuance between the gears.  So instead of the gear going from here to here,   it’s going from here to here to here to  here. So there’s more steps in between. So I think the fifth tip or category that you want  to get clear on is what your bike must-have in  

Terms of build quality, right? And that might  vary if you’re in your 40s or 50s or 60s and   you’re thinking about getting into cycling,  it might be a little lower build quality   until you know you’re committed. For us,  these bikes are going to get a lot of use,  

And we know that. Yeah, so there’s certain things  we’re willing to pay for: a carbon frame. It’s   better for vibration dampening, and if you think  about it, if you’re on a bike for hours at a time,   you want all the vibration  dampening you can get. Yeah,  

Especially since I’m not riding  with padded shorts today. Hydraulic brakes, yeah, for sure. Not mechanical  hydraulic. You know, we’ve had bikes with Shimano   for our drivetrain and SRAM, yeah. I don’t really  care; they’re both quality. But if it’s Shimano,  

For example, we want the GRX or higher. Yeah,  drivetrain. Do we need electronic shifting?   No, recharge the batteries before we go  for a ride. If that pushes the price point   up even further, I could do without it.  And I’m not even sure about things like,  

You were talking about the battery.  That’s mechanical; you just go and   ride. It’s just one less thing you have  to think about. Yeah, I’m fine with that. Yeah, so that brings me to the penultimate tip  number six: splurgy things that if they came in  

The package of a bike at the right price, yeah,  fantastic. And that would be like carbon wheels,   yeah. Wheels and tires make a big difference,  right? I would love to get nice carbon wheels.   On the other hand, though, if it adds a thousand  bucks to the price of the bike and we’re buying  

Two, I could go without the carbon wheel.  How about a big electric motor? No, no. And so the center tip is pretty obvious, right?  It’s price, and so all these are great guidelines,   but it has to fit in your budget. I could  tell you our budget has increased twice  

Since we started this thing, but sometimes it  makes more sense to pay a little bit more now,   good to figure out. Next summer, I have the  right bike. If you’ve got a hard budget,   go down to aluminum. I’m sure you’ll be so  happy. Make sure you don’t blow your brains out  

Because, ah, test. I’ll go back to tip number  one: test the aluminum version versus the carbon.   Do you care, and how much is that money better  serving you in your bank account? And back. So once you get clear on what you want your gravel  bike for, and for me, it’s pavement and gravel,  

Not racing, not trails, then it’s time to get to  the bike shops and test as many bikes as possible.   Here’s where my Pro tip comes in handy. But  first, I need you to understand that those size  

Charts that the bike brands publish are not to  be trusted. More often than not, the size charts   put me on a 54. A size 54 bike. But on, say,  the Trek Checkpoint, which has a long reach,  

I got on that bike, and I felt too stretched  out, too Tour de France-y. And so I tried the 52,   which felt better. So because I don’t ride  a road bike, I needed a second opinion.

And finally, here’s the pro tip: when we’re at the  Trek Store, I asked if the bike fitter was around,   and they said no, he’s only in on Saturdays. So I  went back on Saturday, and that’s when I met Ivan.  

I asked if he’d mind eyeballing me on both the  52 and the 54 Checkpoint and give me his expert   opinion, and he said sure and proceeded to take us  to the bike fit room, put the bike on the rollers,  

And told me to pedal. Before I got on, he guessed,  “You’re a 54,” but after setting up the 52,   he immediately said, “Oh no, you’re definitely  a 52.” I know. Not only did it feel better,  

But I got an expert opinion to say, “Yes, that is  your size.” And that’s my Pro tip: try to talk to   a bike fitter at the bike shop, and if that person  is not there, go back on the day that they are.

And as promised, let me share the top  recommended bikes from my 50 plus Cycling group. Music. Thank you. The hunt continues; we’ll keep  you updated until we have a bike review.   This is Sturgeon Lake, and this is  Pigeon Lake, where we were this morning.  

And as you come through the locks and go this way  to Fenelon, you’re on your way to Lake Huron. And   if you’re coming down through the locks, you’re  on your way to Lake Ontario, 31 locks away. Today, if you’d like more ride-along videos,  make sure you hit the like button or leave us  

A comment. And keep your eye on the channels as  the hunt for the perfect gravel bike continues.   And finally, if you’d like to go on another  ride with us, here you go. Music. Thank you.