Buying & Riding MY FIRST GRAVEL BIKE // Was NOT What I Expected!

In todays video I bring you on my first ever gravel ride in some of the worst conditions, including cycling in mud and ice with lots of rain and mechanicals! But was it worth it? Find out by watching the video!

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Hello and welcome back to another video as you can already tell by the title and thumbnail of this video I picked up uh myself a gravel bike in the Black Friday sale and today we are going on my first Ride it is currently 8:00 in the morning I’ve just been faffing about out for hours and end trying to get the bike into the car cuz I’ve got some stupid brace thing in here anyway long story short the bike is in the car I’m heading

Over to my parents now um my dad’s going to come with me he’s got a mountain bike is absolutely miserable outside and usually I hate going out in the rain um on my bike even if the floor’s like remote slightly wet I won’t go out just

Cuz I hate it it’s a cube gravel B uh gravel bike and yeah let’s go get stuck in to some graveling and see what it’s all about see if it’s for me I’m going to up I’m going to get right all right it’s a waiting game it’s a waiting Game oh I had a m this morning couldn’t fit the bike in my car cuz I had that stupid brace thing so I have to take the brace off and I’m making you another million some more Whi cream on your cake 10 minutes in and I’ve lost my dad

Also having some gear troubles and bouncing around all over the place I think we’re I put a one by chambering on um without maybe without um putting like a clutch rear derer on it’s they’re bouncing about when I get to like the bigger gears they’re just bouncing they go did

It again it’s just bouncing about everywhere which is a bit annoying so I’m going to kind of have to stay in a hard gear the whole time but oh well Glorion you got something that I really need something special we all feed I think we’re about 45 minutes into a ride um gears are still slipping hell of a lot need to figure that out cuz it’s kind of making the ride oh no a little bit less um enjoyable when

You can’t use half your gears so definitely need to figure that out before the next ride um but overall quite enjoying it very very muddy need some mud guards definitely oh hang on almost just went into that which is why I had to stop but as I was saying um so

Far I’m actually really enjoying it it’s it’s nice to be able to go Outdoors on a bike um still riding roads and stuff but riding around and getting a bit of exercise in and doing like my long ride without having to worry about destroying my bike or the weather or anything like

That um so yeah enjoying it so far but I am only 45 50 minutes in and I’m try to push myself up a hill cuz right I’m going to get cracking again I’ll catch up of you soon work Dr you can bite my wings off and drag me

Out he’ll always be my keeper my holy R you can make enough mil watch me we’re now about an hour and a half in um quite hard near us have finded like plenty of gravel routs or like off-road routes that are quite nice this one’s really nice but it doesn’t last very

Long but actually going to be over that side of the river in a second um something else I forgot to mention was which you probably spoted I’m not wearing like cleats um couple of reasons and I do want to wear cleat cuz I think it’ll make it um

A bit nicer and a bit easier to be in but I’ve got some really nice expensive White Road shoes and that’s it and I really don’t fancy destroying them so that’s why I’ve not used cleat so far I’ll probably get some mountain bike ones eventually but in a minute just

Using flat pedals um which is still fine and still enjoyable um it is freezing as well today it’s like you know two or 3 degrees proper cold but this this path’s lovely actually really nice and Scenic as well it’s lovely anyway my dad’s miles ahead so

Best catch up and then I’ll catch up to you shortly times you will be my keeper my only way out got to make enough mil what you want watch you you we KN we are 2 and 1/2 hours in we just decided to quickly stop for a coffee and

Now it has decided to start chucking it down it’s like feels like proper graveling now it’s a miserable weather it’s not nice it’s freezing it’s made it so much colder or just being in the hot weather uh hot weather in the hot coffee shop and having a warm coffee

That might be what made it um made me feel freezing I’m freezing now could barely speak you know when your jaw starts going like numb anyway I don’t think we’ll do a huge amount more maybe another hour or so bit longer than we anticipated but I feel like gravel always is always longer

Than you think it’s going to be so um yeah not much more and then ride finished and I will summarize how my first gravel ride What you got that something I need the special thing we are oh God I can’t see if there’s any [Applause] potholes deeper than I was expecting not sure if you could tell that was all ice that’s how cold it is also with this rain I’m soaking wet

My whole body is numb we’re over 3 hours in it’s testing me now this is where I’ll be a to really tell if I do enjoy graveling or not if I can still enjoy it now oh God more ice that is the ride complete I am more

Than cold I’ve not been this cold in a very ever maybe actually like numb everywhere um ended up being like 32 mil 3 hours and 10 minutes I think um yeah I’m going to get warm and then I’ll wrap up the video right I’m finally warmed up

I’ve been driving for 20 minutes had the heat and on full blast mainly on my feet cuz my feet were wet and soaked and numb um so yeah let’s uh round up the video talk about my first ever experience graveling um did I enjoy it was it fun

Would I do it again do I recommend you do it apart from the weather being absolutely freezing it chucking it down um which made me even colder I actually think it was extremely fun and and to be honest with you if I was out on a road

Bike in this like this weather and this conditions I’d have just gone home like there i’ would have hated it at every second like without a doubt would have just gone home um but I didn’t I actually was still like enjoying it by the end I was like uncontrollably shivering

So yeah well that’s my own fault I should have just you know worn better clothes worn more thermal stuff or more layers so overall I I genuinely had a really good time and can’t wait to get out on it again it makes me want to do like like tour ing like actually go

Around here where I live it’s it’s quite hard to find like nice gravel rots me and my dad were just basically thinking of any gravel path or that we could think of and then just kind of looping gravel paths together whereas I think if you had like a really

Nice long route or something or like a a point to point that you could do I think that would make a big difference as well and that would make it even more enjoyable so um yeah really really enjoyed it can’t wait to do it again if you haven’t tried it um definitely get

Out and give it a go it’s more interesting than Road like road bikes they can be very serious and yeah and they’re just a yeah like you’re just looking at a road the whole time you constantly checking power numbers or heart rate numbers and and and gravel

Riding it’s way more leisurely it’s um you can have a chat with someone there’s no cars about you’re not constantly worried about cars don’t have to worry about potholes or hitting gravel or mud you just go straight through it which is great fun it’s like being a kid again

And just riding around having fun so I really enjoyed it um yeah and if you haven’t tried it definitely recommend giving it a go um I think going out of friends as well is is definitely makes it better or or family or whatever um so yeah overall great day and yeah that

Will round up the video I hope you enjoyed it if you did please make sure you like comment any questions you have down below or if you know why my thing was jumping about loads I think it is index correctly I checked it before and

It was fine so I don’t think it’s that um then yeah again let me know in the comments below and I will see you next time for some more Triathlon related content peace