Most overhyped bike trend?

Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor

Rex kwan Do
Two that come to mind are fat bikes and gravel bikes. I’m going to say gravel bikes for two reasons. If you live in a place with real snow or beach sand fat tires are justifiable. Reason two is that Dylan Johnson basically raced a current version of the John Tomac drop bar mtb from the 90s to very respectable finishes in high profile gravel races. #gravelbikeded .
 
Gravel bikes are a way to escape crowded roads you can bridge rail trails to one another so i think they have a place. A "gravel bike" was my first road bike then after i got a real road bike i put the stock tires back on it.

What i think is hyped is gravel racing i'd rather not be sucking gravel dust for hours when i'm in the sport to be healthy.

Different mtb suspension designs get overhyped saying one is better or not. it squishes up and down you aren't going to notice how many mm it goes forwards or backwards as it moves

27.5 bikes too
 
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Dave Taylor said:
Two that come to mind are fat bikes and gravel bikes. I’m going to say gravel bikes for two reasons. If you live in a place with real snow or beach sand fat tires are justifiable. Reason two is that Dylan Johnson basically raced a current version of the John Tomac drop bar mtb from the 90s to very respectable finishes in high profile gravel races. #gravelbikeded .
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I think you are half right about the gravel bikes. Since newer road bikes now have disc brakes and can accommodate larger tires, there may not be a reason for bike companies to make separate road and gravel bikes, just put gravel tires on the road bike.
 
Interesting discussion......

Having owned a fat bike many years ago, I think the trend has pretty much faded away. I rarely rode it and really only seldom miss owning it. Pretty much the only time it was worth owning was when there was a couple inches of snow on the trails and even then I only rode it a few times a season. So for me, over hyped.

The gravel bike on the other hand, I freaking love. It's not road bike fast on the road but it works well enough to get you to a rail trail, canal etc in a timely manner and is so much more comfortable on those surfaces than a road bike would be. Yes, you could ride a drop bar xc but I don't have the time to be swapping out parts like that multiple times a year. So, if I didn't own one, I'd either just wind up riding my XC MTB or just not ride those paths at all (more likely). Which would be a shame because as @goldsbar mentioned the roads are not that safe.
 
xc62701 said:
Lol.... I'm just busting Dave's balls since that's his response to everything. Try them they are pretty sweet.
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Ok, thought maybe ;-)

I bought a set of the new maxxspeed's but decided that fall leaves were not the time to try them out so I'm saving them for a little longer.
 
Hair Face said:
Interesting discussion......

Having owned a fat bike many years ago, I think the trend has pretty much faded away. I rarely rode it and really only seldom miss owning it. Pretty much the only time it was worth owning was when there was a couple inches of snow on the trails and even then I only rode it a few times a season. So for me, over hyped.

The gravel bike on the other hand, I freaking love. It's not road bike fast on the road but it works well enough to get you to a rail trail, canal etc in a timely manner and is so much more comfortable on those surfaces than a road bike would be. Yes, you could ride a drop bar xc but I don't have the time to be swapping out parts like that multiple times a year. So, if I didn't own one, I'd either just wind up riding my XC MTB or just not ride those paths at all (more likely). Which would be a shame because as @goldsbar mentioned the roads are not that safe.
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It's funny how we all have different opinions. In the only one bike discussion, I would sell my full suspension and happily ride my fat bike everywhere. It's my favorite bike ever!
 
My gravel bike (OBED) was my favorite bike purchase in recent memory. We have a couple mixed-media loops that work in a few parks (including some stuff we didn't know existed). It's a lot of fun. I've heard the suggestion that modern road bikes can pull double duty and ... sort of, I guess. Kind of like All-Season tires, though. Not great at anything.
 
I don't think gravel bikes are overhyped but having nearly 40 years of road riding experience I don't always see the point. Especially now that so many road bikes have disc brakes and can fit fairly large (by road-bike standards) tires. But I also don't have gravel roads near enough to worth buying a dedicated bike for them and if I'm driving to ride - I'm riding a mtn bike. 99% of my road rides start and end at my front door.

Fat bikes are similar to me - if I had the room for one, I'd have one. But I already have too many bikes I don't ride very often.
 
Electronic shifting. Can’t think of a moment where I thought, “Man, I could have really used a battery operated rear derailleur right there.” Same for seat posts. Just more devices to clog up your charging station. Unless you got weak thumbs, I don’t think they offer that much improvement over their cable counterparts.
 
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