Gravel bikes GRVL BKS.
They’re ruining everything.
EVERYTHING.
Oh, sure, I know. “Gravel bikes are actually a good thing because now people can choose more stable and versatile bikes with wider tires and rack and fender mounts.”
Sorry, but that’s a load of crap. We had that already! It was called a “touring bike.”
We also had Instagram already, only it was called “a pad.”
Okay, so I’ve just proved to you conclusively and indisputably that the GRVL BK has given us nothing. NOTHING. Meanwhile it’s ruining everything. EVERYTHING. For example, since a GRVL BK is basically just a pre-suspension (and now, increasingly, post-suspension) mountain bike, which was itself basically just an aggressive flat-bar touring bike, mountain biking is no longer cycling and mountain bikes are no longer bikes, and people are either riding electric motocross bikes and calling it “mountain biking”…
Or, if they’re still actually riding human-powered bikes, the bike is now just a prop to hold onto while they fly through the air:
It’s also ruined road bikes for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that not only has the rim brake road bike completely disappeared, but now people look upon them with abject, animal fear:
“Wait, aren’t those the things they used to force his eyes open in ‘Clockwork Orange?,'” they gasp as they recoil in horror:
And now it’s coming for cyclocross, too. Recently, I mentioned the Gravel/Cyclocross Inversion. Now people want to change the very rules of cylcocross just to make it more convenient for other people with gravel bikes:
Of course, the answer to the question posed in the headline is “No.” The reason for this is simple, and it’s the same reason why the answer to the all of the following questions is also “No.”
- Is it time for ice hockey players to wear crampons instead of skates?
- Is it time for the NBA to lower the baskets and widen the hoops?
- Isn’t the sport of gymnastics a little too judgy and shouldn’t we get rid of scoring?
- Shouldn’t cricket be immediately comprehensible to laypeople?
These things are the things they are and if you change them they become something else. Similarly, cyclocross racing is not gravel racing, or mountain bike racing, or any of the other forms of off-road bicycle racing that came after it and continue to mutate. It’s riding a road-adjacent bicycle on a variety of surfaces circuit with obstacles. So why is the following even a question?
The irony is that 16 years later, that rule designed to make the sport more accessible and inexpensive may be holding it hostage. The idea may have worked back in CX’s heyday when cantilever brakes were the norm and disc brakes were a rarity, but today, with almost every bike running a disc brake setup, a normal set of gravel wheels is too wide to accommodate the thinner tyre for cyclocross. So, is it time for the UCI to loosen the restrictions, or would that lead ‘cross down the slippery slope of turning into gravel or MTB racing and disappearing altogether?
Oh, right, because GRVL. Specifically, GRVL BKS have gotten so ridiculous that “a normal set of gravel wheels is too wide to accommodate the thinner tyre for cyclocross.” Okay, so the bikes have gotten stupid, so what? Why is a gravel trend (GRVL TRND) towards absurdly wide tires that’s only a few years old now supposed to be the wheel standard across all disciplines? Also, presumably a normal set of road wheels (if such a thing even exists anymore) is not too wide to accommodate a cylcocross tire, so what’s the problem?
Furthermore, if you’re a normal person who sucks at bikes–and the vast majority of people who ride them do–then none of these tire width rules really apply to you anyway, so who cares?
It’s worth noting that the restriction does not apply in all races; in the UK and US, the rules are often (but, not always) loosened for amateur fields. Some events will allow any bike – including mountain bikes – check with the organiser before you head to compete.
Trust me, I sucked at cyclocross for years, and I promise you never once did anybody attempt to measure my tires or pay any form of attention whatsoever to any of the equipment I was using:
In fact the only interactions I ever had with race officials were when they pulled me from the course because I’d been lapped.
As for the riders who don’t suck, competing at a high level in any sport is about adherence to regulations, regardless of how arbitrary they may seem. You wear the clothes they tell you to wear, you use the equipment they tell you to use, and you follow the rules they tell you to follow. That’s it! Unfortunately, the difference with cycling is that a lot of fans are also riders themselves, and they project their own consumerist desires on the professionals. Believe me, professional road and cyclocross racers were not asking for disc brakes and electronic shifting–they just use what they’re given and get on with it. The only ones making a big deal about this stuff are the Freds who need equipment to compensate for their own suckiness as well as the suckiness of those around them. (You need that “one finger braking” when the Fred ahead of you one-fingers his own oversensitive dick breaks and takes out like half the group ride.) So I very much doubt they care which tires they’re allowed to use, just as long as nobody else is allowed to break the rules either.
Meanwhile, when you suck you can do whatever you want–like enter a cyclocross race on a Jones with 3″ tires:
[Photo: @shatterkiss]
Okay, fine, if you suck you can do whatever. But what if the tire width regulations are actually hurting participation in the elite races?
“I think we are more than due for an update to the tyre width regulations for UCI events,” says Bill Schieken, founder of CX Hairs and promoter for DCCX and Pan-American Cyclocross Championships. He sees the participant numbers drop hugely during the races that have the tyre width requirements, and believes that the rules are keeping the elite fields in particular smaller than they would be otherwise.
I dunno, I find this rather difficult to believe. It seems to me the reason numbers might drop during a race with tire width requirements is because, as he says, it applies mostly to the elite fields–and it stands to reason that those are small, since as we’ve established, most people suck, and they’re only sucking more as time goes on and we coddle them with equipment. Plus, there have never been more opportunities to pay to suck at riding bikes alongside a lot of other people, whether that’s a corporate gravel race from Life Time, Inc., or your local painfully slow Alt-Conformist Group Ride. I doubt very much shrinking elite fields in cyclocross has anything to do with the elites not having access to 33mm tires, or being unwilling to ride them.
And here we go with the road bike thing again:
Despite loving the 33s personally, Ortenblad agrees. “I can’t say for sure if I think tyre width keeps people from racing CX, but I definitely think that a 33mm tyre feels a bit archaic seeing as I ride 32mm tyre on my road bike now,” he says. “I do constantly think a 35 or 38mm tyre option would be good for cross. I think bumping the max size number a bit would be good for the sport. Obviously, we don’t need people out there on massive gravel tyres, but I think the racing would be a bit faster and maybe more fun on a slightly bigger tyre.”
Why is this a “You can’t use your gravel bike for cyclocross and that’s bad” story and not an “I can now use my road bike for cyclocross and that’s good” story?
And are we really going to pretend elite riders, even the ones who aren’t pros, don’t all have like ten zillion wheelsets?
At the pro level, the 33mm width wasn’t a problem ten years ago. Today, it challenges the very racers the rule was meant to protect: privateers and elites on a tight budget. If an elite racer has a gravel bike, they still will likely need a new wheelset in order to race cyclocross, despite the bikes and tyres being nearly identical. Widen the tyre restrictions, and you potentially widen the pool of athletes showing up to races because gravel teams and gravel privateers could more easily hop into a nearby UCI race with the equipment they already own.
And if this is really a problem, someone should tell some of these poor elite racers that if you’re willing to use cantis you can buy a used cyclocross race bike for less than what a crabon wheelset costs; in fact, you’d probably have enough change left over to buy a pit bike, too. And here’s a little secret for anybody who’s never raced cyclocross:
You don’t need disc brakes in cyclocross because you almost never need to stop.
But no, instead let’s revise everything so that people can use their gravel bikes and ruin it
“Cyclocross is just waiting for everyone to realize that their gravel bike is capable of doing cyclocross,” says Gregory. But while the gravel bike may work well in a local race, the tyre is unlikely to conform to UCI standards. “We shouldn’t have a tyre width rule for amateur categories, and really, I don’t think the pros would go much wider anyway. I can’t imagine Mathieu van der Poel racing a 45mm tyre – maybe a 38mm though.”
But at least they’ll be able to…sell more cyclocross tires?
And Ortenblad makes the most valid point about industry standards: “It seems like gravel only took off because the industry wanted to sell something they didn’t already own… so maybe if we bump tyre sizes up, the tyre industry will at least make some profit on cross again as everyone buys new tyres.”
I dunno, I’m pretty sure everyone was buying new tires every season anyway.
But sure, don’t listen to me, and by next year they’ll be debating whether you should be able to use 50mm, a freehub, and multiple gears in track racing.