The main thing to understand about gravel bikes is there aren't set definitions or standards. Depending on where you live there may be some trends affecting gravel bike design, but what type of gravel are we talking about anyway? Deep gravel, fast gravel, rocky gravel, muddy gravel? Each of these factors will affect the design of the bike. The gravel bike is a versatile machine that is designed to work well on a variety of surfaces and conditions, but it might have been designed with a specific or different use in mind.

Featured brands

Breismeister
Fat Chance
McGovern
Triton
Vlad

Breismeister

Doug Breismeister:

Purpose and inspiration
First off I want to say that I love the evolving category of Gravel, allroad, mixed surface bike! On a spectrum it could be from a 700x30c Strada Bianca machine to a front suspension Monster-Cross bike. This bike is somewhere in the middle. I made it for myself as an experiment, as in; “If I could only have one bike.”

Where I live, I ride road during the week in the parks and “mixed surface” or all trail on the weekends.  To accommodate this type of riding I wanted a racy road bike with big tire capability, and frame-bags/3 bottles for the occasional epic excursion.

This bike is pretty big (62 cm effective seat tube, 60 cm effective top tube), has racey road geometry (74 degree head tube, 47mm rake gravel fork, 70mm BB drop) and clearance that will accommodate a 700x40c gravel tire, 650bx50c tire in order to take on fairly rough trail and a 700x30c tire for fast road rides. It also has 425mm chain stays.

Obviously this isn’t a new concept, I was able to do a similar thing, minus the racy road geometry, on my steel, disc Salsa La Cruz (2001) long before bikes like the OPEN U.P. refined this type of versatility into a high-end machine.

Favorite features
My bikes are all fillet brazed steel, in this case a mix of Columbus LIFE and Zona tubes.I’m particularly proud of small details like the bi-laminate seat stay cluster with a seat post binder with replaceable threads that I milled out of bar stock. I always like to paint the frame set, seatpost and stem. I feel like this is really nice way to pull a bike together as a machine rather than a frame and collection of components. it’s also just an excuse to use more color!

Frame tube and component selection
Bags are made locally in Bushwick Brooklyn by MER bags.As far as component choice goes; SRAM ETAP Hydro Wifli 11-32, chainrings 52,36 (and 50,34 sometimes). Wheels are thru-axle Chris King/ENVE, stem, bar, post are Enve.  Fork is Columbus because it has the clearance, flat mount, 47mm rake and fender mounts.  always Selle SMP dynamic saddle for me.

Design challenges
When building for a tapered steerer I prefer to use a tapered, rather than a straight head tube. When building for flat-mount brakes I prefer to mill out the chain stay for the two individual cylinders of the mount. It’s a pain in the neck but it creates a very clean look, where the mount almost disappears. I find this preferable to the truncated chain stays that you get with the long flat mount dropouts that are much easier to build with. I’m using SRAM Etap so the only cables on the bike are front and rear hydraulics. In order to create a very clean bike the rear hydro cable runs through the frame, entering at the Head tube, passing thru the T47 BB (I build with BSA or T47) and exiting on the chain stay.

Additional notes
I’ve been building bikes for 6 years in New York City. I have a background in sculpture and I raced cross country mountain bikes in Washington state in the early to mid 90’s as an amateur on KHS, and FAT City. Both of these things fuel my passion to create what I hope are beautiful handcrafted very contemporary brazed steel bicycles. I love bright vibrant colors and don’t believe that clashing is a bad thing! While this bike may be pretty there’s nothing “precious” about it. It’s made to shred!

 Fat Chance

Chris Chance:

Purpose and inspiration
The bike was built for Kellan who does work for me. Here's what he said about it: “I wanted something unique so for paint I reached out to Sara Slawta (Land Shark) and told her I really like the Stickman we used to do back in the day, but to surprise me, with the caveat that I'm not the biggest fan of the color pink. After I saw how great the frame looked I reached out to ESI who have made custom grips for me before and told them to come up with something wild to keep with the theme. Rounding out the build I went with parts I know always work: White Industries G30 crank, with mismatched extractor bolts; Chris King headset; Thomson cockpit, including their new dirt drops; Brooks C15 saddle; Donnelly PDX tires, great for racing cx in the PNW; Rolf wheels were great to deal with being a semi-local company; and I have always wanted a bike with Di2 so this was the perfect time.”

From my design standpoint, the Chris Cross is all about versatility. With a big selection of tires that can be run on it, it's a "go anywhere and do anything kind of bike." It takes 27.5x2.1" tires or 700c up to 44mm. You could put slicks on it and ride it on the road. How fun is that for one bike to take on all that rubber (or not) and do whatever you feel like on any given day?

Favorite features
This is a great all-arounder. One bike to take you on all kinds of adventures. Bikepacking, gravel grinding, cyclo-cross or tooling around on what roads call you to explore.

Frame tube and component selection
We chose Columbus for the stays. We wanted to make all the room we needed for the tires so the double bend stays on the Columbus tubeset offered an easy way to get around the wider tires. The main triangle is Reynolds 853 for light weight, resilience, and durability. This bike is strong enough to take on pretty much whatever you would hit with a Yo Eddy, our most durable bike. Yet it has the compliance and lively ride of a steel frame.

Additional notes
This bike offers the choice of using several forks in carbon or a CX version of our Yo Eddy fork for bikepacking. The paint job adds a whole other dimension to this bike. Sara Slawta has a great talent. She puts together wild jumbles of colors and textures to tastefully turn a bike frame into an artists canvas. It's a beauty!

McGovern

Chris McGovern:

Purpose and inspiration
The purpose of the Splice bike was to make a versatile mixed terrain drop bar bike. Where I come from that means abundant tire choices and gearing possibilities

Favorite features
I really am pleased with the overall stance of the bike, but I am particularly proud of the chain stay assembly that we designed and produced from a napkin sketch, to CAD, to Mold, to the working part.  It takes a lot of time and resources to pull this stuff off and we nailed it!

Frame tube and component selection
Every tube was made or selected specifically for the bike.  But as I alluded to earlier, the chain stay assembly is the star of this bike.

Design challenges
There were a ton of challenges in this project. I wanted to be able to run 700x45 and 27.5x2.1 tires and have the possibility for 2 chainrings with a 68mm BB shell. That is a big ask even for a metal bike with these requests, but at least with metals you can dimple or bend your way around this complex area. Since the Splice bike is carbon we had to design a specific chain stay assembly mold. I am pumped on the working part and really happy with how folks received the bike at NAHBS.

Additional notes
The build and the paint are always what engage people first.  We had an awesome cockpit and seat post from ENVE composites, 2 sets of carbon clinchers from HiFi (27.5 and 700c), and a new 1x crank and BB from Praxis. We relied on SRAM Force 1 hydro for brakes and SRAM for a majority of the drivetrain. The paint? Well, if you have been around you can guess who painted this bike (and most of my bikes) -  John Slawta of Landshark. We had an awesome time in Connecticut!  The show was great and we are fired up to get back in the shop

Triton

Dmitry Nechaev:

Purpose and inspiration
We never build show bikes. We cannot afford this and we see little point in spending a good amount of money on a bike that might never find its owner. We don't want to be selling it half price on eBay just to get rid of it after the show. There are a lot of people waiting for their Tritons to be finished and we'd rather spend our workforce on those orders.

Thanks to our kind customers: they allow us to show their bikes. They may not be super fancy, but they represent what is actually being ridden by our customers all over the world. They are real bikes. Our passion and our business too. The award winning SSCX Triton is pretty fancy though. It looks good but it's also got a bunch of nice little details. The owner, Ty, is from Chicago. He’s a powerful cyclist who raced at the U.S. cyclocross nationals. He does both single speed and geared races.

Favorite features
Because the customer wants to use the bike for both single speed and geared racing, it is equipped with the Paragon Flanged sliders. This is the world's first bike to have Paragon flanged sliders with flatmount discs. We wanted that long ago and I discussed it with Mark from Paragon. Many nice forks are now available in flatmount version only. Flatmounts are nice and clean. In order to build a bike with adjustable dropouts, the customer would have had to buy a different rear brake as sliders previously existed with postmount only. (Thanks to the Paragon sliders) Now it all works!

Frame tube and component selection
Many people asked us why this bike is equipped with the SRAM Red shifters while being a single speed machine. The answer is easy: this bike is meant to be converted into geared mode in minutes. The shifters are eTap wireless. The owner has two wheelsets and the second one has a cassette. He can install the driveside insert with a hanger and the rear derailleur already mounted on it. Et voila, you get a geared cyclocross bike in no time! With the Wolf Tooth road link it will take a 11-40T cassette easily.

I wish SRAM were making the one-by eTap rear derailleurs with a clutch. Dear SRAM, please do it!  I know this might be coming soon.

The whole frame looks beefy. We used oversized tubing all the way to provide a very stiff frame for a strong rider. We were excited that it ended up at just 7.6kg (16.7 lbs) thanks to super light ENVE CX wheels and team edition Challenge Dune tires.

By the way, this bike has the newest Whisky CX No.9 flatmount forks, and a Russian-made Bjorn carbon saddle.

Design challenges
With building a bike for both single speed and geared use, a pretty short rear end was required but the customer wanted to have clearance for up to 45mm tires. We managed to make it all work with our CNC-machined chainstay plate combined with wide 86.5mm T47 BB shell. We machine those plates in Moscow, at our friend Philip’s shop, who owns a Triton bike too and makes some crazy CNC parts for 2000 horsepower Lamborghinis that are raced in the United Arab Emirates.

We machine BB shells and head tubes in-house and so that was easy. A wider BB shell allows us to place chainstays further away compared to the classic 68mm solution. Another good thing is that this way the bearing cups are hidden internally in the shell and they can take more stress under load (less room for play under power pedaling). Also, the T47 BB shell allowed us to run the brake cable internally all the way from the downtube into the BB shell and exit into the chainstay right before the dropout.

 Vlad

Vlad Dolinsky:

Purpose and inspiration
I built this bike for my 13 year-old son.  We have been riding together a lot and our typical course is about 20 miles long.  The course we ride is about 70% pavement and 30% gravel/off-road with a long 4.5 mile climb. The bike is designed to ride on mixed terrain that has long and steep climbs. My son was the one who inspired me to build this bike. I was amazed by his determination and will power to ride harder and longer with me, so I decided to reward him with the new bike. He picked the purple color and I picked a complementary mango color by using a Chris King headset and Industry Nine hubs. 

Favorite features
This bike rides fast on the road and is very capable to go off-road. The WTB Horizon tires roll fast on pavement with low pressure, and they absorb vibration when riding off-road.  Having a double crankset allows it to switch to a faster gear quicker while riding on pavement.  Also, the 11-speed/34t cassette makes long climbs much easier. The new MRP Baxter gravel specific fork with 40mm of-air sprung travel features a compression damper with three settings that can be adjusted based on the terrain one is riding. The frame was designed to run with 650b x 47 tires, and will accept 700c x 40 wheels as well. The frame bag made by Andrew Wiloid from ATM Handmade Bags is functional as well as aesthetically pleasant. I used Paragon Machine Works rear dropouts that are compatible with the Syntace X-12 system, which provides for higher rigidity as well simple removal of the rear wheel.

Frame tube and component selection
I considered the light weight of the rider and type of riding to make sure that the frame was as light as possible without jeopardizing its strength. I used mixed steel tubing that includes Columbus Life butted tubes (down and seat tubes, both 28.6 OD).  I bent the top tube from straight gauge 4130 alloy steel, 24.9 OD, 0.8 wall.  The components were selected to accommodate the intended road and off-road riding.  The double crankset and 11-speed high range cassette allows for a quick shifting between high and low gears and the MRP Baxter fork dampens the vibration and sharp impacts when riding off-road

Additional notes
This is our standard design for a road/gravel bike with a bent top tube and slightly bent seat/chainstays.  We designed this bike considering the rider’s fit and the bike’s intended purpose.