Is This The Only Road Bike You Need? | Cycling Weekly
What is an all-road bike?
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00:00 Endurance bikes have been a staple of the road bike market for about 20 years,
00:04 following the release of the Specialized Roubaix back in 2004, a bike which is still very much a
00:10 fan favourite even today. This corner of the market is changing though, just without the
00:16 usual grey big fanfare that the industry likes to create. The presence of all road bikes is
00:22 certainly being felt more strongly, and the term keeps on creeping up. But it's left me questioning,
00:28 what is an all road bike? What is an all road bike for? And what does this mean for the future
00:34 of the beloved endurance bike? I think a good place to start is, what is an all road bike?
00:46 Well, annoyingly, that in itself is a bit of a tough question, but you could sum them up as 80%
00:52 road and 20% everything else. It's a very hard category to define, and this lack of a clear
00:58 definition has resulted in a mishmash of wishy-washy bikes that are also trying to figure themselves
01:05 out. Brands that do have dedicated all road bikes will usually claim that they embody a few
01:10 different characteristics, those being a slightly more relaxed geometry over and above their
01:16 endurance counterparts, more tyre clearance, and potentially more mounting points. Not forgetting,
01:22 of course, more forgiving gear ratios and wider tyres. Now, while those seem like a set of pretty
01:28 clear and understandable criteria, things get slightly more muddled when you go a little deeper.
01:34 For example, the Cannondale Synapse LTD is offered in an all road build. So, what we have here is
01:41 clearly an endurance bike, but one which has been decked out with a 2x GRX groupset and 30mm wide
01:48 tyres. So, is an all road bike just a different specification? And the answer to that is,
01:54 in some cases, yes. Some may define an all road bike as just being for terrible roads,
02:00 like gravel, or perhaps they're just the perfect winter bike. I think one thing is clear. This
02:06 newfangled all road category can to some extent be left to the consumer to categorise themselves.
02:13 It could be an endurance bike with slightly more forgiving gear ratios and tyres which take
02:17 advantage of modern day clearances, which when you look at the Synapse, is up to a claimed 35mm.
02:23 It could also be a dedicated all road build, much like this brand new Vitus Venom that you can see
02:29 behind me, which does have a slightly altered geometry compared to the Xenium, which is the
02:34 brand's endurance offering. The key thing with this new Venom is that Vitus do offer the bike
02:39 in a couple of different builds. We have the road going 105 Di2 build, and we also have a 1x
02:46 SRAM Force build. Another example is the Ridley Griffin. Now, the Belgian brand says that the
02:52 Griffin can be used as a road and as a gravel bike, with the geometry sitting between the road
02:57 going Fenix and the gravel going Kanso Fast. When you look at it, all that really needs to change
03:04 is the tyres to truly optimise how the bike feels on the surfaces you want to take it on.
03:09 With something that is so vague and lacking in definitions, sometimes it's easier to look at
03:20 what something certainly isn't. So, in this case, an all road bike would likely never have suspension,
03:27 dropper posts or 650b wheels. The former is the only one on that list that might change.
03:33 If Specialized ever decided to go into the all road space, I'm sure it would incorporate a
03:38 future shock in the same way that the Diverge and the Roubaix does, but that is just pure speculation.
03:45 Dropper posts and 650b wheels will be reserved for gravel bikes and other off-road bikes. Now,
03:51 that's not to say that you can't fit them retrospectively,
03:54 it just wouldn't make too much sense to do so.
04:02 So, what is an all road bike actually for? The obvious answer is that it's for riding,
04:08 but going a little deeper once more, it's again clear that we as the consumers can dictate what
04:15 we want the bike for. It could be anything from velvet like tarmac to fairly loose gravel.
04:21 My recommendation would be that these bikes are reserved for either longer days in the saddle,
04:26 roads of a poor quality or for riders who genuinely love to mix it up and do a little
04:31 bit of everything, including some gravel, with the severity of what you can tackle
04:36 being dependent on the tires that you're running. You also cannot ignore that an all road bike
04:42 would make for a pretty wicked winter bike. With big, comfy, confidence-inspiring tires,
04:48 big gear ratios for the ultimate zone two rides, and mounting points galore for all the
04:53 mudguards and racks that you could ever want, they really are very well suited to taking on
04:58 a pretty harsh winter. From everything I've said so far, the term jack of all trades comes to mind,
05:04 but as the full saying goes, a jack of all trades is a master of none, but often better
05:10 than a master of one. So, if you're after pure versatility, then a bike which does attach itself
05:16 to the all road category may be what you're after. If a bike like this allows you to consolidate and
05:22 run just a one bike garage, then maybe that would enable you to get something with a higher
05:27 specification and also create a little space at the same time.
05:30 What does this mean for the longstanding trusty endurance bike though? Well, I believe that we'll
05:42 see brands go a number of different ways. First being that they continue to make endurance bikes
05:47 with more claims about compliance and reductions on rider fatigue. We could see pure endurance
05:53 bikes continue to open up tire clearances, although I don't think it'll get much wider
05:57 than 35 millimeters. There's also a very strong possibility that endurance bikes will now start
06:03 to come in more all road build specifications, much like the LTD version of the Synapse.
06:09 When I look at Pinarello that recently released its X-Series range of bikes,
06:14 it was very quick to say that the new range is certainly not an all road bike and that it is
06:20 a performance endurance bike. So it's likely that some brands will continue to stay true
06:26 to what an endurance bike is at its very core without any dilution. Secondly, I think we could
06:32 see some bikes which have historically been endurance bikes morph into all road bikes,
06:37 leaving exclusively paved surfaces behind them. All road bikes are here to stay and that is no
06:44 bad thing. They offer incredible versatility and given how many bikes seemingly fall into the
06:50 category and the breadth of ability they cover, with some more tailored for the road and others
06:55 for off it, there really will be something for everyone. As a consumer, when looking to purchase
07:01 a bike in this space, we just have to consider what terrain we want to ride on and from there,
07:07 you'll be able to find a bike that fits your requirements. Since an all road bike can just
07:12 be a change of an endurance bike specification, they really aren't a world apart from what we
07:17 already have. You may even already own an all road bike in the form of a modern day endurance bike,
07:23 which is just waiting for a change of tyres and gear ratios. Perhaps in this modern day world
07:29 of cycling, we no longer have hard boundaries on what category a bike really falls into. Maybe
07:35 we need to think about drop bar bikes as a spectrum rather than three or four hard categories.
07:41 At one end, you'd have aero bikes followed by do it all race bikes, followed by climbing bikes,
07:46 then endurance bikes, then all road bikes, then racy gravel bikes, and then adventure gravel
07:51 bikes, which is probably when you'd then move towards hybrids and other straight bar bikes.
07:56 The nice thing is that no matter what type of cycling you enjoy doing most,
08:01 in theory, it means there will be a bike out there which exactly fits your requirements.
08:06 The flip side to that though is that it may take some time to track it down given
08:11 the vast selection of options. What are your thoughts on all road bikes? If you have any
08:16 questions about them, then please do drop them down below. If you enjoyed the video,
08:20 then please do drop it a like, subscribe to the channel for more content, and I will see you again
08:24 very soon. [00:06:00] [END OF AUDIO]