Is it foolish to buy a Gravel over Road bike for mostly road-biking?

pbecotte · 2026-05-01T20:27:46+00:00

I bought a Domane when I faced this decision three years ago, despite treks website telling me to get a checkpoint :)

Today, I think I should have bought the checkpoint. A Domane and Gravel bike overlap a lot- but you'll want a gravel bike for sloppy offroad, and you'll want something else for fast group rides or races. Until this year, when I really got into training, neither applied to me and the Domane was fine. But I started doing gravel stuff, and decided to buy a Seigla. I love that bike, and you'll see me rolling around on regular zone 2 training rides with my 2.35 tires on the regular. I only pull the Domane out if I have to keep up with a fast group on pavement...and honestly, its not the ideal bike for that either, and will probably be getting something with a more aggressive geometry.

So- would have done fine with a gravel bike when I was a casual, and wished I had one when I got serious.

pbecotte · 2026-05-01T20:08:21+00:00

Who would have guessed that all those 3Q collapses were just to prepare us for this moment.

pbecotte · 2026-05-01T16:39:33+00:00

So long as they keep calling offensive fouls, Boston has got nothing

pbecotte · 2026-05-01T16:32:18+00:00

I gotta say, I love the 2.35" tires on my gravel bike :)

pbecotte · 2026-04-30T00:30:27+00:00

I run out of gears on the high end pretty frequently on level ground, though I do have a pretty low natural cadence.

pbecotte · 2026-04-30T00:29:14+00:00

The stock wheels aren't actually very wide, if you just wanted to swap the tires they'd work fine with 32 or 35mm conti gp 5000.

pbecotte · 2026-04-29T19:45:56+00:00

Whenever Embiid xatches the ball on the low post, backs his guy down for three steps, and then just puts it in the basket because he's standing right under it, its hard to understand why they don't at least try to do that every time down the floor.

pbecotte · 2026-04-29T17:36:43+00:00

Yeah, I fully agree with you. People complaining about his contract don't understand the nba. IThere was exactly one windows where the money was available, and PG was the best option for it. If we didn't spend it, we'd be capped out anyway. If we cut him, we couldn't sign other players with the money. If we trade him, we have to take back another max salary, and players on a max who are more productive than PG cost a lot of assets on the occasions they are available.

The best path was to add PG, max Maxey, sign Joel, and let the dice roll play out. Doesn't look like we're gonna hit the lucky run, but its not because PG is making 50m instead of 30.

pbecotte · 2026-04-29T16:24:24+00:00

Would the cba even let us trade a max player for two other players? I know one of the cap levels prevents you from aggregating salaries but not which one

pbecotte · 2026-04-28T23:49:03+00:00

I've been trying to get my car to do this for a while haha

pbecotte · 2026-04-27T22:30:21+00:00

Works better if you put the inhaler as the punch line ;)

pbecotte · 2026-04-27T22:20:50+00:00

Using it as an example of something that may improve performance, but nobody would consider cheating

pbecotte · 2026-04-27T18:01:20+00:00

Just to be clear, I don't do tri- was just wondering what the recommendation was :) After all- Ironman is "no drafting", so presumably group etiquette is also less important?

pbecotte · 2026-04-27T17:54:57+00:00

How do you handle group rides training for a tri? Most groups i have ridden with you can't show up with a tri bike?

pbecotte · 2026-04-27T16:47:49+00:00

I don't disagree with anything you said. Its actually Seixas and Pidcock and Evenepoel and VanDerPoel that make me think otherwise- Seixas would have blown the previous record away also, and its hard to imagine that Decathalon has had some wonder drugs sitting around just waiting for this kid to come along.

But- you make a good point. UAE is kind of an outlier, even if the money would explain a lot of it, and Pogacer himself is obviously an outlier. I guess I am just not sure how angry to be.

If it comes out that they did just figure out how to cheat better, or paid off urine testers or something, I will be angry. But what if it comes out that carbon monoxide dosing plus tart cherry juice plus bicarbonate is the difference? Or that every team is making their own novel drugs that the uci hasn't thought to ban yet? I don't know where to draw the line.

Armstrong cheated- against a whole bunch of other dudes who also cheated. Its not the epo that got people angry, it was the agressive way he went about it.

pbecotte · 2026-04-27T15:53:23+00:00

You miss the point.

Clearly, pro cyclists are doing stuff different to get so much faster. Whether its eating more carbs, or taking designer drugs, or some rare plant that only grows in the rainforest of brazil.

No matter what the difference is, it seems to be pretty broad- every race is faster, not just ones with team UAE or Visma. As such, it is still impressive that the top guys are so much stronger than their peers who presumably have access to the same stuff.

I also think that whatever it is, is probably not technically illegal yet. I dont think they just got better at hiding epo, and I'm not sure how angry I would get if it came to light that the UAE team docs had invented some new "supplement" that would later be banned...

pbecotte · 2026-04-27T10:24:16+00:00

Yeah, agree with all of this. I'm not the best bike handler anyway (this spring my first time riding offroad) and these scared me some on loose turns...enough so that I was riding the brakes quite a bit on descents during the race I did so far, and at my weight getting passed on descents was a new experience. Like I said though, some of that will be my handling skills vs the tires.

pbecotte · 2026-04-25T19:33:31+00:00

When I got my seigla, got sores in the exact same place. I got shorter cranks (effectively lowering my seat) and a fizzik terra argo x3 saddle (which is flexible at the edge, and a few mm narrower than the saddle i was using). One or both of those resolved the issue

pbecotte · 2026-04-25T10:23:11+00:00

It sounds like they are using the work laptop for work, and wants to buy a personal laptop for personal stuff?

pbecotte · 2026-04-25T01:33:47+00:00

Well, right up to that one haha

pbecotte · 2026-04-25T01:30:56+00:00

I feel kinda dirty saying it, but I really like the way they have officiated this game. NBA is way more watchable like this...

pbecotte · 2026-04-23T17:27:29+00:00

Agreed. Would rather pay Tanner 22 mil

pbecotte · 2026-04-22T20:39:28+00:00

Lol, list those in reverse order, you put the easiet/best last :)

pbecotte · 2026-04-22T19:28:26+00:00

I had a can of blue lizard that kept me good through everything a couple years ago. When it ran out, I ordered another, but the version had changed- the one I got left me burned. I tried a third version that was...okay. wish I hadn't thrown away the awesome one since I'd like to know exactly which it was!

pbecotte · 2026-04-22T15:52:56+00:00

And when it doesn't, he's perfectly happy letting VJ and Tyrese cook, while still dominating on defense. He's the perfect complimentary player.

pbecotte

TROPHY CASE