Updated April 25, 2021
What’s the difference between a cyclocross bike and a gravel bike? It’s a question we see asked a lot, as more and more bikes are launched in the gravel bike niche. Let’s try and clear things up.
According to our resident cynic VecchioJo Burt the difference between a cyclocross bike and a gravel bike is “£200”. It’s a bit more complicated than that.
Bike industry labels for bike varieties often confuse people because they usually don’t refer to discrete categories but to points on a spectrum. That means what’s labelled a gravel bike can be very similar to a cyclocross bike, especially if you don’t dig deep into the specs.
What are they for?
Form follows function so to kick off, let’s look at what these two bike types are for.
Cyclocross is a bike racing discipline that involves riding a drop-handlebar bike on a short, off-road course, usually in a park or similar. Courses include features like mud, sandpits, barriers and steps or slopes too steep to ride, forcing riders to run, as well as easier sections. An international-grade course has to be between 2.5km and 3.5km long. An elite-level cyclocross race lasts an hour and a lap; other race categories are shorter.
A cyclocross bike is designed specifically for this form of racing, and, as we’ll see, its design serves its purpose of going fast, and being able to be carried when the terrain demands.
>>Read more: Buyer’s Guide to cyclocross bikes – how to choose the right one for you
>> Read more: Beginner’s guide to cyclo-cross essentials
While there’s an emerging discipline of gravel racing in the USA, most gravel bikes are not purpose-specific racers. Rather they’re designed for long days in the saddle on a mixture of surfaces and terrains and for riding with various types of luggage on multi-day trips.
The key difference between gravel bikes and old-fashioned touring bikes is the baked-in ability to tackle unsurfaced trails, tracks and dirt roads. People took touring bikes off the beaten track in the era before the mountain bike, but fatter tyres make it much easier and more comfortable. A gravel bike combines the multiple hand positions of a road bike with the go-anywhere abilities of a mountain bike.
What design and feature differences come out of these purposes then?
Frames
A cyclocross frame has to be light, because the bike built around it will be carried. That means pared-down aluminium and carbon fibre frames are the norm.
Gravel bike frames are usually a bit heavier, because they need to be stiff enough to carry loads.
A pure cyclocross frame won’t have eyelets for mudguards or racks, because you’ll never need them for racing. But they’re a feature of gravel bikes because you might want to racks to carry luggage, and mudguards to help keep you dry.
A frame’s geometry — the angles and lengths of its various tubes — determines how it handles, and here there are significant differences.
A cyclocross bike will usually have a head tube of around 73° for quick turns, while a gravel bike’s will be a degree or so shallower for steadier handling. And some gravel bikes, like the Fustle Causeway GR1 with it’s 69° head tube are heading along the path that’s taken mountain bike head tubes down to around 66°.
The riding position is also different, with longer head angles and shorter top tubes on gravel/adventure bikes giving a more upright position.
Out back, a gravel bike will have longer chainstays so there’s heel clearance for panniers. A cyclocross bike typically has 425mm chainstays; on a gravel bike — especially one intended to double as an expedition-touring ‘adventure’ bike they’re as long as 465mm.
Of course this wouldn’t be the bike industry without glaring exceptions to general rules. Specialized’s carbon fibre Diverge gravel bike has cyclocross-style 425mm chainstays to tuck the back wheel in for more traction on steep climbs.
There are also cyclocross bikes with rack and mudguard eyelets, because bike makers recognise that many riders have picked up ’crossers as fast urban pothole-bashers. Many of these bikes have morphed into gravel bikes or adventure bikes in the last couple of years. The Pinnacle Arkose range from Evans Cycles is a good example. It was originally billed as a cyclocross bike, but now has fatter tyres and Evans calls it an adventure bike.
Read more: Buyer’s guide to gravel and adventure bikes plus 16 of the best
Tyres
The rules set by cycle racing’s governing body, the UCI, say cyclocross tyres have to be no more than 33mm wide. There’s usually room in a cyclocross frame for tyres that are a bit wider than that, and there’s room for mud clearance, but gravel bikes will typically take much bigger tyres. Trek fits 2.0in tyres to its 920 adventure tourer, while Mason’s dramatic InSearchOf will take 60mm wide 700C tyres.
However, some, like Cannondale’s Topstone bikes, just go a bit fatter with 37mm tyres, while Kona’s Rove Ltd has 47mm tyres and 650B wheels, the ‘middle’ size used on mountain bikes. Gravel/adventure bike tyres have definitely got wider in the last couple of years, and that big tread energy has widened the gap between them and cyclocross bikes.
Tubeless-ready wheels are increasingly common on both cyclocross and gravel bikes. Tubeless tyres aren’t susceptible to pinch punctures caused by the tyre bottoming out on the rim — there’s no tube to pinch. They can therefore be run at lower pressures. That means more grip and a comfier ride off road and on.
Gears
Classic cyclocross race gearing combines a 46/36 chainset and a medium-wide cassette like an 11-28. You don’t need the high gears of a road bike because you won’t be zooming downhill at over 40mph, but you still need fairly low gears for climbing the course’s more rideable slopes.
Gravel bikes have wider range gearing, but may sacrifice some top end to get lower ratios at the bottom. A 48/31 or 46/30 chainset with an 11-34 cassette is common, and a few bikes widen the range with a 42/28 chainset, or use the ability of the GRX400 derailleur to run an 11-36 cassette. Others go for the simplicity of a single-chainring system with 11, 12 or even 13 rear sprockets.
If you’re an old fart like me, you might be surprised that almost no gravel/adventure bikes have a triple chainset. You could get a bigger range with an extra chainring, but even I have to admit you get a pretty useful range when you combine a 42/28 with an 11-36 cassette.
For workshop tinkerers there are so many reports of 105 and Ultegra GS rear derailleurs and GRX derailleurs for double chainsets shifting fine across 11-40 cassettes that it’s now almost a standard recommendation. a 46/30 chainset and 11-40 cassette is a combination you’re unlikely ever to see on the start line of an elite cyclocross race.
Brakes
If the UCI hadn’t given the green light in 2010 for cyclocross racers to use disc brakes, the gravel bike category might never have happened — or at least not happened so quickly.
Every gravel bike we can find uses disc brakes. As well as their advantages in stopping power and consistency in the wet, discs have a very big advantage for bikes ridden on lousy surfaces: they’re not affected by rim damage. This is well worth the extra few grams over cantilever brakes.
A tiny handful of cyclocross bikes are still available with cantilever brakes, but cyclocross bikes almost universally use discs too, for much the same reasons.
The big picture
In their purest form cyclocross bikes have a very narrow purpose and that leads to very specific frame design and features. They’re brilliant for cyclocross racing but limited as all-rounders by their lack of provision for mudguards and racks, their relatively narrow gear ranges and inability to take very fat tyres.
For many, the riding position of a pure cyclocross race bike will be too aggressive; fine for an hour and a lap exploring the upper limits of your aerobic range, less ideal for a full day exploring lanes and trails.
Gravel bikes take ideas from cyclocross bikes and throw in fatter tyres from mountain bikes and hybrids, wider gear ranges from touring bikes and all-day riding positions from sportive bikes. The details of the mix vary between manufacturers, but they’re clearly a new, distinctly separate breed.
If you fancy expanding your riding to include dirt roads and trails, but want to get there on the road, the good news is you have plenty of choice. Think about the riding position you prefer, how you’re going to carry luggage — if at all — and the gears you need and take it all into account when you make your choice.
42 thoughts on “Cyclocross v gravel bikes: get to know the clever differences that set them apart”
Way too many labels are
Way too many labels are marketing nonsense. I ride various mountain bikes on all kinds of terrain without any issue, they’re not not ‘all mountain bikes’ or whatever category comes out this week. As for gravel bikes, tested a few of them and bought a CX bike and ride it even with 28mm tubeless road tyres in the rocky and technical Dark Peak and have one my fastest times down a local Roman Road on that same bike with 32mm near slicks. Left most of those on full sus MTB bikes for dead on one ride and was only 0.7% slower than when riding a full sus 29ner that cost 3 times as much. It has sensible gearing too, 50/34 – 11/32. Thought about putting 40mm Nanos on it to make it a ‘gravel’ bike, but it’s so very competent with skinnier tyres and sensible pressures that tubeless allows, I’ve not bothered yet. Maybe when I get a third wheelset for it I’ll add a pair of them just because.
The other bikes hardly get used any more, as this is very quick on road and makes the boring off road section [fire roads etc] fun and the fun bit even more fun! So as MTB rides from home invariably have road sections and road rides have a habit of wandering off [the actually really rough in places] tarmac this is as close to the the one bike to do it all as you can get. With one little exception. It’s a Specialised Crux, so to empahasise it’s for racing there are no mudguard eyelets which are actually really handy for keeping the crap off you in Winter or British Summers for that matter. Something discretely present on most of the rival bikes, which didn’t ride or fit as well, so I had to make that compromise.
imajez wrote:
Get the Nanos, they’re a riot to thrash around on.
Many bikes, very few
Many bikes, very few differences. Marketing tells you that you need a slightly longer wheelbase or a higher BB shell. They tell you you need 2mm more clearance or you cages need to be positioned higher. You know what you need? Skills. That comes with time and practice. Most bikes will do most things and I can see (breaking the V 12 rule) that 3 bikes would accomplish most things for most folks but if you wanted to believe the indutry they would have you with 7-9.
What are those three?
1. Road
2. Mtb
3. Something in between. Just how in between is up to you, your style of riding and local geography.
shotbybarry wrote:
Yes, most bikes will do most things quite happily (within reason), but a slight variation can make a big difference to your enjoyment.
I have a hardtail and a full sus mountain bike. Why? because I can flick the hardtail around a bit more as it responds to my commands pretty much instantly, but I get beaton up on it a lot more, while the full sus gives me more confidance when it comes to throwing the bike down drops etc, and it’s less fatiguing.
I also have two road bikes – one a typical road bike with aero ish wheels and fairly agressive position, the other essentially a cross bike set-up for road because it has a slightly less agressive position, bigger tyres and mudgaurds. The road bike is more flickable and faster, the cross bike more relaxed and comfortable. On a 70 mile loop I sometime do there will only be 20 mins or so difference between the two, but the different bikes give me a different take on the same ride. This I value enough to own the two bikes.
Do I need two road bikes and two mountain bikes, absolutely not, but I enjoy have them and the different riding options/styles they offer me.
So for all the different genres and niches that are being pushed right now is a bastard for anyone new to bikes or for the stores trying to explain stuff to customers, but it’s great for people like me who appreciate the subtlties of bike design how a small change can have a big effect.
shotbybarry wrote:
Yup. I’m a happy bunny this evening. I just got 9th overall on a Strava segment. I was aiming to match my e-bike on a shortish hill and got a good run at it. That is with a 1986 steel Raleigh racing bike. That’s at the end of a day that involved 2 jobs and a ride into Brighton in the morning because it was close ans I felt like it (contract work that lets you cycle around a lot is fun). I’m pretty sure that the rest of the top 10 didn’t get that kind of speed on a £20 bike (OK with maybe a couple of upgrades) with 2Kg of locks on them.
Most of it is practice. I’ll happily take that bike down muddy trails as well, even with the current 25mm tyres on it.
I bought a Ridley x-Bow 1317A
I bought a Ridley x-Bow 1317A Cyclocross bike from Wiggle for £675 a few years ago for commuting its been really good. The only thing that bugged me a bit was the brake wear (it has TRP CX9s) because for year round commuting and being 90 Kilos I trash wheels like they are going out of fashion – it is a quick bike though.
Last week I bought a GT Grade in the Chain Reaction Sale (£649, less British cycling discount and Quidco, it worked out a ridiculously cheap £570-ish), so now I have a Gravel bike to compare it to,
My experience has been that the Cyclocross is much more “twitchy”, around corners and on long downhills, still fun to ride on a commute though, its a good blast. The brakes are quite “on-off” though. You feel as though you are sat “on top” of the bike.
The GT Grade is completely different handling, much more like a road bike. You feel sat “in” the frame. It has a long wheelbase, compared to the Ridley and vs my other road bikes. Previous hills that I would hesitate to descend on I can now do much quicker, with no issues, without really trying. It is a monster at descending. The brake discs are TRP Spyres and are much more forgiving of over cooking it into a corner.
I used to think the Cyclocross bike was the answer to “the one bike that can do it all”, but its not, its the Gravel bike.
I have both and have done cx
I have both and have done cx races on both. The difference is in the handling in the tight turns.
I love it when people
I love it when people complain about being given more choice
Bring it on, I say. There’s nothing that says you have to have one of each – what it does mean that there’s a bike that almost certainly meets all of your needs – that’s not “marketing nonsense” or whatever other complaint people want to make – it’s called “consumer choice” and I love it.
Meanredspider wrote:
I was thinking just that. I could similarly complain that “mountain bike” is a really vague term. It is, and we’re better off for it. 🙂 The similarly enormous variety in the gravel sector is one of the things that makes it exciting. The bike you want is probably out there!
IMHO, the most important point raised in this article is that crossers are narrowly focussed (would they even exist if it weren’t for the UCI rules?). I mistakenly bought one when I believed Charlie the Bikemonger’s assertion that it woiuld be the perfect thing for the Gravel Dash. It really wasn’t (I really should’ve done my homework). In fact, about the only thing I admire about it is its unerring singlemindedness! YMMV, natch.
Also, beware that a 40C tyre is (a) not that big these days and (b) might leave you with no useful muck clearance if squeezed into a cross frame.
Happy ending: it is now attached to my turbo, and currently ranks as my #1 go-to bike. 😀
I would like a “Gravel”
I would like a “Gravel” geometry bike in titanium with all the eyelets and mounts, so I can make it my one and only road bike. I would have a couple of wheelsets for comfy commuter riding and a set slimmer tyres for club runs/TTs. My Boardman carbon CXR has all these but is a little twitchy(steep head tube angle) when I set it up for club TTs.
One day 🙂
CXR94Di2 wrote:
Exactly this.
Tintow wrote:
Me too, but with Ti fork, otherwise it is meaningless, the dream of Ti is that it the Highlander of materials being bumproof,rustproof,fatigueproof and at the same time relatively light. The CF forks just destroy this dream.
Tintow wrote:
Planet-X Tempest :
http://www.planetx.co.uk/c/q/bikes/gravel-adventure-bikes/Tempest(link is external)
Just got one, and its brilliant.
2 sets of wheels :
– 28c Pro4 Endurance for winter commuting/Sunday rides/Audax – Mudguards On;
– 40C (!!) WTB nanos – mudguards off for off-road fun !!
https://goo.gl/photos/bxeuD4niaEE342K46
alanmc wrote:
Worth considering the Tempest’s Half-sibling, the Alpkit Sonder Camino-Ti: https://www.alpkit.com/sonder/sonder-camino-ti
One of its fathers is Brant Richards (?formerly?) of Planet X/On One fame and you can see the shared DNA.
I’m moving to Scotland from the Fens next year in all likelihood and when I do one of these will likely be high up my shopping list!
Cantab wrote:
Saw a Camino in the flesh, really nice.
ChetManley wrote:
Rode one, very nice indeed.
alanmc wrote:
That Tempest looks lovely – how is the mud clearance with 40mm tyres when the Planet X website says max is a 38?
alanmc wrote:
You really have to pay attention in these categories to geometry, the Tempest seems nice but looks like short stack/steep angles CX geometry to me. I have a Carver All-Road build in progress that is taller and slacker like a touring bike, which was what the bikes I prefer used to be called.
CXR94Di2 wrote:
.. multi post, sorry
CXR94Di2 wrote:
.. multipost
It’s a great idea! A few
It’s a great idea! A few years ago, in search of “one bike for everything”, I bought a CX bike with two sets of wheels: With the skinny tyres and a closely-spaced cassette it does an almost perfect impersonation of a road bike; and with fat tyres and a wide cassette it’s good on trails and bridleways, mud and gravel. Only takes a minute to change over. One of the few bike purchases that I never regretted.
Ditto.
Ditto.
I got a Pickenflick 18 months ago with a compact groupset which looking back on it was a bargain at £1,500. Hardly ever use either my MTB or full road bike, just swap the tyres according to what I’m doing. It’s the best bike I’ve ever had and with a Ti frame rides wonderfully and will last me until the day I die, albeit with a few rebuilds.
my bike shop banned me from
my bike shop banned me from having any more rim brakes after the winter of 2014/5. Harsh maybe, but fair. They pointed out the Diverge range, suggesting that this was the only form of road bike I should be allowed, ‘adventure’ or ‘gravel’ never came into it, just extremely tough and ready to go all the places I do – I like to have a choice of road or path.
Match made in heaven – I did a 45 mile spin around the Chilterns first thing this morning, and it takes all the different road surfaces on offer without complaint, and last week I bagged a reasonable contested quarter mile KoM flat segment on it , at 30 mph for 30 seconds – big following wind obviously, and there’s lots of people who could go faster if they went that way, but the bike doesn’t hang about if you don’t want it to.
For me, that’s a real winning combination. Not ridden my mtb hard-tail since, and my other bike in use is a Pashley Guv’nor, so I’m covered ….
I came at this adventure
I came at this adventure/gravel bike thing from sort of the opposite direction about 5 years ago.
5 in travel mountain bike frame(Salsa–very light, very good) with a 5 inch travel fork.
Put a full uncut steer tube on and a randonneur bar at road height.
MTB gearing(22-32-44/11-34).
Old Shimano 105 shifter/levers pulling v brakes.
Relatively light wheelset currently running 2.5 inch Schwalbe Moto’s.
The whole thing currently sits at 27 lbs.
BUT, my preferred set up is with 1.5 inch inverted tread tires(used to be Avocet Cross II’s–hate it that tire is no more; Schwalbes are okay)
With the suspension set properly, the 1.5 tires are fast, cushioned by the suspension, and really dig on loose surfaces.
Finally, if I wanted to spend a bit more $, I could easily get the weight down to the 20 to 22 lb range.
Most of all it rides great!
I can tackle just about any road surface, including about 90% of the pretty technical, steep, singletrack we have here, and enjoy it.
It really shines on dirt/gravel roads; you can sit in and spin the big ring while floating over the bumps.
Cost effective, too
Had our Gravel/Adventure
Had our Gravel/Adventure bikes made about 10 years ago
Frames are Ti for strength not weight
Had S&S couplings installed for air travel
Did not choose disk brakes; concerned about damage while packing them in hats shell cases
Have ridden them many places across world – great investment
I’ve just ordered a tripster
I’ve just ordered a tripster V2, I will build it up over the next week or so. It seems to have everything I could possibly want from a bike frame. Slack steering, decent stack height for comfy distance riding and huge tyre clearance, and its titanium 😀
I ride a Jamis Renegade but
I ride a Jamis Renegade but yeah this Gravel bike thing can be a little poorly defined.
A trek 920 is nothing like my Jamis. The 1st gen Diverge didn’t have clearances for ‘proper’ gravel tires. The Light Blue Robinson is a light tourer/ audax bike, but rides nicely off road.
Early gravel raves were a run what you brung thing. Cross bikes, touting bikes, races were won on road bikes.
Gravel bikes now though are, in the main, practical, versatile bikes and I love mine. You don’t need to go out and buy one though.
I’ve just put an order in for
I’ve just put an order in for a new Ridley X Trail Adventure bike to replace my CX bike for the commuting. Like the idea of the adventure bike frame as i have another set of wheels to use for commuting and then at the weekend 650b wheels back on to hit the trails on the local windfarm.
Companies are just bombarding us with choices and the wifes don’t like it when you tell them you need another bike to satifsy another niche!
BrianMcMahon wrote:
She should be pleased you don’t need another wife for another niche.
I accept that there’s an
I accept that there’s an accepted standard in any bike category, but gravel bike is still so vague. DK200 winning bike this year has front and rear luggage mounting points, but then there’s also far more aggressive gravel race bikes, but then there’s off road touring bikes. Now the Domane is a gravel bike with 30c tires apparently (which is fine, you can ride loads on that).
I have a gravel bike, which isn’t going on gravel until it dries up. I had 2 different gravel bikes a few years back; a cross bike and a modified Boardman hybrid (which was a blast).
TL;DR version – literally anything can be a gravel bike, just ride it on gravel.
“you might be surprised that
“you might be surprised that no gravel/adventure bikes have a triple chainset“
Marin Four Corners defo fits the (vaguely defined) category and is a Sora 3×9 triple.
The ‘subtle difference’?
The ‘subtle difference’?
I don’t know, what is the difference between cyclocross and £rav€l…?
Disk? You mean disc brake?
Disk? You mean disc brake?
Trickytree1984 wrote:
maybe he was thinking of floppy disks at the time..
So basically, gravel bikes
So basically, gravel bikes are boring, heavy versions of cyclocross bikes or boring heavy versions of touring bikes with bigger tyres.
Why would anyone want one of these, just buy a faster CX or old school tourer.
To put that another way, fast
To put that another way, fast tourers that are more offroad capable, or more forgiving CX bikes which aren’t going to break you if you ride them for more than an hour at a time.
It’s just a different balance of priorities.
My gravel bike is more aggressive than a conventional tourer, more suited to long rides than a pure CX racer, more capable of handling offroad jaunts than I have the handling skills to take full advantage of and, at ~9kg for a titanium framed bike, it’s not exactly a porker. It won’t replace my carbon “fast” bike, but for everything else it’s a pretty damn good option.
It just boils down to tyre
It just boils down to tyre size, a 33mm tyre works to a certain level but most of the time punctures and flats were more likely with the thinner tyres i found when using my old Cannondale Crux.
After just coming back from Kielder i would of found it a lot harder riding 33mm tyres rather than the 40mm ones that my topstone allows for.
Prosper0 wrote:
No, not really.
More than happy with my
More than happy with my Cannondale Super X Force 1 ( 1×11 ) for the local canal network ( +60 miles ) and The Severn Way. Just changed to 40mm tubeless knobbly tyres and never looked back.
This is all just marketing –
This is all just marketing – None of it and would stand up to empirical analysis.
Take these bikes and put their geometries on a spreadsheet, plus the adjustment possibilities, the supposed gravel bike, CX bike, endurance road bike, all-in-one road bike etc. Its all just one huge cloud and totally all over the place.
My old Marin San Rafael with
My old Marin San Rafael with correct tyres would be great gravel bike. More trail than city. Steel, STX crank with lower gearing than later models, 42/32/22, 38c tyres and toe clips, loved it.
My off-the-peg Vitus
My off-the-peg Vitus Substance gravel is the best general bike I have ever had. It came with nondescript steel tubing, Sora 9 speed double 48/32, 32 cassette, TRP Spyre cable discs. It cost £650 at Chain Reaction in November 19 and was verey well prepared. Fantastic, and it’s only 5% slower than the Merlin titanium Ultegra 9 speed triple with rim brakes, 25 mm tyres- over a couple of hours. I suppose that percentage would increase over a long day but I don’t have the statistics for that yet. The most important features are the wider tyres and the discs.