Road Vs Gravel: Which Bike Is Better?

[Music] strada bianchi the beautiful tuscan one day race where riders battle it out over a mixture of modern tarmac and traditional gravel tracks that the region is famed for if you've never seen this race well it's exciting unpredictable and nutritional it requires a great deal of skill in order to negotiate the gravel roads and it's well if you want to watch it for yourself both the men's and women's editions are going to be available on gcn plus on demand live and ad free so make sure you check that out but when the pros ride it they use road bikes but it raises a question is that the best bike for the job what about a gravel bike would it be better and crucially would it be faster on those gravel tracks that the race is often won or lost well in a bid to find out myself and man on i've got a pair of rather nice brand new villas and we're going to ride the entire 184 kilometer route well try to um and and see how we get on i mean it's got italian bikes tuscany sunshine guys this is gonna be good isn't it we're here in the piazza del campo in siena which is where the race starts and finishes all 184 kilometers of it it's a cold february morning we're setting off early because we don't have much daylight and this is going to be my longest ride ever if i competed and i said ever and i say if because this isn't any old 184 kilometers this is features a lot of short punchy climbs and 62 kilometers of gravel tracks spread over 11 sectors well manon's going to be riding a villa philante which is an aero road bike similar to what the pros would use and some of them do use that exact bike i'm using avilia rave gravel bike i'm hoping this for my sake is the better choice today and uh well gives me sort of an advantage but anyway we better get going we don't have much time let's do it man boom do it right as mentioned the 184 kilometer route starts and finishes in siena it then heads south into the rolling landscape of tuscany taking on 11 gravel sectors often hitting double-digit gradients the gravel sectors or sterati as the locals call them total 63 kilometers a third of the race and the longest and most technical is sector 8 the 11.5 kilometer monte sante marie the first one though is a solid way to get warmed up for the hardships that await it's 2.1 kilometers long and perfectly straight we're on the first gravel sector now and the terrain here at strada bianchi has allowed many different types of riders to do well in the race so climbers punchers rulers time trials they've all done well here in the past and when you combine the the gravel sectors with the short punchy climbs it's like sort of having parry roubaix and the tour of flanders rolled into one you need to have a lot of technical skill in order to negotiate the tough gravel sectors and then add the beautiful tuscan scenery into the mix well it's a recipe for for success and that's why i just absolutely love it [Music] strada bianchi is actually a lot younger than you might think the first edition was only back in 2007 and having watched past editions on the tv it's always been a ride that i've wanted to come and do it's almost like a bucket list ride and i mean it's a bit so real being here having watched it on the tv and on the white roads it's great if you'd like to ride the route that we're doing today well you can do it's the 184 kilometer men's elite route and there's a link to it in the description below to the gcn commute page and we both fitted power meters to our bikes today so that we can compare our relative power output on different sections of the course because it's really interesting to see how much more work if more work say manon has to do on the gravel compared to me and how much more work i have to do on the tarmac sections compared to manon [Music] this is the villia philante an italian superbike and pure performance it's built how the world's best athletes win some of the most prestigious bike races out there with over 100 years of experience poured into this bike not only is it all about aerodynamics but it's also super lightweight coming in at just 7.2 kilograms and i've got sram access groups on there with hydraulic disc brakes as well while this bike might not have as much clearance as ollie's does i can still fit 30 millimeter tires onto here which i think is well plenty big enough for a ride like today and but today i've got 28 millimeters on and they seem to be doing the job [Music] i'm riding the villa rave which is a performance focused gravel bike built for racing it's got much of the same dna as manon's philante but it's more versatile so the big difference is it's got clearance for up to 42 millimeter tyres i've gone for 35 millimeter pirelli cincuratos today to cope with the gravel the reason for that is well i wanted to get close to the uci limit although technically the eci limit is 33 millimeters but uh uci you got no jurisdiction here i'm going to ride what i want [Music] it comes in a range of builds some are more road focused some are more gravel focused and the one i've gone for is actually a more road focused build so it's got jorah ace di2 on it and the reason why i've done that and not gone for an out and out gravel one is because i figured if you know someone were to use a gravel bike in strada bianchi they're not going to want an out and out full gravel bike with the the one by chainset and the massive wide flared bars it's just too gravel so this is kind of the halfway house it's got nice narrow aero cockpit like a road bike it's got a road group set with a nice racing double chain set and the biggest difference is i've just swapped the road tyres for junkie boys and it's got the same wheels as man ons actually they're rather nice aero filament wound carbon wheels uh well villia's own brand very nice the frame is 950 grams compared to 870 grams for man ons now that's a difference of 80 grams and well i mean that's that's not much at all i mean we've we've done experiments which show the impact of weight on a climb and that really is marginal [Music] oh this is incredible you have to come here and ride it having ridden a couple of gravel sectors now i think it's important we talk about comfort because it's something that's immediately become obvious this bike has considerably more comfort than manon's the bigger tyre volume contributes a lot to that because where you can it gives more cushion but also you can run them at lower pressure and then that has an added bonus of when we go around tight corners on the loose gravel just so much more grip too [Music] we're on a nice flat section of tarmac now and my my bike feels like a tractor mine feels lovely yeah compared to you know what a normal road bike and so i think we should do a little experiment to see sort of how much more power i'm having to put out so if you try and hold 200 watts yeah and i'll see what i do riding next to you okay so i'm around 200 now right i'm 230 220 what are you at now 200 220 225 306 220 215 oh 215. yeah still 200. you're around 20 25 what's higher yes well i mean a couple of things for that your bike is more aerodynamic you're more aerodynamic than me you're a bit smaller is that a compliment yeah i thought you were the aero king no but that's uh the biggest difference by far is going to be the tires yeah and it's the rolling resistance i mean science suggests that yeah it's going to be about 20 watts between these specific two models of tire so yeah it's uh pretty big be interesting to see how it compares when we're back on the gravel yeah got those chunky boys on yeah [Music] we're on the third gravel sector now and i think we should repeat that experiment we just did so 2 30 i'm doing 2 to 11 to 17. so still a bit lower yeah you're still lower well that's interesting it's a bit counterintuitive but i guess it makes sense because i guess it shows that the rolling resistance is still lower on that tyre it's just you've got less grip yeah and that's where the difference probably is so yeah i think when we start going around some technical corners and uh trying to corner at speed on this stuff or going up steep loose climbs that might might be where the difference is and there's another point to notice like this bit is quite tame gravel but some of the other sections have been loose stones everywhere and you've gone around the corner okay and i've just been like flipping it outside bambi on ice everywhere [Music] 70k to go now man on longest ride you've ever done how you feeling i felt better i have to be honest but i'm going to get to the finish this panini is going to get me it's going to get you there um a few strawberry facts for you so most prolific men's winner is uh fabian cancellara but he won it before the uci pro race most prolific women's winner is uh anna meek van verton uh also laura mappanunu um 10 out of the last 14 editions been won from a solo winner really yeah how exciting is it love a solo breakaway wonder if we'll see one today [Music] as we mentioned a third of the race is on gravel so it's pretty easy to conclude that you're better off with a road bike and road bike tires as that's a large proportion of the race and it's going to benefit better hence my choice but like parry ruby the gravel sectors are often the decisive moments where the race is won and lost so having a bike that benefits you more than this part of the race well i think it weights it heavier and this is the longest sector of the race called santa marie it's also known as cancellara and it's a five-star racing sector it's very technical and if a gravel bike is gonna make the difference this is the sector it's gonna do it on so well man i'm i'm gonna attack you oh thanks ollie thanks matt see in a bit [Music] tom peacock has the fastest time on this sector 20 minutes 20 seconds it's very lumpy and it's got free technical gravel and corners and one of the big advantages we've found on this ride is that i can just corner a lot quicker than man on this bike on the gravel it saves a lot of time but it also means if you're in a race you're not spiking your energy by losing position and then having to accelerate and sprint to regain it but manon is gonna have the advantage when we get back on the tarmac so i'm going to see if i can pull out as much of a gap as possible on the gravel and hold her off [Music] something else i'm finding is on the uphill sections i can get out the saddle and really power up them this sector is brutal coming at 130k in it's it's all like washboard like corrugated steel really bumps you around and the other thing is i've got the luxury i've been able to pick my line but if you're in a bunch that'd be much harder because there's patches of deep gravel you want to avoid but you may not be able to this is hard so that's the longest bit of gravel sector done in my word that nearly killed me off that was so hard so steep but now i'm on the nice smooth tarmac and it's time to put this machine to work and try and catch ollie [Music] [Music] i managed to pull out a significant gap several minutes on man on on that gravel sector i could just corner so much quicker on this bike i didn't really have to break at all going on the technical descent there's just a lot more grip with the tires but now i'm doing my best to try and hold her off on the smooth tarmac knowing that she's got a significantly faster bike now i know she's not far behind [Music] finally i knew he attacked me it's like well i'm knackered so awesome that was a lot of chasing these these tires are just so kind of squirmy it honestly feels like i'm you know riding a tank when you're on the smooth road and you're tired it feels the opposite for me as soon as i hit that gravel like you can just tell you just look comfortable and you're just off yeah and i'm like really struggling even on that really long sector i was this close to getting off and walking well i think we've managed to kind of work out the better bike is the road bike and the road tires overall and that's probably why the pros use it yes you know we've got some phenomenal weather today and i think if it was wet it would help it could be a different story well i think it would but i still think the road by could have it jaqen [Music] this ride is savage my head's gonna fall off you got it you got it ah ollie that's 14 oh [Music] that's suppose the nice thing about the rave is that it can be both bikes you know yes it's slightly less aerodynamic than manon's it's only a slight penalty and yes it's only you know it's got 200 grams heavier but you do have that versatility to put you know the skinny road tires in or the big chunky boys and well i mean although the chunky boys are sort of slower overall i think on of course like strada bianchi for a ride like me who's you know not the most experienced off-road they do make the gravel sections a lot more fun man on is absolutely spent now we've got 10k to go but i mean fair play to her because today it's the longest ever ride and she's riding like over 40 kilometers more than the pro women fair play man on ow oh my god we've only got we only got 10k to go and uh i think that's that's the last gravel here's the last bit of climbing oh yeah well does the climb in siena but that's the last gravel these snickers not only is this going to be my longest ride but it's definitely up there with one of the hardest physically and mentally that i've done it's just that on the gravel section your whole body just hurts isn't it and these roads there's no easy bits it is just relentless up and down little drags all day long and it just makes it that much harder but there were 3 000 meters of climb as well i think that's the most climate i've ever done and just your whole body hurts from your hands your back i mean your legs are just screaming on those steep gravel sections so yeah it's going to be an accomplishment when i get 10k to the finish you're going to smash it i need to finish this mars bar first though [Music] [Music] we've made it we're back in the piazza del campo where we started it's finished man on off she's absolutely battered thanks to uh villia for the amazing bikes and i hope you've enjoyed this video and if you have well i think give a thumbs up for man on for completing her longest ever ride absolutely is me but a big thank you to you for dragging me around that ollie i wouldn't i'd still be out there like halfway around the course if it wasn't for for you but yeah thank you and i mean it's such an accomplishment to ride one of the you know most british race prestigious races i can't even talk now no i can't if you want to see this done properly then make sure you check out the men's and women's races on gcn plus i i mean i just can't can't wait now because you have so much more appreciation for those riders it's such a hard course but yeah right let's go get some pizza come on can you scrape me off the floor yeah come on come on oh my legs are seasoned up

Channel: Global Cycling Network

Views: 311,220

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Id: kjMk7bmadJk

Length: 21min 1sec (1261 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 27 2022