What’s coming for Road & Gravel bikes of the future?



Like every category, 2021 will pose some major hurdles for road & gravel bike availability. And while that may make it harder to find your next dream bike, we won’t be surprised to see these two categories continue to evolve in a number of ways. Here are our predictions on what we’ll see for drop bar bicycles in 2021…To get more news about road bicycle rims, you can visit zpebicycle.com official website.

I think we say this every year – for a reason. With most bikes designed at least 2-3 years prior to their release, it can be hard to pinpoint where standards like tire clearance will land by the time the bike is released. At the time of their last design, a 40mm gravel tire may seem huge, only to be dwarfed by 45mm and larger tires that are growing in popularity.

The same goes for road bikes – years ago, many riders couldn’t imagine ever riding larger than 25mm slicks. Now, 28mm is close to becoming the standard, with clearance for 30 and even 32mm rubber fairly common.

The proliferation of wider rims, which can make tires run larger than their specifications suggest, means the need for frames and forks that will clear bigger tires – especially if mud clearance is a requirement.For the same reasons we expect more tire clearance on gravel bikes, we suspect there’ll be fewer 650B bikes and builds. Over the past two years, we’ve seen fewer and fewer gravel bikes designed around 650B, even for smaller frame sizes and shorter riders. And many of those are sold as 700c builds with the option to run 650B wheels and tires.

If you can run a 700×50 tire, which measures ~2″ wide, and get the improved rolling speed and rollover smoothness, why would you want a 650B setup just to gain 0.1″ of tire width?

For the shortest riders, some brands will likely always offer a 650B option for road bikes, where tighter geometry can incur toe overlap penalties. But on gravel, our bets are on most bikes being 700c going forward.The rise of the mullet drivetrain, pairing drop bar shifters with wide range MTB cassette gearing, may finally seal the deal for 1x drivetrains on gravel bikes.

Even with the wider range gearing, the large steps between gears will still probably make it a tough sell for road bikes. But if the Classified hub system, with internal 2-speed wireless gearing that effectively replaces a front double chainring and derailleur, catches on, we could see more bikes ditch the front derailleurs in favor of a “2x” system with the “front shifting” packaged into the rear hub.The new wide-range Campagnolo Ekar group could also be a nudge toward 1x for road. It’s lightweight, provides plenty of range, and offers tighter gear steps than moving all the way up to an ultra-wide mountain bike cassette.