Gravel bikes have grown in popularity for their ability to mimic the efficiency of a road bike while adding versatility for where they can be ridden. Your terrain is everything, and so is speed At 8.9 kg and more than double the price of any gravel bike we tested, if there was ever a mountain bike to outshine a gravel bike on its home turf, this was it. To add to the 12 gravel bikes we tested, we brought along what’s arguably the nicest and most efficient hardtail mountain bike money can buy: an Unno Aora. These are questions we’ve pondered as gravel bikes have risen in popularity, and something we wanted to answer while at our inaugural Field Test in Sedona, Arizona. So if gravel bikes are effectively where mountain bikes came from, then why not just pick a modern mountain bike? Is a light, cross-country hardtail MTB the ideal gravel bike? Or do gravel bikes truly fill a gap in the market that the progression of mountain bikes has left empty? And really, a look at the latest geometry, tyre widths and technology to hit the gravel riding world don’t help to make that joke any less true. So often we joke that gravel bikes are just old mountain bikes from a time that’s now in the rearview mirror.

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