I don’t disagree…but the question is really whether it is necessary. The bike biz is great at chasing trends and subscribing to the “more is better” theory.
As you note, there is no really downside to more clearance (at least if you are running 1x) but I’m not convinced of the absolute need for huge tires.
And I say that as someone who is currently running 48’s for very Cat 1 level gravel, is it isn’t like I am running 38’s or something.
I think the need will come from more and more testing and more and more pros saying bigger = faster. How will they sell the next model if they can’t say its faster?
The new SBT course isn’t quite as tame (at least the first half) as year’s past. It’s pretty loose dirt with some chunk. But yeah, I agree on your point with Keegan.
Finsty and Matt Beers are out as they blew their wheels/tires.
I‘m not a bike designer, but geometry comes to mind. With those big tires toe overlap is becoming a concern. And probably longer chainstays. If that affects the average joe, I can’t say.
I have always thought toe overlap to be way overblown. I had it on my cx bike for years, and it was never an issue.
I’m with you that the bike industry will chase the trends. That’s how they sell bikes.
But like you said… is it necessary? There’s a reason we don’t see MTB wheels on roads. Heck, they didn’t even ride gravel tires in the “gravel” stage this year at the tour. Why? Because bigger isn’t always faster.
Even in XCO with the heavier “more capable” bikes… is it faster? The women’s race was won on a hard tail. Weight matters. And lugging big heavier tires (and suspension) matters.
For what it’s worth I like bigger tires. I’m all for it. Depending I’m no doubt faster on them if nothing else because of the confidence it gives me. But is it mathematically the fastest setup? I’m not convinced it is.
The pointy end of gravel racing will decide if bigger is faster or not. Right now, seeing the pain some of those guys are going through to fit XC tires, I think one can guess where this trend is going.
XC is being mentioned, but one should not forget that it went through a similar phase some years ago, when the Scott team started using 2.4s when everyone else was at 2.2. Why ? Because they actually cared to test different tire sizes and took their conclusions. They now use these sizes even for XCM, which in Europe is often a glorified gravel race with rough spots.
This is improving recently, but cycling still has an issue of not testing enough and relying too much on (often incorrect) common knowledge.
sigh
lol I hate it to but we know it’s coming. Chatgpt can write the bike release now if we asked 
Agree. I think the Allied Protype Payton is on will sell like hotcakes. It looks like it might be the only travel race bike that can clear XC tires properly for awhile. I’m for one just excited for the next wave of gravel bikes. If you don’t like em don’t buy em!
I think you misunderstood my post. There is no grand conspiracy to get people to buy more bikes by slowly increasing tire size.
I think that’s just an opinion that’s been over inflated
Just curious - do you have an estimate on the timing between when a new bike design is locked in vs. when the bike is generally available in the market? With all the outsourcing, lead times, and other moving pieces, I’m assuming that it’s got to be the better part of 2 years? It’s easy to criticize Trek (or whoever) for not being on top of industry trends, but there has got to be significant lag time with all the steps required for design, mfg ramp up, supply chain, etc.
Regardless of the development time, it seems that most of the OEM’s are primarily following trends rather than “taking flyers” on products that might set some trends. Probably the conservative (and small) nature of the business, especially with the industry hurting right now. Nobody is going to roll the dice to develop a “cyberbike” type product that may be a dud or may be a home run.
It has been a minute since I’ve actively worked in those circles (obviously) but yeah, I would say 2 and maybe even 3 years seems about right. We were working on annual cycles “back when”, but you could see the cycle times starting to creep out.
With the advance of carbon frames and increasingly complicated componentry and parts, it only makes sense that it is 2+ years for a development cycle. And I really need to emphasize this part….it is a symbiotic, but also isolating process. As a bike supplier, you need to know what Shimano / SRAM has in the works and they need to give you enough lead time to work out frame designs etc. but both sides are only gonna share so much because they don’t want the info to get into the hands of their competitors.
In the case of this particular area, you need to find tire suppliers also looking to go out to that particular width and so you are on their latest tire. Now add in wheel / rim suppliers, etc.
There are so many moving parts (literal and figurative) that go into new models. Now, you can always try and leapfrog the competition, but Trek tends to be pretty conservative in that area, so developing a pure race bike that has a spec’d width of 45 seems to be in line with where the industry was trending ~2 years ago.
Another thought….the industry is insanely competitive. If “the industry” knew they were going to slowly increase tire size in a “planned obsolescence” strategy, what would stop a smaller to mid-size company from jumping the process to get to the end game first? That would provide them with a huge competitive advantage if we all now acknowledge that “wider is faster”. That idea alone destroys the idea of slowly rolling things out to force consumers to buy more.
Sometimes a horse is just a horse….gravel came about from primarily riding road-style bikes on gravel roads. We went through ~5 years of hand-wringing where even a 40mm tire was thought to be “too wide” for Unbound because the prevailing thinking was wider tires were slower. We went from 38’s to 40’s to now moving up to 45’s+. But we are (IMO) still a bit always from the standard being a MTB tire for gravel. We on this board are a niche within a niche within a niche.
Will be fascinating to see where it goes….
I’m not so sure about that. the pro peloton has been very slow at adopting new tech. Would they know better than pros racing gravel for a living?
I wonder how far along they are on that bike. I was able to tour their factory earlier this year and it’s a pretty interesting business. They are obviously a low production manufacturer, but I was still amazed how much craftsmanship and manual labor is involved. Props to them for making that work in the US. One of the coolest things was around the mule bikes (some of the prototypes we’ve seen). They can take a new idea and knock out a mule bike quickly for testing on the local trails and gravel. Turning a prototype into a production ready design sounds like a whole different exercise, but you’d hope a small company like Allied doing stuff in house could turn things around quicker vs. a brand who outsources their production. I assume we’ll see something come spring, we shall see.
I think you misunderstood my post as well. I’m not saying it’s a conspiracy. I’m saying regardless of the next iteration the bike companies will try to play it up and sell more. That’s all I’m saying. They are a business after all.
Also the gravel wasn’t even a majority of the course. It was still mostly paved…
Production carbon molds are a huge investment so you want to amortize that cost over as many years as you can. This means taking risk can really cost you if a model fails, and that you can’t iterate quickly on designs as things like tire width evolve.
This cannot be emphasized enough. The traits of a gravel bike that some on this board yearn for are not what the average consumer walking into a bike shop (or is even thinking about).