No.
In my mind it’s rather complicated as the CdA (aero) value gets shifted some on front sus bikes only off road.
My plan is to try this on a Blur with Flight Attendant soon.
Funny enough I had some of the same Pirelli mtb tires used in Marc’s testing waiting on my porch yesterday. Drum tests I’ve seen on them are atrocious though.
I have to think that 100mm travel would be way overkill for nearly all gravel. I’m also curious about how well FA would work. I don’t have it, but from what I’ve seen, the 3 positions of the suspension (locked - pedal - full open) are dictated/influenced by ranges of power output. It seems like that would work better for MTB where power is more often “full on” or “full off”, but gravel and road racing seem to have more even power output distributions, which could make FA on a gravel bike tricky.
You can do override for full lock or full open. Anything with a good dual lockout would work for this though.
I guess when I say FA I mean the technology, not the specific product. Now that the underlying infrastructure is in place I imagine it’s pretty straightforward to create other iterations of it optimised for other use cases. (Not that it’s easy or won’t require significant additional R&D, but that there’s no major new innovations required). And maybe 100mm is too much, but what’s the realistic weight penalty between 40 and 100mm if you’re making the choice at design phase? If FA or something like it is doing the lockout then is there even any downside to having a bit too much travel? Maybe effects on geometry?
I have some of that as well with my local gravel. One particularly rough hilly route the descents are super sketchy that you make up tons of time if you’re on a mountain bike because on a gravel bike you’re holding on for dear life.
At this point, I’m not overly concerned with the speed different between 45s and 57s
I raced big sugar on my Epic 8 w/ FA last year and it was pretty awesome. The only time I touched the remote was when I got out of the saddle when I wanted to climb standing. It was just a fun race for me during the off season (ie - not in race shape), but I still got a decent result (top 10 AG I recall) and the bike was a great tool for the job. Sure, 120mm travel is more than you need for the vast majority of gravel races, but I personally don’t find any downside to longer travel except a small weight penalty. Bike was ridiculous on the descents and there were places a ~100mm+ bike was a clear advantage.
I raced my new Lauf at Rule of 3 a couple weeks ago (many of the same roads as Big Sugar) and it was night and day better than my Checkpoint on the rough gravel, but it’s a far cry from a full suspension XC bike on the really chunky fast descents. The lauf fork is only ~30mm travel. And it’s not dampened, so it’s similar to running a really high volume front tire (you could still pinch flat if really banging your bike around). It just floats over most gravel, but it’s not going to absorb a huge rock hit or hole.
Niner seems to more or less be dead these days, but they were early to the game with the MCR full suspension gravel bike. It would have been interesting had Niner continued to have engineers work on it to both refine and lighten it, but you would think it would still be a decent bike for Unbound.
Trek has been really hit or miss in terms of innovation. They seem to have put a lot of their R&D efforts into the Madone on the road side and less into their other bikes. The Supercaliber was very innovative at the time but they haven’t followed it up well and the Checkmate was dated on arrival. If would get interesting if their engineers could use some of their knowledge they gained creating the flex stay suspension of the Supercal and apply it to a gravel build.
This is a great question IMHO!
It doesn’t seem like a lot to me - maybe 100-200 grams more for a Stepcast 32 over a Fox or Rockshox gravel fork?
When comparing to a rigid fork at roughly 500g):
~700 grams to go to 40mm
~900 grams to go to 100mm I think.
Between this and some informal test comparisons I did between my Lauf fork and my Rockshox Rudy, I was comfortable keeping the Lauf suspension fork and selling the Rudy.
Just my opinion… but if you need 100 mm of travel & MTB tires you are probably better off on a hard tail.
For what reason? At this point it’s just semantics. It’s a frame for certain geometry and drop bars. Gravel courses vary immensely and therefore the best setups do too. Everyone is searching for something that doesn’t exist.
Just my opinion… but if you need 100 mm of travel & MTB tires you are probably better off on a hard tail.
“need” has no real place in these discussions. We are trying to figure out what is fastest.
If you are riding a course that is fastest with 100 mm of travel, and wide mtb tires, the fastest bike will be a mtb.
Fixed it. 
The members podcast episode on this was much better than the article. The title was a bit click-baity, even though Ronan basically mentioned on the podcast that a title like this was the click bait version.
Not trying to be pedantic, but why can’t the fastest bike on such a course be a gravel bike with 100 mm travel and clearance for wide MTB tires?
Oh I’m sure it can. Just having fun mostly. I mean a 100 mm gravel bike is not far off a hard tail but with drop bars.
I’ve signed up, but where do I find the members’ length version of the podcasts?
Log into the website, then Podcasts and click the button labeled “members only”. Then you choose the podcast feed (there are only 3, you want performance process), and you’ll get an eye with a personalized feed URL that you add to your podcast player.
I love Escape Collective and been a paying subscriber since forever, but their members only podcast access is a mess, not user friendly at all.
I think the only members only podcasts they have are performance process and overnight success. I thought all of them were, but now looking more closely I think only those two are, which is why they only offer 3 feeds.
I think the others are open to everyone.