Earlier this year, tweeted
Will you please release a dropbar mtb for gravel and quit f'ing around with the repurposed, ill-defined road bikes on dirt category. Thanks.
— byron@bikehugger (@bikehugger) February 17, 2015
I’ve mentioned dropbars quite a few times, occasionally posting on Tomac, and Mark V built his own in 08 and chronicled their history.
Finally, Salsa released their Cutthroat. If these catch on, maybe this will actually happen too
If gravel revivalists evangelize forest service road races into a thing will launch a Dirt McGirt line with @pfaltzgraphic dropbar MTB FTW.
— byron@bikehugger (@bikehugger) March 21, 2014
Dirt McGirt!
If dropbbar MTB is new to you, no problem, the reason we want them, and Salsa sees the demand, is versatility in varying dirt road conditions AND hand positions. So you want this bike for all the reasons the MTB was invented with multiple hand positions. My hands go numb in about 12 minutes on a flat bar. At every gravel ride I’ve done so far, participants are talking about dropbar MTB and there’s always a handful of hardtails blowing by us roadies on the washboard descents.
The Trek 920 I’ve been riding and writing about is a touring bike with 29r rims and tires, so a dropbar MTB from Trek et al is just an iteration away from even more choices in the adventure category.
Read more about Salsa’s Cutthroat on their blog and this truth about riding your bike all day
“Comfort is speed,” said Mailen, “especially when you are talking about riding 100 to 150 miles, or more, per day, day after day, the entire length of the country. A body receiving less punishment is one that can put more energy towards moving forward rather than reacting to impacts.”
WORD. Issue 25 of our magazine that dropped yesterday has 3 stories about the Grand Fondo Leavenworth, the hardest ride I’ve done in a couple decades of the bike:
Out there for 8 hours on dirt and gravel, when any number of things can go terribly wrong, flying into and shuddering through washboarded switchbacks, I was certainly thinking in the aftermath, “This is why suspension was invented,” AND “Could’ve used a MTB on that section, at least.”
And in case you missed it, the front end of the D-Plus is borrowed from mountain bikes…
Oh and there’s this
Don’t overlook the GT Grade either. For another take on the Cutthroat, see Guitar Ted’s post.
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