I'm looking for that "do it all" bike, but I'm kinda lost in the weeds. You have anything from people saying that you can put wider knobbys on a road bike all the way to saying that you need a FS MTB. I currently have a Trek Crossrip LTD, which is an XC bike with 32c wheels. I'm looking to be able to do road rides, but would also like to hit some trails, like picrel which is only a few miles from me. The problem is with trail ratings is that they are more catered to MTB riding. Do you think that I'd be better with either A: upgrading my current bikes wheels/tires to something like a 38-40mm allroad/gravel setup. B: Just buying a higher spec'd gravel bike that's more on the MTB side than the road side and keeping my current bike as more of a road/city bike. Or C: Getting a hardtail MTB and having a nice diversity of styles? I'm completely ignorant about MTB's, but I don't think a FS is warranted for my area. I'm not against them, but they are way more expensive, and higher maintenance, and legit downhill stuff is more of a weekend excursion.
>SunsetterMy favorite trail at the park... except I could never get over the boulder in the middle of the trail without getting off the bike. Lost Springs and Corkscrew were nice too.
>>2055268If you're familiar with it, what kind of bikes do you think fit it well? Would I be pretty fucked on basically an allroad? Is gravel pretty solid? Or do you really need suspension? All this assuming a fairly low offroad skill level.
>>2055269My bad, I didn't mean to post it without answering your question.You can ride the fireroads pretty alright on a road/gravel bike if you put wider tires on, but for any of the trails you will definitely want a mountain bike. It doesn't have to be an expensive full suspension bike or anything, and you can get by with a basic hard tail. I rode a Norco Storm 2 hardtail, but I did put on more aggressive tires as the XC tires I had on it didn't have much traction, and I felt like I didn't need much more. The green circle trails are very approachable for a beginner (with the exception of Box Turtle), so even if you're a beginner at MTB, I would suggest doing those first until you get more comfortable with it.This was all back in 2019-2020, so I don't know how much of it has changed.
>>2055269Alternatively, if you want to ride off road with your current set up, you could check out the Petersburg National Battlefield trails. There's a lot of singletrack but without a lot of features, so you can get used to it. If you want to go distance, there's also the High Bridge Trail out west near Farmville.
>>2055271Ok, you might have sold me then. I think I've just been looking for any excuse to waste a bunch of money on a gravel bike because of all the hype. I test drove a Trek Checkpoint ALR 3 at the bikestore today because it was the best spec'd one they had for testing. I liked it a hair better than my Crossrip, but it felt almost identical other than "feeling" slightly lighter and more nimble even though it's only 1lb less. Probably just less rolling mass. So then that was making me think that I could just blow way more money on the carbon version. I'm probably going to have way more fun keeping the Crossrip in a road/city setup and just getting a hardtail. Any thoughts on a good HT? I'm a tinkerer, so I'd probably be best suited to getting one that has the best frame even if the components aren't as competitive, because I'll probably just fuck with it in the future. I did like the Roscoe 8 that they had there, but it's brand new, so I might wait until they discount it slightly. $2300 is more than I'd like to spend, but the older gen 8 seemed way shittier ever though it was like $1300.
>>2055273>PetersburgI might have to check it out. I grew up in Fburg, and then moved to north of the river Richmond/Henrico. I'm in Chesterfield now, and all this south of the river stuff is new to me.
>>2055274>Any thoughts on a good HT?Sorry, but I have no idea, since I just ride the one I bought back in 2019. My advice would be to go to a bike shop and just see what they have in stock and see what you like. Mine was around $800 when I bought it and I didn't feel limited by it. If you like to tinker, then yeah, go for whatever frame you like.>>2055275I'm from the tri-cities area, though I no longer live there. Petersburg is not the best place to be, but the battlefield is nice. If you want to know some road trails, there's the Virginia Capital Trail that connects Richmond and Jamestown and the Colonial Parkway between Williamsburg and Yorktown.Regardless of where you ride, enjoy it! I miss home sometimes.
>>2055276>Regardless of where you ride, enjoy it! I miss home sometimesThanks bröther. I don't mind it here, but I'm actually looking at other cities for when my current lease is up. The pandemic brought all the WFH people here looking for a cheap hip city, so housing has skyrocketed, but wages are the same. I know it's the same story most everywhere else, but at least in my field, there's other cities that rent's are similar but pay is 20-30% higher. I'm currently hot on Denver or Ft. Collins, but I still need to shop around more.But hey, great biking out that way as well.
