Gravel Before It Was a ‘Category’

I’ve been wanting to thank Bicycle Retailer and Industry News for the nice article about Rene Herse on the front cover of a recent edition. It’s not often that the media talks about the contributions of small companies, especially those without a big ad budget. BRAIN’s Steve Frothingham wrote that Rene Herse “has nurtured the [gravel] category’s growth since before it was a category.”

Steve and I met when he reported about an industry meeting, where tire and rim makers discussed new standards to address new, wider tires and rims, as well as tubeless technologies. The article about that meeting also made the front page. It shows how far we’ve come in the 13 years since Bicycle Quarterly coined the term ‘all-road bike.’ Back then, high-performance drop-bar bikes with wide tires simply didn’t exist, and we knew that without a good name, our ideas would never gain traction. Now the industry (finally) is creating new standards for these bikes!

We’re excited that what used to be a ‘niche’ is now enjoyed by so many cyclists: Rides that combine paved backroads and gravel trails, far from traffic and fully immersed in the experience. It’s a great time to be a cyclist!

Click here to read the full article on BRAIN’s web site.