Does anyone also ride a gravel eBike?

[folmonty]

Half the off road opportunities around me are better suited to a gravel bike. Started looking at the offerings and there's quite a bit to choose from. On many of my rides I'll see a gaggle of gravel riders. Thinking it might be a nice compliment to the eMTB. As a bonus they're much better suited to stints on road where my eMTB isn't much fun. If you do ride a gravel eBike what are you riding and what's your thoughts about it?

 

[A1000]

I have and use both. I found that during the Winter with limited daylight and poor weather getting out on a proper eMTB ride for me meant I had to allocate 1/2 day minimum for 2-3 hours on the trails so I was limited to some weekends. To get out in between I use a gravel bike as I can do 16-20 miles in a lunch break. Also its probably more suited than a full suspension eMTB to a spot of bikepacking in the Summer. I went with a Creo SL as it's the same motor etc.. as my Levo SL and it provides the sweetspot between weight and assistance for me.

 

[MountainBoy]

I'm looking at getting a Canyon Grail ON CF 8 for rural roads, fire roads and easy trails. I've heard conflicting info on where the speed limiter kicks in. The website says 28 mph but some people on forums say in the US it will be 20 mph. I don't know what to believe.

 

[Mabman]

I actually went with a gravel bike first because I had moved to an area that had way more double track than single track out the door. I was not happy with my KTM for having fun on because it lacked enough of an exercise component but it was handy for commuting the 23 miles one way I was faced with.

Made the decision to sell it and build a drop bar eBike so that I could continue with my commute but also use it to explore the local roads and trails. So made V1 and then V2, shown, and now am building up V3 although I have moved to an area now more suitable for a mtb out the door because I have all the components and am going to live in the city for 6 weeks where it will be a better ride as well.

V3

And I should add the obvious that my preferred motor type is a front Direct Drive hub. I landed on this format while thinking about what I wanted out of a mostly road oriented bike. Although I like my FS torque sensing mid motor mtb for trail use I found that a hub motor works better for me without any PAS with a throttle controlled cruise control type feature that I can set to any watt output I want and go up and down my gear range as I would normally at the higher cadence I associate with road biking. I set up a mid motor on the same type of platform a few years ago but didn't like it and am staying with this type. Not popular but it does work well and the front wheel drive aspect can be a feature in some situations and never has caused any handling problems in thousands of miles.

A sharp eye may notice that I use a Schlumpf High Speed drive that provides a high gear ratio of around 160"es so pedaling at speed is not a problem.

 

[flash]

I've had my Cairn 01 e-Gravel for a couple of years now. Great bike. Great company to deal with. It's replaced my road bike as well as some light gravel duties.

Gordon