{"id":113276,"date":"2025-09-04T05:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/113276\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T05:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:47:08","slug":"is-grountain-the-new-groad-please-make-it-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/113276\/","title":{"rendered":"Is \u2018grountain\u2019 the new \u2018groad\u2019? Please, make it stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today has been one of those days where the news, at least from a bicycle tech standpoint, has been decidedly silly.<\/p>\n

Hot on the heels of Assos releasing a winter jersey with a sunglasses holder on the upper arm<\/a> (no, really), news has come across our desk of British brand Pashley launching (in its own words), a \u2018grountain bike\u2019, in the form of its new Wildfinder; a steel, suspension-corrected-frame with 2.4in tyre clearance, and mounting points galore.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There have been several attempts to smash the \u2018gr\u2019 from gravel into some ugly portmanteau in the past, with \u2018groad\u2019 being the only one that has, to a thankfully lesser degree, stuck. The bicycle industry has sensibly decided to either use \u2018gravel\u2019 or \u2018all-road\u2019 to describe variations of gravel bike from the road end of the spectrum, all the way through to the gnarly, lumpy bumpy extreme varieties.<\/p>\n

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Now however, primarily as a result of the likes of Dylan Johnson et. al. fitting drop bars to mountain bikes for the likes of Leadville 100<\/a>, we are seeing more of these drop bar mountain bikes (no, not \u2018grountain bikes\u2019, how many times must I go over this). Lee Cougan has one, as does Ridley, and I\u2019m sure there are plenty more out there, either officially or unofficially.<\/p>\n

\n

\"a\n<\/p>\n

I’ll accept ‘gravel bike’ or ‘ATB’, or even ‘mountain bike’ to be honest… but not ‘grountain’ bike. (Image credit: Pashley)<\/p>\n

If it looks like a mountain bike but has drop bars, it\u2019s a drop bar mountain bike. Hell, I\u2019d even be happy to just say it\u2019s a mountain bike and drop the \u2018drop bar\u2019 bit. If it was good enough for John Tomac it\u2019s good enough for us.<\/p>\n

If I use my cyclocross bike for gravel that doesn\u2019t make it a gryclocross bike, and likewise if I take a gravelly diversion on my commute home my cargo bike doesn\u2019t become a grargo bike (though I will accept gnargo bike, as it\u2019s more audibly appealing).<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t just smash the start of gravel onto any bike we choose just because gravel is where the money is right now. While I do lament this ugly nomenclature, I do think we need to start adopting the ATB (all-terrain bike) label to more bikes. It\u2019s far more elegant, and works for basically anything that isn\u2019t a gravel race bike all the way to those machines, like this \u2018grountain bike\u2019 that are clearly just mountain bikes retrofitted with drop bars.<\/p>\n

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