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The gravel bike category is steadily becoming an ever broader spectrum. On the one end, there are burly, highly capable rigs which are essentially filling the vacuum left by old-school mountain bikes.

Right at the other, there are the gravel race bikes. These are built with speed and efficiency in mind and are being refined for the nascent UCI Gravel World Champs – which kicks off in 2022.

Within that, the bikes are built with varying degrees of bikepacking in mind. Some could happily take you on an around-the-world tour; others are designed just for long weekends.

We’ll take you through all the best gravel bikes we’ve reviewed, explaining exactly what type of riding they’re best suited for so you can narrow down your search to those that best meet your needs. 

With the demand for new bikes still being so high, the availability of certain models is pretty sparse and there aren't as many discounts as we'd normally see coming into a new year. But with all that said, we've managed to track down some bargains in our best January bike sales hub page, along with discounts on a whole range of cycling gear.

Best gravel bikes

the Gravel Adventure Bike impressed with its brilliant balance between being fun and capable off-road, whilst remaining efficient enough to easily handle long distance epics. Several cues are taken from BMC’s mountain bike range, such as a slacker head angle and stubbier stem. At 70 degrees and 70mm, these numbers are quite far off what you’d get on a modern MTB, but for gravel it’s really quite progressive. This, combined with the short 425mm chainstays, adds up to a bike which can be popped around the corners, but still doesn’t feel skittish on the descents. Yet for all that, this isn’t a kind of monster-cross, essentially MTB with drop bars. It still retains the efficiency you’d expect from a gravel bike – it successfully completed the South Downs Way, a challenging one-hundred-mile gravel trail in the South East of England. It’s not totally bedecked in mounts – we wouldn’t choose it for bikepacking trips measured in weeks rather than days – but for those shorter, local rides which make up the majority of the time spent on our bikes, it’s a complete blast and a pleasure to ride.