Once upon a time gravel was the carefree cousin of the road. These were drop bar bikes that smiled rather than scowled. Practicality over performance, they didn’t need to cost the earth, they just needed to be able to ride over it.
But then gravel became popular. The industry took notice. Quickly it became a discipline. The genre fragmented and pretty soon we had a slew of carbon gravel race bikes with watt-saving aerodynamic tube shapes but little accommodation for bags, fenders and other such practical items. Fast, yes. Cool, most probably. Expensive, certainly.
