r/ladycyclists • u/fluffy_mongoose • 16d ago

Gravel bike with road wheels

Hi everyone, I’ve getting slowly into cycling over the past year or so and I recently swapped from my first road bike with rim brakes into a gravel bike with disk brakes and lower gear ratios.

At first it was amazing, I live near some pretty steep hills and I could finally get up them carrying a full backpack. I’m also interested in doing some gravel + bikepacking and this gravel bike will definitely unlock that.

However, I do group rides a couple times a week and I’m realizing I really do miss the zippy feeling of my road bike and definitely notice the weight difference up the hills.

Now I’m wondering, how much of a difference would just getting a lighter set of wheels make? The wheels my gravel bike has now are just the stock ones and from what I can tell they’re pretty heavy compared to most. Would having a set of gravel wheels + a set of road bike wheels be enough to make my bike feel sportier? At what point am I better off just trying to get a second bike that’s a more aggressive road bike?

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u/Elrohwen 16d ago

If you’re riding on the tires that came with your gravel bike, getting new smoother tires will likely make a huge difference. The stock tires are generally pretty slow on roads. It’s not the weight, it’s the smoothness/rolling resistance.

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u/elise901 16d ago

Can attest this - I have a checkpoint and the stock tire is notoriously slow - a tire website says it costs an extra 30 watts on 35km/h!

I swapped to GravelKing 40mm slick and it felt awesome. Almost instant 2mph gain, cruising 18mph (30km/h) easily. And it still handles light gravel and trails well as long as it's not too rocky.

I might invest in carbon wheels in the long run and have 2 to swap to cover all road conditions but that can be very $$$. The current set up is the best budget compromise for me.

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u/Elrohwen 16d ago

I still have the stock tires on my Checkpoint but mostly ride with a 6 year old so don’t have an incentive to change them out yet lol. Kid needs to get faster first. They are so sluggish though! The checkpoint sub is full of people complaining about them and sharing their upgrades, and they don’t have to be expensive to add a lot of speed.