The Ultimate Guide to Gravel Components

For an off-road adventure, a freeing cycling experience, a new way to race, or all three — go gravel riding. Gravel bikes are designed to take on a variety of terrain, and are highly customizable according to their purpose. You want your gravel bike to be aligned with your riding style, and choosing how you want your dream gravel bike to perform is as thrilling as it sounds. Your gravel frame, fork, handlebar, stem, headset, saddle, seatpost, and wheels each play a very specific role the way your bike handles. To help you make the best choices for your gravel bike parts, we created these eight component guides for you.

Gravel riding has become neutral ground for experienced and beginner riders alike to turn the pedals without having to deal with traffic or possess special skills — where “escape” is less about getting away and more about going to…a destination, a finish line, or a personal goal.

In this guide we explore the essentials of gravel bike frames (framesets, to be specific) to help you make an informed decision about your next gravel bike.

You can’t buy skills by replacing your fork, but you can earn them by altering your bike’s handling, stability, and comfort with a similar (but not the same) gravel fork.

In this guide we explore:

To demonstrate the importance of your headset, try riding a bike without it. While not exactly a small part, the headset is often overlooked but without it, riding a bike becomes almost quite literally aimless.

Here’s where we take a closer look at a small part that has a big influence on your bike’s performance.

In addition to giving you different hand positions when you ride, one thing that’s certain is that it’s you who should be in control. Your gravel handlebar is key to literally putting you in that position.

When choosing a gravel handlebar, there are a few important things to consider:

A stem is one of the easiest, most economical upgrades you can make to your gravel bike, and it can have a tremendous impact on cockpit control and rider fatigue. When choosing a stem specifically for gravel riding, there are a few factors to think about with respect to you and your riding environment. Ultimately think of your stem as a vital component for customizing your ride.

Find everything you need to know about:

Most of us probably haven’t given much thought to our gravel bike’s seatpost because — while essential — it hasn’t yet been the subject of groundbreaking technological advances. Set-it-and-forget-it seat height adjustment might be the closest we come to praising our seatposts and even then, we hardly ever say “thanks for your support.”

Get comfortable with what there is to know about gravel bike seatposts in this guide. Read on to learn about:

Your saddle is the most intimate component choice on your bike. It’s the point-of-contact that bears the most weight, and it’s where you can make a huge difference to your comfort.

Let’s get into what you need to know about gravel bike saddles:

What matters most in choosing your gravel bike wheels is what kind of riding you do (or plan to do).

There’s a lot more to wheels for gravel riding than just going round and round. Let’s explore what makes a gravel bike wheel to help you decide which type is right for you.

Ritchey created these eight guides to gravel components for you to make informed choices about what components are right for you. We believe that bikes create unique and intimate experiences, and we believe that experiences should create bikes, which is why our gravel bikes and components have been designed for your best gravel experiences yet.