My Marrakech is one of the best bikes I have ever owned. It is perfectly suited to tour anywhere in the world. And the Warbird (which I’m saving to buy) is the first bike every produced specifically for gravel riding. Salsa has been ahead of the curve for years on so many things, not the least of which is focusing on the pure joy of cycling over the overly serious road racing with its professional doping and cheating and focus on competition and speed. Salsa has always understood that it is not about that. It’s about the ride. It’s a personal passion that you share with others, not that you try to beat others at. This feeling has come to permeate the entire gravel “racing” community making them not unlike triathlons in the US without drafting that are designed for personal competition against one’s own performance more than everyone else (even though that is still there).
Salsa has always just gotten it. I’m happy to give them all my money I have available for cycling simply because of that. Now I’m just trying to decide if and when to build up my own carbon-fiber Warbird. It’s good to have goals, house first, then custom built Warbird (flat black frameset) with 2x SRAM Force. With the time it will take before I can spend $9000 on a bike I can get myself into “competitive” shape so that I can actually do a 100km gravel “race” by then. My Marrakesch will have seen quite a bit of use by that time so setting my sites on having two bikes, a light but sturdy gravel bike for racing and urban biking and bikepacking, and a heavier, sturdy bike for long-range touring all over the world. Then again, I could just swap out the gearing on my Marrakesch, save some money, and just be okay with the eight extra pounds it weighs, or I could sell the Marrakesch to offset the cost (a little).
Here’s the thing the gravel biking has helped me remember. I do like traveling relatively fast through the outdoors. The super slow touring is fun and all, but it demands cycling on roads with cars, which is never fun, and prevents traveling quickly. That’s really the difference between touring and bikepacking. I’d rather get to my destination and do a ride or two from there than carry every possible thing I could ever need on my bike itself. The joy of the ride itself is seriously inhibited by all the gear on the bike. I’ve really noticed this lately while gravel riding on my stripped down Marrakech.
I don’t have to decide now. More stuff to think about for later.