***NEWSFLASH: GET £1.50 off tickets to the Cycle Show in Birmingham – where you’ll see many Adventure Road Bikes. Just use the code TWC when checking out***

Gravel bikes. Gravel Grinders. Adventure Road Bikes. The bike geek crowd has been full of philosophy over the emerging breed of bike for well over a year.

Now, we wouldn’t want to suggest that some of the philosophical, whimsical, <insert semantic field of exploration here> bravado is really just to give coffee shop MAMILs something to talk about over flat whites, but we reckon it’s possible they’re over-complicating something kind of simple.

Adventure Road Bikes could be best defined as the Do It All Bike. Not sure what you want? Get a ‘Do It All’. Only have space for one bike? ‘Do It All’. Have a lot of bikes, and need to fill as many gaps as possible with the ultimate N+1? Go Do It All.

The Gravel Bike fad began in the US – the bikes were suitable for long, gravel tracks that are common across the pond. In the UK, we lack these grainy stretches, but we have plenty of semi-muddy trails and paths weaving through parks, so they gained the name ‘Adventure Road’ bikes. Adventure Road Bikes are fit for moderate off-road use, but still fun on the road – they are made to mould to the needs of whichever adventure takes your fancy as you close the door with a full day ahead of you.

We expect to see a lot of Adventure Road bikes at the upcoming Cycle Show (get £1.50 off an advanced ticked with the code TWC) – but what actually are they?