Do you NEED an Expensive bike?

Fun story time: At one point in my last 40 years of riding and racing bikes, I didn’t have a single bike to my name.

It’s pretty wild because of how usually at any given time I have 10-12 bikes in my garage and another handful stashed around the country.

But in 2006 I didn’t have a single bike. I was burned out, stressed out, washed up, never was…whatever superlative you want to use would fit right in here.

But then I decided I needed a bike again. Probably just to get places, not to train or race, but just movement. I didn’t want to call contacts or anything to get one, but somehow I came across an old GT Strike road frame in a brilliant sparkly gold color and an old 8 speed Shimano Ultegra/105 groupset, a cheap pair of wheels and boom, was riding again. I still had some parts laying around, like pedals, and it's not like I had thrown out all my kit (almost, but I didn’t). But most importantly I met a group of guys who helped rekindle my passion for riding. 

That bike cost me $150 in 2006 money to put together. I rode it everywhere, I did group rides beyond that friend group and as I got fitter I just murdered everyone on that bike - even though it was a 25 pound, no-aero, stiff as a board, obsolete tech bike. But no one ever said a word to me on those group rides. Not a hello, not a “hi, how are ya.” Nothing. 

A funny thing happened, when I decided to start racing again and I got a nice bike shipped to me, built up and rode up to the group ride. All of a sudden I was a new rider. “Never seen you on this ride before” etc. Somehow the bike was the validation, not me stomping on the pedals up Ridgewood or crushing spirits on the three humps of Cumberland Parkway. 

Too bad someone already came up with the story about it not “being about the bike.” Because I could have easily written it and do to this day. It’s one of our driving forces behind the Gravel Roll that we don’t care who you are or what you ride. 

Case in point, that GT frame with 23 tires even hit some gravel roads. Any Bike, Any Where. 

At some point, even after I had fancy $10k bikes again I took that bike to Europe, rode it for a week and sold it to an Italian bike shop. Even after paying for the highway robbery bikes on planes, baggage charges of the day and my initial investment I still made a profit because of the desire for American made bikes over there. 

So, bring that thought forward to today. Our fellow Gravel Roller Samson has been wanting to talk about the Ozark Trail Gravel Bike for years. YEARS…...But, we’ve really been unable to because we have had some sponsor restrictions. Well, those restrictions are now gone.

It’s really a passe trope in some ways in terms of wanna-be influencer hype. Someone buys a very cheap bike, rides it for a minute, either says it’s garbage or swaps half the parts, and then declares it “just as good” as something that costs three times as much. The internet loves this arc. It feels rebellious. It feels accessible. It feels like a middle finger to the industry. 

And to be fair, sometimes it’s even true. I guess because I have a cheap bike chip on my shoulder. 

The Ozark Trail Gravel Bike sits squarely inside that well-worn storyline. It’s inexpensive, widely available, and comes with just enough modern gravel signifiers to make people wonder if they’ve been overpaying all along. That alone is enough to spark a hundred YouTube thumbnails and forum arguments. At this point, reviewing and upgrading a bike like this is almost predictable.

Which raises the real question: Should I still do it?

I think it might be, but not for the usual reasons. Most of the existing takes rush straight to validation or dismissal. Either the bike is a secret weapon or it’s a rolling punchline. What gets skipped is the part in between: what this bike actually represents for the kinds of riders who are showing up to gravel now. Not racers, not gear obsessives, but people who want to ride dirt roads, disappear for a few hours, and not feel like they made a catastrophic financial decision doing it.

But also, is it genuinely upgradeable, and in what order and bang for buck should you do upgrades? One thing that doesn’t get talked about in scenarios like this is that upgrading a bike isn’t a trip into a cul-de-sac. Doing strategic upgrades can also be carried forward to other frame builds. Shoot, I just bought an old Redline Conquest cross frame like I had over a decade ago and I’m hanging Campagnolo Record parts, a power meter crank, tubeless wheelset, on a $200 used frameset. Most of those parts came off a De Rosa Idol hotshit multi-thousand dollar carbon frame. Like could I put an EDS Wireless Electronic Groupset on the Ozark Trail? Sure, why not?

So the Ozark trail could be a start that builds to another bike, or allows you to make sure you like riding gravel to begin with. Then if you decide to upgrade to something that rides nicer and lighter and faster, no one says you have to get rid of the bike. N+1 is real and old bikes in foul weather are a game changer. Call it even soul perhaps. Because you’ve already extracted value, you aren’t afraid of really riding it! 

So yes, I’m probably going to buy one. Because I like to tinker, because I don’t GAF about what bike I ride. I want to ride it as-is to start, break parts, get flat tires, scare myself with sketchy brakes, and then talk honestly about whether upgrading it makes sense at all. Not hypothetically, but in the context of real riding, real terrain, and what makes the most sense.

Samson thinks it’s a good idea, how about you all?