The bike industry loves to create new genres, new markets, new opportunities to sell kit and bikes. With gravel the new hot area, I decided to jump in and spend some time on the Cannondale Slate. Here's my long term review after 6 months and more than 2000 km on the bike.

The Cannondale Slate is a radical looking bike. Whether you buy into the whole gravel thing or nor, there's no doubt that this isn't just a cyclocross bike re-branded for gravel.

I've been a road rider pretty much my entire 20+ years as a (so called) serious cyclist. I'd never been a mountain biker but I have taken my road bike onto gravel roads and fire trails for years. I'd always enjoyed the wilder side of it and adding gravel roads into the equation opens up a heap more options, particularly here in Australia, and keeps you away from inattentive drivers. Much as I loved taking the road bike off piste, I knew that tyres were my limiting factor. I picked up a lovely sparkling red CAADX cyclocross on the cheap a number of years ago and was suitably impressed by the comfort and grip of wider tyres. The limiting factor, as I discovered on one wet Dirty Gran Fondo one year, was the almost placebo affect of the cantilever brakes in the mud and it wasn't the most agile on the pavement.

Fast forward a few years and I was still bouncing along gravel tracks on my CAADX. Cyclocross bike were hot but a new bike had arrived on the scene that seemed to blur the lines between road and cross - the Specialized Diverge. There were others but this was the first from a big brand. It looked cool and rode well but was it just a re-marketed cyclocross bike? The market bubbled, gravel was the thing but these bikes were getting longer and longer all in the name of fitting wider tyres. They were less road and more mountain bike than ever. Enter the Cannondale Slate. What was it? 650b wheels? Suspension fork? Was it a hard tail with drop bars? Was it Cannondale's attempt to re-create the Specialized Rock Combo, a bike about 20 years ahead of its time?

I was intrigued. The reviews were mixed. No-one really knew what to do with it so when I had the chance to get my hands on one, I took it.

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