Ah yes I am a cyclist and I approve this message. Reminds me of this saying from an Indian monk:

Where would I find enough leather To cover the entire surface of the earth? But with leather soles beneath my feet,It’s as if the whole world has been covered.

Just replace leather soles with sufficiently wide rubber tires

Thanks for the very sensible quote.

It's OK to complain about the quality of the road or path if you pay for it. Heavy vehicles are what make the surface bad and fat tyres or not, riding on a smooth surface is way more enjoyable.

Bad as in not-smooth or bad as in pot holes? I hope not the latter, because that's dangerous no matter the type of bike, and I haven't heard/read many people complain about the former.

Bad as in not smooth, like far from perfect but also nothing I had ever thought twice about while riding a couple hundred dollar retail store mountain bike. Average Ohio roads, not the worst but definitely weathered.

My former housemate had some kind of race bike with a carbon fiber frame, it weighed next to nothing but he was constantly in fear of road debris, couldn't hop curbs, etc. It was a terrible choice for where he was actually riding.

If the quality of the road is bad, gravel bikes are equally as uncomfortable as race bikes. Not talking about non-asphalted roads as race bikes are of course not made for those.

I'm not talking about comfort, I'm talking about ability to handle the surface properly. Skinny nonsense race bike tires get swallowed up by cracks in the road that reasonable tires just go right over. They're more fragile to debris and simply have less traction on less than ideal surfaces because there's just less tread to work with.

That said the idea that more air cushion space doesn't lead to greater comfort is absurd. A tire that has room to compress doesn't bottom out.

The fatter tyres do cushion it a bit. And most "cycle to work" bikes I've seen (especially ebikes) will have a small front shock