Road riding on a MTB.......

Anonymous

cooldad wrote:

Or get one shoe and one flat pedal and keep everyone happy.

But then you'd just go round in circles.
Might be great for track cyclists though.

supersonic

Brian Lopes once did this in a 4x race.

Eyon

I tried commuting on my MTB and hated it, so slow and rumbley, and I got noticeable tire wear. I saved for a few months and snapped up a low end road bike for £425, making my 5.8 mile commute take roughly <18 minutes, well worth the money for that speed increase!

Mountain bikes on roads are boring as hell, road bikes on roads are really good fun!

CycloRos

stubs wrote:

I do 10.5 miles on a slick tyred single speed 22 pound MTB with no climbs and I can do it in an hour and get there non sweaty or do it in 40 mins and turn up up dripping and stinky.

By the time I got home tonight I couldnt have got any wetter if I had jumped in a river one of the joys of cycling to work.

amen to that! last friday my jersey was wetter than a beavers, beaver!

just edit this for you....

Eyon wrote:

Mountain bikes on roads are boring as hell, road bikes on roads are still boring as hell!

Anonymous

Eyon wrote:

I saved for a few months and snapped up a low end road bike for £425,

I just bought twinrails for £35. Seems like a much better deal to me

supersonic

I think MTBs are more fun on the road. Easier to pull a wheelie away from the lights then a big bunnyhop .

MTBs can be remarkably quick with slicks. Roadies use narrow tyres mainly because of aerodynamic and weight benefits. Higher pressures do steadily reduce rolling resistance (and this cn tail off markedly with some tyres) - but the effect compared to aerodynamic resistance is much less.

Once you get above about 16mph, aero forces become exponentially greater. So weight for weight, many often lose very little on other forms of bikes.

Of course it is cheaper to get a roadbike that is lighter than a MTB! And the gearing is higher.

Anonymous

we have functioning brakes on MTBs too!

wordnumb

State of some of the roads around here I find I'm better off riding an off-road bike. Also, in terms of riding position, I feel far more aware of what's going on around me on a MTB. Occasionally get a little concerned about the width of my handlebar in heavy traffic though.

dan shard

I do a 44 mile comute on this beast (22 each way)



2.4" nobblies and 160mm travel, about 6 miles is on tarmac which tbh is pretty tough, but the rest is on gravel toe path and my bike absolutely flies along it...soon gets you fit I tell thee!

matt@theforce

It can be done as mentioned previously. You just need to make your desicion about your riding style and budget.

I used to commute about 34miles per day and decided to keep my Cube Full Suspension bike for fun so built myself a commuter bike which also gives me a bike I can use to put the trailerbike on or ride to the shops on.




The spec consists of below items, it is very overspecced for the riding that I do but I decided that it would be money well spent.

2006 Kona Caldera 18" Frame
XT Front Mech
XT Rear Mech
Deore BB & Chainset
Deore Shifters
HG53 Chain & HG50 Cassette 11-32 (Taken from my Cube)
XT Hubs with WTB Rims
Deore Hydrolic Brakes with 180/160mm front & rear
Easton Monkey Bars
FSA Stem
Cane Creek Headset
Rockshox Recon Silver TK
Schwalbe 26x1.90 Black Jacks
Slime Inner Tubes

Pre lights and tag-a-long trailer bracket it weighs 28lb

bails87

yeehaamcgee wrote:

we have functioning brakes on MTBs too!

Very true, but MTBs have the rubber to make use of the braking power. 23mm tyres can't cope with the 300 year old technology of road bike brakes, let alone 'proper' brakes. I'd hate to put a set of Saint hydros on a road bike! Mind you, they'd probably snap the frame before the tyres were shredded....

Anonymous

Many people would hate to put Saint hydros on an MTB.
(there's a shocking amount of posts about primarily using the rear brake here recently)

paulbox

My commute is 23m each way, when I bought my Giant I stuck some slicks on my hardtail, it was do-able, but a drag. So then I bought a Bianchi road bike and it is much more fun (faster).

However, I do have a mental block on the subject, I love riding, but can't get in to the groove of riding to work regularly. It is like turning something you enjoy in to a chore...

timpop

njee20 wrote:

njee20, you should take a gps with you on your commute and get some stats down. Top speed and average speed etc then you can challenge yourself and show us the results. That's a quick time on a big bike. Imagine how fast you'd be on a road bike

.

Huh? Think you're confusing people, I do commute on a road bike, and not at 20mph, although tonight was 22 miles at 19.7mph - seemed to be a constant tailwind for once! Shm_uk is the chap riding to work rather rapidly!

Oops, sorry about that. Reverse that post then.

Nice average speed there. I rarely get a tail wind, it is always across or in my face. And there's a lot of traffic and stopping and starting. Blah blah. Maybe tomorrow...

madmole

I do 50-70 miles each sunday with a bunch of roadies who all have pukka road bikes. I use my FS MB for this the only difference is I swap my cinders for a pair of 2" michelin cities (Recomended, they are not too bad for towpath etc either)

We cruise at 20-23 mph and I can keep up easily. When it comes to downhills, I normally bomb past them as their bikes become unstable around 38 mph and the heavier wheels on mine means I am able to go over 40 mph

On hill climbs its a mix, on a lot of hills I can beat them up as I have more and lower gears so its easier for me to find just the rights gears, on other hills their ability to stand and stomp get em up faster (The Marin FS doesnt like you standing to climb)

On flat the only drawback is the gearing of my bike as its max gearing at 100 cadence is 26 mph and all the road bikes are geared to over 30mph, but you never need that for cruise, but yes they can beat you in a race

BUT, here is the best bit, the MTB corners tighter, can go over manhole covers and roundabouts and is much more fun on speed humps

So my advice is as long as your doing 50 miles or less, just change the tyres and enjoy your bike

Northwind

My advice... Get a s**t bike for the road. It's not just less hassle (since shuffling tyres gets old pretty fast), it works better, it's also going to save you a lot of wear and tear on expensive mtb parts, and be less tempting to thieves to boot.

My commuter's an ancient rigid mtb, you can pick up ones just like it for buttons off gumtree, and it'll pay for itself- go with old, solid kit (mine is 7-speed) and it lasts forever and costs very little. My whole drivetrain on that thing cost about the same as one XT cassette.

Anonymous

And if you do get one for biking to work you may be able to use the cycle to work scheme and save a few quid. If you're tempted to get something new that is. Can still be just a cheap bike.

Hawmaw

I used to commute on my Rockhopper with semi slicks. I would sit about 15mph most of the way. I snapped up an old 80s Raleigh road bike with Reynolds frame on ebay for £49. Needed nothing done and now I fly along (by my standards) at 20mph with the odd burst to 25mph to pass buses !

Much nicer than plugging away on a mtb.

I have to admire all you guys who can sustain 20mph+ on a mtb for any distance.