road bike?

diy

I have been flirting with the idea of buying a relatively cheap road bike for training in the winter. The theory being that it can rain all week, but be dry on the day and I can go out without getting up to my arms in mud. Don't get me wrong MTBing will still be my primary, but I'm thinking of the quick 1-1.5hr evening sprints for training.

I've been looking at halfords specials like the boardman team and upper end spesh allez + equivs. (used budget around £4-600) The alternative is to put some skinny slicks on a hard tail.

two qestions.

1) will I notice a difference riding a race bike with winters tyres over a mtb with summer tyres.
2) is road riding really boring?

A lot of my riding buddies have both and seem to happily flip between them depending on what they fancy.

thoughts?

Anonymous

Can only answer question 2 really - Yes.

Tarmac - just don't get it really. Worse when combined with miserable weather, miserable traffic hassle, dangers on the road, idiot drivers, idiot cyclists, idiots in general.

Off road just seems far more relaxed, more energetic, more of a thrill, better for stress relief. Okay there's mud, but mud can be cleaned off, and it's fun to ride also.

cooldad

Question 1 - yes.

styxd

Boardman Teams look good for the money.

1. Obviously a road bike (not sure what you mean by winter tyres, conti gp4000s work all year round) is much more enjoyable to ride on the road than a mtb with slicks.

2. Road riding is great fun unless you're a fat lazy knacker who cant be arsed pushing themselves. There nowt better than hammering it down the lanes for an hour and a half. Plus you dont get muddy (within reason) and you can ride straight from your doorstep. Its more enjoyable than mtbing, since the majority of your mtb time is spent packing bikes into cars/driving/unloading cars/cleaning bikes/cleaning clothes etc.

cooldad

styxd wrote:

Boardman Teams look good for the money.

1. Obviously a road bike (not sure what you mean by winter tyres, conti gp4000s work all year round) is much more enjoyable to ride on the road than a mtb with slicks.

2. Road riding is great fun unless you're a fat lazy knacker who cant be arsed pushing themselves. There nowt better than hammering it down the lanes for an hour and a half. Plus you dont get muddy (within reason) and you can ride straight from your doorstep. Its more enjoyable than mtbing, since the majority of your mtb time is spent packing bikes into cars/driving/unloading cars/cleaning bikes/cleaning clothes etc.

Bollocks.

ps hope you like the carefully selected colour.

Shackster

1. Yes, the lower weight and rolling resistance mean you will be much faster. I have done the same 70 mile road ride over an hour quicker on my road bike compared to the MTB.
2. No. Or at least, not all the time. I have never reached 50mph on my MTB but I have come damn close to it on my road bike.

I ride both bikes and mainly see road riding as a means to an end - i.e. being able to ride your MTB better (or at least, for longer without getting knackered). For example - I would never have been able to complete the South Downs Way in a day if I hadn't spent many hours on my road bike in preparation. I think you will gain more per hour, fitness-wise, on a road bike than on an MTB.

styxd

Bollocks.

ps hope you like the carefully selected colour.

Well I guess its all a matter of personal preference, although I imagine you've never ridden a road bike properly before.

Whats the colour pink got to do with hammering down a road for an hour and a half?

louthepoo

Shackster wrote:

I think you will gain more per hour, fitness-wise, on a road bike than on an MTB.

i couldnt disagree more, ive gone from road riding to mountain biking and think off road riding gives a lot harder work out

styxd

i couldnt disagree more, ive gone from road riding to mountain biking and think off road riding gives a lot harder work out

Maybe you werent pushing yourself hard enough?

I know alot of pro MTB riders train on road bikes. But you dont seee that many pro road riders training on MTB

MountainMonster

louthepoo wrote:

Shackster wrote:

I think you will gain more per hour, fitness-wise, on a road bike than on an MTB.

i couldnt disagree more, ive gone from road riding to mountain biking and think off road riding gives a lot harder work out

I ride both, and road riding certainly helps get the fitness up, as you don't want to watch you average speed drop, and you push your body harder. After road riding for a few months solely, I came back to MTBing faster than ever, and it is great for over all fitness. It teachers your legs to be stronger, not your upper body, and helps you push your limits.

Dave_P1

Answers to your questions:

1) Yes, big difference

2) That's something only you can answer. I always used to think along the lines of how boring it was but I bought a road bike a few months ago and never looked back. I still split my time between the road / off-road pretty evenly but a good blast on the roads can be fun.

Stu Coops

I ride both road and MTB and the latter being my favourite after coming from a racing background on road, some here say MTB is a harder workout others say road is harder to be honest both compliment eachother, I find my climbing on an MTB is helped by my road training and technical skill needed and fast respose on the MTB helps on the road.
As for comments on which is the better workout that depends on how hard the individual pushes themselves on whichever bike, personally I ride through the winter on my MTB in Brecon and trail centres and that helps massively when race season comes back around in March when I just fine tune top end.

As for hammering down the lanes for hour and a half I assume you live in the Alps coz I've been road racing for 11yrs and never found a lane that goes on for that long and being fun your having a laugh, generally get covered in road wash if its wet, bike gets filthy and a face full of cows shit if your on a club winter run as all the crap gets kicked up from the rider in front

bails87

"1) will I notice a difference riding a race bike with winters tyres over a mtb with summer tyres."
Yes, absolutely. I hate riding even short sections on road on my MTB now.

"2) is road riding really boring?"
It's not as boring as I thought it was going to be. It also depends on your local MTBing. For example, on Sunday I couldn't be aresed loading up the car to go to Cannock, and my local MTBing is crap, so I went out for a quick 15 miles on the road bike and I quite enjoyed it. My logic is that locally I'm going to be bored, so I might as well be bored at 30mph and be clean, than be bored at 15mph and get covered in mud (before anyone says "but that's part of the fun", no, it's not. If I could ride dusty Californian trails all year round I would, but I accept that I'm in the UK so there's going to be mud.)

I mainly use the road bikes for commuting and the MTB for fun stuff. If I lived at the bottom of Whinlatter then I'd probably be out on the MTB more, but like I said, there's nothing locally for MTBing.

I'd say I'd got fitter as a result of the road biking, but that's probably down to opportunity more than anything else. I can commute on the road bike, I wouldn't do that on the MTB, so I can easily do 100+ miles each week with 3 commutes and an MTB ride at the weekend. If I was riding 100 miles per week on the MTB it would have probably had a bigger impact, but it's easier to go out on the road bike.

I'd rather be on a *good* MTB ride, but I have to load the car up and drive for at least an hour to get that. If I just want a blast of fresh air and to spin my legs for an hour or two, the road bike is better and doesn't invovle all that much more road riding than a local MTB ride would

Plus road bikes seem to just work, much less maintenance than MTBs, due to the environment I guess.

cooldad

Happily I live a few minutes ride from Swinley so can spend a few happy hours playing in the mud with no problems.
My road bike only really gets used for charity rides. I'm nice like that.

Kaise

diy wrote:

I have been flirting with the idea of buying a relatively cheap road bike for training in the winter. The theory being that it can rain all week, but be dry on the day and I can go out without getting up to my arms in mud. Don't get me wrong MTBing will still be my primary, but I'm thinking of the quick 1-1.5hr evening sprints for training.

I've been looking at halfords specials like the boardman team and upper end spesh allez + equivs. (used budget around £4-600) The alternative is to put some skinny slicks on a hard tail.

two qestions.

1) will I notice a difference riding a race bike with winters tyres over a mtb with summer tyres.
2) is road riding really boring?

A lot of my riding buddies have both and seem to happily flip between them depending on what they fancy.

thoughts?

i started road riding about 3 years ago and i loved it until recently when the miles got a bit boring but the fitness increase was noticeable. I am selling my road bike (link in signature) and its a great bike

anyway thats the shameless plug out of the way.

if you can't get a varied benumbed of road routes it is definitely worth doing, i just don't love it as much as hitting the trails which i need to get back to doing more!

look into my eyes, not around the eyes, look in to my eyes

vv BIKE FOR SALE vv

DodgeT

I've been having similar thoughts, but am more of a tight ar5e, coupled with the fact that in all honesty i'd probably hardly use it...

Anyways, wonder how good / crap something like this would be just for the odd occasion of going on the road ??

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2011-VIKING-SPRINT-MENS-ROAD-RACING-BIKE-RRP-249-99-/250888320454?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&var=&hash=item8011446f67

I know its heavy but for just razzing round flat cheshire...

ddraver

OT - Kaiser - what do you think of Rotor Rings? Convert?

I like road riding but prefer MTBing unless I'm out with the club (although Dutch MTBing is pretty 50 50). Riding in a group is great fun when you can pretend to be Cav/Wiggo/Gee winning a TdF stage.

I ve found that long (3-4 hrs), continuous road rides really helped my fitness (as in no stopping to discuss the previous bit of singletrack which is tempting on MTB's). Roadies call it base fitness and you need a long time (like, a year) doing long rides to gain it. It's usually more pleasant to gain it on a Roadie too!

More advanced training like hill climbs/sprints/power or whatever can probably done on both though.

ddraver

@Dodge - It would be like buying a 300quid MTB, ridable yes, fun......?

Anonymous

Have a local loop for me that's half tow path and half road. The tow path is not thrill-a-minute singletrack, but it's great scenery along a canal through open countryside, away from traffic. Aside from the view there's a bit more to do in terms of steering and getting over canal bridges and locks, and along rough paths across fields. More concentration on the steering to avoid ending up in the canal.

I come back via the road. Intensely dull, even though it's a bit of country roads (well past farms and a golf course). Tarmac, disengage brain, pedal. On a wet day the tow path will cover me in mud, but I'd have it no other way. Thinking now of just doing down the tow path and back up it as it's still more interesting than the road.

Kaise

ddraver wrote:

OT - Kaiser - what do you think of Rotor Rings? Convert?

i really like them, no knee problems either, i used to have the shimano biopace and they were dog gash, but the rotor rings seem to be different, i did 3000 miles on the last set i had and i thought it made a difference!

diy

hmmm certainly food for thought..

I don't have to drive to trail centres, I live in surrey, so I have a 10, 25, 32 & 40 mile loop that picks up the best of surrey hills with a max of 2 miles road riding along the way, so I don't have the bother of loading the car up.

There are are couple of road rides that I'd like to go for, me and a mate did one earlier this year as part of our SDW training, but on our MTBs we couldn't keep pace with the peloton for long.

Interestingly the SDW was when I broke 50mph on my mtb - decent into Queen Elizabeth Country Park

I don't really know what I mean by winter road tyres, but quite a few shop staff have looked at me odly when I said I wanted a race bike for winter riding and said I'd need to put winter tyres on.

I'm beginning to think some flat bars (which I already have) some ends and decent slicks on the rockhopper will be good enough for the limited amount of use it will get. It wont break the bank giving it a try.

I just like the feel of ultra lightweight race bikes. Plus when you can pick up a nearly new full carbon halfords special for under £800..

bails87

You can get Schwalbe Marathon Winters (among others) which have spikes in them, for riding when it's really icy.

They're 35mm wide though, so won't fit in most 'racy' road bikes. You'd need a tourer/CX instead.
I know it's still mild, but I'm using 23mm Conti Gatorskins on the carbon road bike and 25mm ones on the CX for my commutes at the moment with no problems. I suppose the only answer is to try it.

And whoever said the road was rubbish on their road/towpath ride, is that on an MTB? Of course it's rubbish on an MTB, just like trying to run a marathon whilst wearing wellies would be rubbish!

tsenior

i've moved down to near the border and am having a similar dilema, there are trails round here but they are pretty tame and joined by little rough tarmaced lanes, so its either roadbike and stick to the roads or use pub/commuter rigid with slicks for the mixed stuff......am staying with the latter for now as at least i can ride that along the 6 or 7 miles of canal nearby and shotcut through the few bridleways.

Anonymous

bails87 wrote:

And whoever said the road was rubbish on their road/towpath ride, is that on an MTB? Of course it's rubbish on an MTB, just like trying to run a marathon whilst wearing wellies would be rubbish!

I don't know, running a marathon in wellies sounds like fun . Well maybe for the first 100 metres.

But I can't see how a road bike would make tarmac any more interesting. Though at least I'm happy to look at the countryside. Many of the lycra clad seem happy to be oblivious to their surroundings, blasting along in tuck position with their head down. Just don't get what the attraction is to that. But then I've never seen the attraction of doing the same in a Gym either.

Give me some near vertical drops, lots of dirt and mud, and risk (not involving being killed by cars), that's fun :P

bails87

"Give me some near vertical drops, lots of dirt and mud, and risk (not involving being killed by cars), that's fun "

Absolutely, but my reason for going on the road bike is that I've got none of that within easy reach.

The buzz from some of the descents at Whinlatter, for example, or a good blast round Cannock Chase is miles ahead of the excitement of a road ride, but I still always get home with a smile on my face, even in the pouring rain, and despite the best efforts of the braindead goons driving their cars. It's biking, it's good There's time's on my commute, when I'm hammering down a twisty country lane in the high 20's mph, when I'll just get a massive grin across my face and occasionally start giggling to myself because of how much I'm enjoying it. I never get that in the car, and I certainly wouldn't get it if I was on the bus!

If it's 'sit at home doing nothing' or 'go out on the road bike', I'd rather be on the road bike. My local MTB riding is so crap that it ends up being a chore, and I'd rather not ruin my enjoyment of MTBing by forcing myself to ride boring stuff relatively slowly, when I can ride boring stuff quickly.

Road riding is (for me at least) convenient, no worrying about trail conditions, no faffing with the right tyres, or bleeding brakes, or setting up suspension, no cleaning off kilos of mud when I get home. Just get on, ride, get home and put the bike away ready for the next ride.

At the end of the day, it's personal choice, some people on here like road riding, some like MTBing, some like fishing, juggling, rugby, interpretive dance, bowls, tennis, whatever. If you don't like it, you don't like it. But I'm suprised at how much I enjoy road riding, on a decent bike of course, a slicked up MTB will be very different.

So, in my view, both are good, but good MTBing is more gooderer.

Stevo_666

diy wrote:

1) will I notice a difference riding a race bike with winters tyres over a mtb with summer tyres.
2) is road riding really boring?

A lot of my riding buddies have both and seem to happily flip between them depending on what they fancy.

thoughts?

1. Yes, the suspension or lack of it makes a big difference and the difference between summer knobby tyres and winter semi-slicks is noticeable. There's probably a fair weight difference as well.

2. Not for me, but it's not nearly as much fun as MTB'ing. It's more for fitness generally and helps with the MTB'ing. Like was said above, a couple of plus points are that you've got the road on your doorstep so you can nip out almost anytime and it's pretty easy to go ride out even when it's cold/wet/miserable. I'd much rather be out on a road bike than not be on a bike. It's different because you're not concentrating so intensely as on a trail and you can get into a rhythm while thinking your own thoughts, if you get my drift.

If you're going to ride on the road a fair bit then get a road bike or a hybrid. I bought a hybrid (read road bike with flat bars and disc brakes) to ride to & from work a few times a week and I sometimes use it for a bit of fitness training - the flat bar and disc brakes make it feel a bit more 'familiar' and stops me having strange urges to wear lycra .

diy

All good thoughts really.. I thought the discussion was going to convince me to go road, but it hasn't. I do like the look of time trial bikes though

MountainMonster

diy wrote:

All good thoughts really.. I thought the discussion was going to convince me to go road, but it hasn't. I do like the look of time trial bikes though

TT bikes positions take a while to get used to, but they are lots of fun to ride, i'm going to be putting some tt bars on my road bike to get a more aero position, and after trying a tt bike from the LBS I was in love.

bails87

diy wrote:

All good thoughts really.. I thought the discussion was going to convince me to go road, but it hasn't.

Really? Everyone who's got a road bike has been positive about them, the only people who've said it was boring are people riding on the road on an MTB.

I do like the look of time trial bikes though

Well, it's certainly a change from an MTB!

DodgeT

I've always liked the look of good road bikes, have you seen kaise's in the for sale section, that is nice
If i'd got the spare cash, i'd buy it just to look at.

Anonymous

bails87 wrote:

diy wrote:

All good thoughts really.. I thought the discussion was going to convince me to go road, but it hasn't.

Really? Everyone who's got a road bike has been positive about them, the only people who've said it was boring are people riding on the road on an MTB.

Used to ride a road bike, though admittedly that was a long time ago now. Was boring. :P

Gave up bikes because of it for more than a decade and MTB opened my eyes.