Using your MTB for road use aswell ??

vim147

Just wondered how many of you have a MTB only for all use.

Do you have a MTB that you use for road use, trials, commuting etc or have most of you got specific bikes for different use.

If you have a MTB only, do you modify every now and again depending on use, if your using for road use then realistically how many miles can you ride on it before you feel you want a road bike aswell ?

ElliesDad

I use a Boardman Comp HT for everything. Occasional commute to work, roads and cyclepaths for fitness/leisure and trails.

I just pump the tyres up to 55psi for roads/cyclepaths and drop it to 35 for trails.

peat

If i had the money/space, i would have individual bikes for each task, but as i don't i find a MTB to be the most versatile. During the week i bolt some slicks onto my hardtail to go to and from work (usually passing and thus annoying roadies) and then i'll put the knobbles back on for the weekends.

I do really want a roadbike aswell though. At the moment, my road average is 15-17mph. I can only imagine what it would be like with a warp-speed of 20!!!!!

oodboo

I have my enduro for the bumpy stuff and I've got a CX bike that I used to use for commuting. I've just bought a 29er hardtail for the commuting duties as it's going to be better for xc duties than either the enduro or the cx bike. I'm kind of planning to get some tyres just for the commute but time will tell as to how much commuting I do and how often I would need to swap them for off road. Keeping the bikes in the house means I have to limit how many I have so the cx is now up for sale.

diy

I used to be a one bike fits all person and just put slicks on for road duties. A few years back I did the London to brighton on my old full sus enduro. It was fine and I could out brake most of the roadies going down hill due the vastly superior brakes and grip.

I bough my first half decent road bike just before xmas last year a nearly new boardman team carbon. I paid £650 for what was essentially an unused bike. Previous owner had ridden it a couple of times in the 8 months he'd owned it.

On good roads, a light road bike is just amazing, the acceleration, rolling resistance etc. is really noticeable. They also need very little maintenance. On poor tarmac they are a pain and you will find them annoying compared to an MTB with bigger tyres. A lightweight hardtail with slicks or semi's on crap roads is going to be almost on a level with a race bike. You lose some on the extra weight and gears, but you gain on handling and grip.

If you find on your mtb that you frequently run out of gears, then its worth getting a road bike. You don't need to spend much £6-700 gets you a good full carbon road bike and mine is allowed to live in the dining room because its not muddy and I use the excuse that I need it there to go on my turbo trainer, which I haven't used since the winter

peat

Very salient point. Pretty sure i would crack forks and pop spokes if i took a road bike on my commute.

Vale of the White Horse Council - Pull yer finger out!

The Spiderman

I now have 3 bikes,but if I was allowed just one for everything the lightweight hardtail is the most versatile.

The other Sunday a group of 6 of us went out for a genteel tour of cake shops and it was the hardtail I took in preference to the carbon road bike.For those times when I`m on a casual ride,I actually quite like using it on the road.

mrmonkfinger

Peat wrote:

Very salient point. Pretty sure i would crack forks and pop spokes if i took a road bike on my commute

Bollocks.

Its adorable that you think road bikes are so weak and feeble... but, bollocks, nonetheless.

bails87

mrmonkfinger wrote:

Peat wrote:

Very salient point. Pretty sure i would crack forks and pop spokes if i took a road bike on my commute

Bollocks.

Its adorable that you think road bikes are so weak and feeble... but, bollocks, nonetheless.

I was just about to say something similar!

On my old Ribble carbon road bike I smacked a pothole at 30ish while drafting a van, so hard that the impact winded me! The bike was fine. I took it off road a few times too

peat

Fair enough.

I have no aspirations to father children either so BRING IT ON!

handful

Used to have just my I drive full sus but did find it a bit of a drag on roads so ended up with a road bike as well although didn't go for the full monty with drop bars. I was surprised at the time though that going from my 14.5kg mtb with Nevegals to my 9kg flat bar road bike it only takes my average up around 3mph. Doesn't sound much really but feels like night and day!

Chinley Churner

diy wrote:

On poor tarmac they are a pain and you will find them annoying compared to an MTB with bigger tyres. A lightweight hardtail with slicks or semi's on crap roads is going to be almost on a level with a race bike. You lose some on the extra weight and gears, but you gain on handling and grip.

Rubbish! How many mountain bikes do you see at Paris-Roubaix?

diy

Er.. It's a race?

Northwind

I did the one-bike-for-all thing for a while but then I realised I could put together a commuter using an ancient worthless mtb wreck I had in the garage, and a load of cheap bits off the internet, for under £100. Then I thought about all that expensive wear and tear kit on the mtb, and how much more nickable it is. Then I factored in a little for the cost of my time changing tyres back and forth. Not a hard decision tbh. Space is the only reason I'd stick to one bike.

Re bad roads... My flat-barred, big slicked, former-mountain-bike commuter is better on really bad roads than my road bike- carries speed more easily, in more control. But it's not often that roads are bad enough for that to happen, it needs a consistently crap surface over distance.

YeehaaMcgee

Chinley Churner wrote:

Rubbish! How many mountain bikes do you see at Paris-Roubaix?

I've been to Paris and Roubaix, and there were people riding mountain bikes in both :roll:




Aaaaanyhoo.
I use my full suss bike for everything. I stick Halo Twinrail tyres on it for commuting, and keep the knobblies for the dirty stuff, since decent tyres are expensive, and knobblies wear down fast on the black stuff.
However, I'm currently thinking about building my hardtail frame up again, basically for commuting and light use, because I'm lazy and don't actually want to change tyres a few times a week.

gezebo

I've used my mtb on the road a little but one of the biggest problems I've faced is running out of gears. On the flat with even a slight tail wind meant that I'd quickly be spinning out. Also on longer distance rides the poor aerodynamics of a mtb meant head winds became a pain.

Also like someone else has said road bikes are not as fragile as people make out and will take a fair bit of abuse on rubbish roads. Swapping tyres to wider 25s or 28's with a little less pressure in does wonders for comfort and absorbing the shock of potholes.

andy46

I used to use a mtb for everything then got a road bike... they're called road bikes for a reason

The difference with a road bike is night and day, and if I'm honest the road bike is my favourite now as I'm straight out the door and away I go

m1tch666

Hate my full suss on the road, running 2 x 10 with a 22/36 I get left behind with my legs spinning like crazy, think I may change to a 38t big ring, I think it's the biggest that will fit inside SRAM's 2 x 10 with guard.......be nice to fit a 40t but don't think it would fit....??

shemKSW

I own a 26 full sus, a 29 hard tail and a racer as well. I dont really like riding a racer, (of course), so Ive been experimenting with running 60 psi in my tubeless set up hard tail 29er. ....and it works great. I still manage to average around 15 mph average, so not as quick as the racer where I average about 19mph, but good enough, more comfortable and if I decide to go the long way home, I can still hit the hills. Id personally say a 29er makes a great road option!

hells

Before I was working full time and only had an mtb hardtail I used it foreverything, I could have put slicks on it for road use but never bothered. Since getting a stable full time job Iv had a bike explosion and now have 7 bikes but I am in the process of selling 3 of them. Road bike feels 100% better on the road than the mtb, I felt like I was flying the first time I tried a road bike,I liked the feeling of pure speed so much that I essentially quit MTBing for about 3 years and ended up doing loads of racing.

YeehaaMcgee

m1tch666 wrote:

Hate my full suss on the road, running 2 x 10 with a 22/36 I get left behind with my legs spinning like crazy, think I may change to a 38t big ring,

I think I've got a 38t ring on mine, and it lets me cruise along happily at about 16mph, which is enough for getting to work and back, or bimbling along roads for a training ride.

.blitz

Used to use my old Nail Trail almost exclusively on the lanes around Stafford they are narrow and in a right state (farms, grass growing in the middle etc) a MTB was ideal.

Ran it with 580mm flat bars, Spesh Fat Boy slicks pumped to 90psi and a 48T chainring. What it lacked in acceleration it made up for in momentum I used to wind it up in top and try to maintain cadence my hr was like 220bpm lol

Turned in sub-30 minutes a few times on a 10-mile circuit. Tractor baiting was most excellent.

andy_cotts

i've been using an MTB for commuting for about 3 months after a long stint on a commuter and have to say i enjoy the commute more now... The MTB feels a lot more stable and im more confident flying down Sheffields hills in all weathers! uphill though , the MTB is a bit more hard work but i dont mind as its only going to make me fitter/stronger/awesomer!!

Long_Time_Lurker

Full fat MTB for me. I'm not in a race, so as long as I can cover my 12 mile commute in under an hour, I'm happy.
It also allows me to do the, "I wonder where this track leads?" on a weekend. Using an MTB allows you to disappear down dirts tracks and across farmland when the mood takes you.

shemKSW

Id have to agree with the feel like your flying comment! They do shift and riding seems effortless. Horses for courses I guess, Im lucky that my commute can be done on or off road, so its nice to have the choice

YeehaaMcgee

There's something I occasionalyl ponder too.
If an MTB is harder work on the road, then it has the side efect of making my 10-17 mile each way commute - I vary it depending on weather etc - a decent workout.
On a road bike, which is much less effort, I'd be getting less excercise.
And I couldn't ride the stairs each day.

oodboo

I rode the stairs on my road bike, but that was a cx bike. Not much difference though.

YeehaaMcgee

Up and down?
I'd have thought you'd snakebite like a muthertrucker when riding up stairs

pilch

I mainly use my road bike for training rides, more winter rides as a rule, I find I can maintain a higher HR for longer periods, it seems easier to 'manage' it, odd as you would have thought the opposite as the MTB is harder work - definately feels harder on your legs, maybe its easier to spin up to a higher cadence on the roadie and raise your HR that way...

My regular commute is my 29er HT, on or off road depending on time & conditions.

oodboo

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Up and down?
I'd have thought you'd snakebite like a muthertrucker when riding up stairs

Mostly down but there is a set of well spaced stairs that I could ride up as well. They were just deep enough to ride one step at a time excpet the last one that was spaced about the same as my wheelbase. Never punctured on them but did expect to on the top step. I felt like Martyn Ashton riding up them

YeehaaMcgee

Wow, I never thoguht that would have worked on a road/cx bike.
My method is more caveman though, charge at them full tilt, and unload the front wheel just before impacting them, and let the speed carry me up