Difference with a road bike

Pauld100

I have just bought a Merlin s2200 road bike, with 53/39 double and 12-25 cassette. My other bike is a Lapierre hard tail with triple chain set, and having done a comparison using one of the gear calcs I have to admit I'm a bit worried whether I will have the legs for the harder gearing!

The question is - having done 56 miles on the mtb for charity a year ago, how would this compare in terms of effort in doing the same distance on the new bike? I guess the thinner tyres and larger wheels may make it comparably easier (except the hill climbs maybe)?

I have challenged myself to do a 100 miler Sportive by the end of the year!

IT66T

You will find it a little more harder on the turn of the crank but given time you'll soon find yourself making good progress and you just need to pace yourself a little more than you have been doing ..

monkimark

I got my first road bike in April after years of mountain biking.
Even compared to slicks on the mountain bike I was surprised how much faster/easier it is on the road bike, lack of low gears hasn't been a problem yet and I've been around the surrey hills a few times.

i'd previously been out on rides with my roadie mates and was struggling by the end, now I find myself having to hold back a bit to let them keep up.

rolf_f

Pauld100 wrote:

I have just bought a Merlin s2200 road bike, with 53/39 double and 12-25 cassette. My other bike is a Lapierre hard tail with triple chain set, and having done a comparison using one of the gear calcs I have to admit I'm a bit worried whether I will have the legs for the harder gearing!

The question is - having done 56 miles on the mtb for charity a year ago, how would this compare in terms of effort in doing the same distance on the new bike? I guess the thinner tyres and larger wheels may make it comparably easier (except the hill climbs maybe)?

I have challenged myself to do a 100 miler Sportive by the end of the year!

It depends. MTBs have low gears because they need them! Off road, you are commonly climbing much steeper gradients on much rougher terrain. If that is what you use your MTB for, then you won't need anywhere near as low gears on the road.

On the other hand, if you are needing all those gears for riding on the road, even with knobbly tyres, then you may have a hard time of it. The difference between MTB and road bike on road isn't as great as you might think in terms of outright pace. One way to test this is to see if you actually ever use the small chainring on the road. If you don't, the impact of the road bike gearing won't be as much as you think.

Besides, if you can do 56 miles on the road on a knobblied MTB, you could probably cope with 100 miles on a road bike now without too much risk of dying!

marylogic

I have a hybrid which is actually fairly light and has a 48/36/26 and 11-32 rear cassette.
My road bike has admittedly got a triple but before I changed it had 30 front, 25 rear as the lowest gear and I barely noticed the difference between the two bikes going up hills - the road bike is much more efficient. I think if you're moving from a mountain bike you'll notice a big difference. If you were really struggling on hills you could look at getting a 12-27 or even lower cassette.

Good luck

iPete

Only one way to find out! You can't really compare, as said, different terrain etc. and we don't know how hilly it is around you.

If it becomes a problem there are a few things you can do but no need to think about those yet.

mbthegreat

Just go out and see how it feels. If you need lower gears you should be able to swap the cassette fairly easily. Worst that can happen is you end up pushing it up a hill, which is hardly the end of the world.

navrig

56 miles on an MTB on knobblies.

You wont have a problem getting started on a road bike.

Sprool

I find with my MTB with slicks on (Conti contacts) I can cruise at a comfortable 14-15 mph on the flat. On my road bike I can do 18 - 20mph with the same effort. Thats the difference in weight, drag, rolling resistance. What is initially tougher to get used to is steep gradients > 15% where the extra low gears of the mtg mean you can spin up virtually anything. On a double ring + compact you may well be out of the saddle to get up the steeper hills, which is a lot more tiring than spinning.

t4tomo

^^^^^^^this

That whirringh sound you hear on the road on a MTB, thats all wasted energy generating noise. On 23/25mm tyres at 100psi+ its much easier pedalling which compensates fro the higher gearing. That said, a compact chainset 50/34 might have been a better choice than your double 53/39 - so you'll just have to MTFU quicker and get used to it.