Roadies

cubedean

booldawg wrote:

I've even heard that roadies cycle UPHILL!

I certainly avoid it if i can

veronese68

booldawg wrote:

I've even heard that roadies cycle UPHILL!

This must be why, inspite of the vast majority of my riding being on road and being a bit of a jessie on the tricky stuff off road, I couldn't quite commit to a full on road bike and had to get a cross bike with discs.

junglist_matty

Road biking is great for endurance training and leg strength... It doesn't require an ounce of upper body strength.

Mountain biking is also great for endurance training and leg strength..... It requires a degree of upper body strength


If you ride a road bike regularly and build up your endurance fitness, you will notice a huge improvement when climbing on your mountain bike; especially when climbing fireroad type stuff..... Unless you do loads of intervals on the road bike, you won't really notice improvements elsewhere as a lot of mountain biking is about explosive bursts and strength. If you ride long road rides and build up your endurance fitness, on the mountain bike, you'll feel an improvement in your sustainability on the bike, you won't feel so drained after an epic MTB ride, and will be able to ride further and for longer.

If you ride a mountain bike regularly and build up your endurance fitness, as well as upper body strength, you'll likely notice a small improvement in riding a road bike fast on a flat course, and not really anywhere else other than you're bike handling skills will feel more refined and feel more confident on the bike.


BTW, when I say road riding, that includes riding an MTB on the road; you'll just be going slower than you would be on a road bike, but achieving the same training level.

b45her

69fencer wrote:

Really I think mountain bikers are fitter

i ride both, trust me roadies are generally far fitter than mountainbikers.

angry_bird

b45her wrote:

69fencer wrote:

Really I think mountain bikers are fitter

i ride both, trust me roadies are generally far fitter than mountainbikers.

This, no arguement about it. Mountain biking generally involves more skill though, although there are times on the road where you need proper bike handling skills. If you start to lose a road bike at speed in a corner or down hill, there's a very limited time to react and get the bike back in check, even more so on wet roards, and the road surface doesn't take prisoners. Plus it's much harder to bail from a road bike than a mountain bike.

Also, it can take as much balls as mountain biking at times, chainganging for instance can be fucking dangerous, there are times when you'll be boxed in by other wheels by a matter of inches and have to hold your line and speed no matter what the road surface suddenly throws up, got to have a lot of confidence in the riding ability of the group too at that point.

DCR00

prawny wrote:

I get a better workout riding on the road, but I have more fun jumping on my MTB. I've tried it the other way round, but it's not as good.

My initial reaction to this is that you arent riding particularly hard

Yes im sure that riding 100 miles in one go is hard work (i know that when i did 60 miles it nearly killed me) but equally, riding an uplift all day, as an extreme example, is at least as physically and mentally demanding as riding roadside for a longer distance

welshkev

DCR00 wrote:

prawny wrote:

I get a better workout riding on the road, but I have more fun jumping on my MTB. I've tried it the other way round, but it's not as good.

My initial reaction to this is that you arent riding particularly hard

Yes im sure that riding 100 miles in one go is hard work (i know that when i did 60 miles it nearly killed me) but equally, riding an uplift all day, as an extreme example, is at least as physically and mentally demanding as riding roadside for a longer distance

the last uplift day we did I think someone registered it as 28km all in all we rode. I did feel battered the next day, but I did it easily, I couldn't say the same for riding 100 miles on a road bike, I doubt i'd be able to do it.

felix.london

junglist_matty wrote:

Road biking is great for endurance training and leg strength... It doesn't require an ounce of upper body strength.

Mountain biking is also great for endurance training and leg strength..... It requires a degree of upper body strength


If you ride a road bike regularly and build up your endurance fitness, you will notice a huge improvement when climbing on your mountain bike; especially when climbing fireroad type stuff..... Unless you do loads of intervals on the road bike, you won't really notice improvements elsewhere as a lot of mountain biking is about explosive bursts and strength. If you ride long road rides and build up your endurance fitness, on the mountain bike, you'll feel an improvement in your sustainability on the bike, you won't feel so drained after an epic MTB ride, and will be able to ride further and for longer.

If you ride a mountain bike regularly and build up your endurance fitness, as well as upper body strength, you'll likely notice a small improvement in riding a road bike fast on a flat course, and not really anywhere else other than you're bike handling skills will feel more refined and feel more confident on the bike.


BTW, when I say road riding, that includes riding an MTB on the road; you'll just be going slower than you would be on a road bike, but achieving the same training level.

Or just move to the Alps with your mountain bike.

angry_bird

DCR00 wrote:

prawny wrote:

I get a better workout riding on the road, but I have more fun jumping on my MTB. I've tried it the other way round, but it's not as good.

My initial reaction to this is that you arent riding particularly hard

Yes im sure that riding 100 miles in one go is hard work (i know that when i did 60 miles it nearly killed me) but equally, riding an uplift all day, as an extreme example, is at least as physically and mentally demanding as riding roadside for a longer distance

Riding downhill is completely different to riding on the road though so it's hard to compare levels of fitness there… I know a lot of roadies who couldn't manage a day of uplift but are happy sitting on a road bike for several hours and riding 200km+… mentally downhill would be a proper struggle, their upper body wouldn't be used to it and the legs would feel it after half a dozen runs as it's completely different to what they normally do. I think most downhillers would be the opposite.

It's the same in hockey, I've played outfield for most my life, and played in goal for a couple of years. It's just as knackering at the end of a 70 minute match to have played in goal and done very little in comparisson to playing outfield. The difference is that I've got to put in 100% for a fewer, shorter busts ranging from 30 seconds to maybe 5 minutes if things are going tits up, while also carrying a shedload of armour around. It uses muscles in a different way.

Back on track, in a purely CV sense, roadies are always going to be fitter. The dream position is to find a balance between MTB and gay riding.

coulddobetter

. The dream position is to find a balance between MTB and gay riding.
That would be the young lady on the cyclocross bike yesterday ........she certainly looked fit from behind :shock:

kajjal

Angry Bird wrote:

b45her wrote:

69fencer wrote:

Really I think mountain bikers are fitter

i ride both, trust me roadies are generally far fitter than mountainbikers.

This, no arguement about it. Mountain biking generally involves more skill though, although there are times on the road where you need proper bike handling skills. If you start to lose a road bike at speed in a corner or down hill, there's a very limited time to react and get the bike back in check, even more so on wet roards, and the road surface doesn't take prisoners. Plus it's much harder to bail from a road bike than a mountain bike.

Also, it can take as much balls as mountain biking at times, chainganging for instance can be ******* dangerous, there are times when you'll be boxed in by other wheels by a matter of inches and have to hold your line and speed no matter what the road surface suddenly throws up, got to have a lot of confidence in the riding ability of the group too at that point.

Another difference is mountain biking is over much rougher terrain. Having just got in from riding hard over rocky trails it is very different to being on road. Going fast down a steep uneven rutted , rocky, track with a very loose surface takes a lot of skill and experience. The road bike equivalent is try to brake / corner hard while travelling at speed in the wet. Both are a challenge in their own way but mountain biking gives a more alround workout. The upside to road biking is you and your bike don't get frequently plastered in sheep stuff

prawny

DCR00 wrote:

prawny wrote:

I get a better workout riding on the road, but I have more fun jumping on my MTB. I've tried it the other way round, but it's not as good.

My initial reaction to this is that you arent riding particularly hard

Yes im sure that riding 100 miles in one go is hard work (i know that when i did 60 miles it nearly killed me) but equally, riding an uplift all day, as an extreme example, is at least as physically and mentally demanding as riding roadside for a longer distance

I'd say I ride pretty hard, maybe my choice of words was wrong. I get a better quality workout on my road bike, I can ride to a plan, and there's less to get in the way.

When I ride off road, OK I don't do DH or anything yet, but I give it some stick, sweat pouring into my eyes, sliding both wheels in the corners. But I just recovery from it much quicker, I feel really drained after a couple of fast hours on the road bike, to get the same sort of drained feeling I need to be smashing fire roads for a morning, and that's not what mountain biking is about for me.

Keep the road for excersise and mtb for fun, I don't want it to feel like work.

blinddrew

I'd agree with the idea that it's a different kind of exercise. Road riding tends to be a bit more like distance running, all lower body work, more about stamina and endurance whereas mountain biking tends to be more like rugby, whole body exercise and a lot more sprint / power work.
Fun in different ways too.

jjojjas

blinddrew wrote:

I'd agree with the idea that it's a different kind of exercise. Road riding tends to be a bit more like distance running, all lower body work, more about stamina and endurance whereas mountain biking tends to be more like rugby, whole body exercise and a lot more sprint / power work.
Fun in different ways too.

agree. Its an odd thread anyway but I'm sort of surprised that more of you don't ride more than one discipline. When I did D/H I rode xc/trails too...now I'm old and decrepit I ride road/xc/longer endurance tours/trails.
Gotta say I'm way fitter now though with the road stuff.

if nothing else it gives me reasons to have several bikes

kajjal

I know what you mean now I am over 40 the urge to cripple myself on a MTB has gone. Just do XC mountain biking and road riding now. No more BMX style jumps and crazy steep rocky descents on my MTB

declan1

Haven't read the whole thread but just chiming in here as a roadie - quite a few roadies are arseholes. They don't speak, say hello or even nod their heads to me, so I highly doubt they would speak to a mountain biker. The majority, however, are nice and normally say hello - maybe you just pick the wrong ones!

Also, roadies are on average fitter than mountain bikers. We do it for the fitness mainly, not fun. By the way, I also love mountain biking so I'm not biased here!

DanDax1990

I know this may shock some people, But some mountain bikers are w*nkers too, Just like the OP.

cooldad

No argument but I think the OP is a troll, not an MTBer.

DanDax1990

cooldad wrote:

No argument but I think the OP is a w*nker, not an MTBer.

cooldad

That as well.

diy

Its not distance alone that makes a ride hard, its climb. Did the off-road L2B the other day and road home after. Its an easy 72-75 mile off road ride with barely 1,500 foot of climb. Compare that to the South downs way ~12,500 ft/100 miles and its not even equiv. to a 3rd of the work. Its the same for road riding. Its climb not distance that makes it hard. I'd say roughly though that 50 MTB miles is equiv to about 75-100 road miles.

Its so easy to get a road bike humming along at 22+mph, bloody hard to get more than 17 out of your avg MTB.

The reason roadies can be knobs is that they generally compete with other riders they see, whereas MTBers are just riding the same trial.

Briggo

diy wrote:

Its so easy to get a road bike humming along at 22+mph, bloody hard to get more than 17 out of your avg MTB.

If you're doing 17mph on average you ain't riding off road.

Either that or my fitness levels suck.

declan1

Briggo wrote:

diy wrote:

Its so easy to get a road bike humming along at 22+mph, bloody hard to get more than 17 out of your avg MTB.

If you're doing 17mph on average you ain't riding off road.

Either that or my fitness levels suck.

Try reading that again.

Chinley Churner

Road cycling makes you a better mountain biker and mountain biking makes you a better road cyclist... end of. That's why all of the top mountain bikers, including free-riders and downhillers, spend time training on a road bike. It's only Weekend Warriors who have ridiculous tribal hang-ups.

welshkev

Chinley Churner wrote:

Road cycling makes you a better mountain biker and mountain biking makes you a better road cyclist... end of. That's why all of the top mountain bikers, including free-riders and downhillers, spend time training on a road bike. It's only Weekend Warriors who have ridiculous tribal hang-ups.

that is bollocks....top dh riders etc ride a road bike to get the miles in to get/keep fit. how does riding a road bike on a flat, smooth road enhance their ability to ride a dh track or huck a 20ft step down? :?

and btw, I have no tribal hang ups just for the record

njee20

He didn't say it gives you better technical ability, he says it makes you a better mountain biker. Fitness is a part of that. Road riding is good for fitness (as you admit), ergo riding on the road makes you a better MTBer.

Chinley Churner

welshkev wrote:

Chinley Churner wrote:

Road cycling makes you a better mountain biker and mountain biking makes you a better road cyclist... end of. That's why all of the top mountain bikers, including free-riders and downhillers, spend time training on a road bike. It's only Weekend Warriors who have ridiculous tribal hang-ups.

that is ****....top dh riders etc ride a road bike to get the miles in to get/keep fit. how does riding a road bike on a flat, smooth road enhance their ability to ride a dh track or huck a 20ft step down? :?

and btw, I have no tribal hang ups just for the record

You've answered your own question.. it makes them fitter, which makes them better mountain bikers.

welshkev

yeah, it was the way I read it. I get your point

felix.london

diy wrote:

Its not distance alone that makes a ride hard, its climb

this ^^

The toughest mountain bike race over here is the Ultraraid, only 110km...but with 5,500m of positive altitude gain. And that's 5,500m of off-road, gnarly as you like altitude gain too.

Who's fitter roadies or MTBers?...doesn't make sense. It's a stupid question with no answer

i.e. what does dragging a 14.5kg enduro bike up a 10km trail with 1,200m of altitude gain represent (fitness-wise) when comparing to riding an 7kg road bike for 200km with 300m of altitude gain??

njee20

I still stand by the fact that the average (ie run of the mill, lurking at the tea shop on a Sunday) roadie is fitter than the average run of the mill MTBer. By a long way.

That's not stronger, better, faster or anything else. Fitter.