Road bike vs Mountain Bike

Rodders30

Just for a comparison. I commute on my MTB, it weighs 16.7kg has 2.1" knobblies. I've been doing a 7.5mile route home and averaging 16.1mph as my best.

Did it on the road bike as it was dry the other day, ave'd 20.6mph.

But I would say, pushing the MTB round over the short distance has improved my legs muscles more than doing it easily on the road bike.

ai_1

Rodders30 wrote:

.....But I would say, pushing the MTB round over the short distance has improved my legs muscles more than doing it easily on the road bike.

Yes but this is a fixed distance commute. A road bike is more enjoyable and satisfying on the road so you are more likely to go out and train more often and for longer. Both will work but a road bike is, unsurprisingly, better on the road.

♠ChumBucket♠

I was faster overall & more comfortable on a slick shod MTB than my road bike. I could (just) reach a higher top speed on the road bike but never get the averages I can on the MTB. The difference between offroad tyres & road tyres is night & day- the difference between MTB (with road tyres) & a full on road bike is not that much IMO. The MTB has been made road friendly though with a slammed stem, bars angled differently & end bars added. I will add one more thing with road bikes- don't believe the hype.

Anonymous

♠ChumBucket♠ wrote:

I was faster overall & more comfortable on a slick shod MTB than my road bike. I could (just) reach a higher top speed on the road bike but never get the averages I can on the MTB. The difference between offroad tyres & road tyres is night & day- the difference between MTB (with road tyres) & a full on road bike is not that much IMO. The MTB has been made road friendly though with a slammed stem, bars angled differently & end bars added. I will add one more thing with road bikes- don't believe the hype.

What kind of MTB do you have? 29er? What's your highest gear on each bike?
Why would your averages be better on an MTB?
At which point (and by doing what) on a road journey would an MTB be faster to get your average speed faster?

Guessing the OP has a 26" wheel MTB.
My MTB has a 44t chainring and 26" wheels. Not sure what size the smaller sprockets are but its painful to ride on the road (even with proper hybrid tyres on) compared to a 50t/700c cyclocross/road bike.

The MTB is carbon too, so not even heavy. The cyclocross bike is 21lbs, so not even light.

If an MTB was good to ride on the road, wouldn't that make it rubbish to ride off road?

smoggysteve

Not sure why people are going on about speed and gears on mtb vs road for. none of this helps. The only variable you should be interested in is energy expelled to push the bike forward. Speed does not make you fitter. Fitness makes you faster. If you are riding a heavy mtb or a 6kg road bike the speed you are travelling at or gear you are pushing is completely irrelevent in this scenario. its the energy you are burning. With cycling riding on a flat road on any bike will not challenge you. Climbing will as you have force the pedals round to get uo the hill. you either work hard or you stop.

As the OP wants to lose weight I would recommend this-

1. Forget about running just yet. long distance jogging for a few miles does nothing to lose weight. you put extra pressure on your knees and back.
2 If you want to cycle, try more hills and short bursts of power. This will keep your heart rate in a fat burning zone.
3. Lift weights. not suggesting you go trying to lift your body weight over your head but weight training will help you burn more calories in a controlled emvironment. low weight and high repititions are best. Stuff like doing half sits with a 5lb weight and medball twists work wonders.

Getting back to the bike. If you had a light bike you would go faster but you are not going to burn any more energy. Its pretty hard to try and force yourself to work harder on the flat, your instinct is to drop down a gear when you start to tire. climbing on any bike will make you work and even a heavy mtb with a triple making you spin fast will work you better than a light bike which gets you there quicker. you only shorten the time you actually get to work hard.

Anonymous

SmoggySteve wrote:

Not sure why people are going on about speed and gears on mtb vs road for.

Because (as per the text I quoted) I was questioning someone saying that a road bike was no better to ride on the road than an MTB.
Weight loss was not mentioned in that post.

100% agree with hills etc. That will work for exactly the same reason that running will.
Time trials (so basically short (ish) bursts) would be another option if op does not like the idea of hills.
Not suggesting he goes with others, but sets up his own and times himself.

At the end of the day its simply burn more calories than you eat which is a simple principle.
The difficult part is implementing it into everyday life and sticking to it.

Things that have worked for me are 5:2 diet and running mainly. Time trials/hill cycling would also be good as they have the same high intensity/low duration as running.

5:2 diet is being on a diet 2 days a week. Other diets are 7 days a week (also known as 365 days a year).
Running only takes a pair of trainers and 5 min prep. Cycling needs a bike, a route,more prep time and much more time generally..
Knees may be an issue but whatever works best for each person.
Walking around on 20 stone for years is not great for knees.

Cycling at a comfortable pace or walking for hours is not going to burn as many calories.
The main problem (IMO) however is that it leaves you hungry, and you then eat more calories than you burned.

Do something (liker running) harder in execution and shorter in duration, I find leaves you less likely to eat for 4 reasons.
1/ You are doing something drastically different (people walk and cycle leisurely everyday) and will feel more committed to losing weight.
2/ You do not need to eat (fuel) to do the exercise, and are less likely to eat directly after.
3/ You will be less likely to eat full stop because you know that the more you eat, the more hard exercise (which is not that enjoyable) you will have to do.
4/ When you start to lose weight you will want to lose more.

Not sugesting OP only runs or only does any one thing. Just saying to consider it and come up with a good plan he can generally stick to.

ai_1

SmoggySteve wrote:

Not sure why people are going on about speed and gears on mtb vs road for. none of this helps. The only variable you should be interested in is energy expelled to push the bike forward. Speed does not make you fitter. Fitness makes you faster. If you are riding a heavy mtb or a 6kg road bike the speed you are travelling at or gear you are pushing is completely irrelevent in this scenario. its the energy you are burning. With cycling riding on a flat road on any bike will not challenge you. Climbing will as you have force the pedals round to get uo the hill. you either work hard or you stop. ....

In theory this is all valid and was mentioned earlier but I think the most important thing when you're trying to get fit, lose weight or both is that you get satisfaction out of it and ideally enjoy it. Quite frankly, riding a MTB with nobbly tyres on the road is a less satisfying and enjoyable experience for most people as compared with a bike designed and set up for road riding. It's not about the energy expelled when you ride, it's about how often you're likely to get out and ride, how much you're likely to do and how much you enjoy it when you do. Willpower is overestimated. You can't sustainably lose weight or get fit using will power alone to keep you at it. You'll fail. You have to get into a habit and you have to enjoy it. If you can manage that then it becomes easy to keep it going. Anything that improves your chances of making this a sustainable is much more important than the quality or volume of individual sessions. Don't punish yourself unless you get satisfaction from that.

smoggysteve wrote:

.....Getting back to the bike. If you had a light bike you would go faster but you are not going to burn any more energy. Its pretty hard to try and force yourself to work harder on the flat, your instinct is to drop down a gear when you start to tire. climbing on any bike will make you work and even a heavy mtb with a triple making you spin fast will work you better than a light bike which gets you there quicker. you only shorten the time you actually get to work hard.

I do find riding on the flat a challenge. Obviously it's pretty easy to just keep moving on the flat but it's not easy to continuously improve your performance or to maintain a chosen pace or heart rate. A bike computer is a must and I'd recommend a heart rate monitor too. These give you targets just as real as the top of a hill. I enjoy both mountains and the flat and ride both regularly. I often hit the hills/mountains for longer rides at the weekend. I find them tough but enjoyable in that masochistic way us cyclists like! However for shorter cycles during the week and some of my longer ones I stay on the flat. I don't have much in the way of hills near home, so during the work week I ride on the flat - I suspect many people do things this way? I like to use a heart rate monitor. I don't find I have an instinct to drop the gears and slow down, I'm more inclined to do that on the hills between climbs. On the flat I'm measuring my ride and trying to maintain an average speed goal and/or keep my HR where I want it. I also enjoy doing a short out and back TT route (about 15km) from time to time on a calm evening (to eliminate wind impact). I test myself along this route and try to beat my PB every few weeks during summer, weather permitting. Some of the toughest cycles I've done were solo TTs against my own bike computer.

The first thing I'd recommend is ensuring you're using road tyres whether that means switching the tyres on your MTB or better yet getting a road bike - the road bike can wait if you don't have the budget or you're not sure what you want yet. For me a bike computer is equally important as it provides feedback on how you're doing. I find a heart monitor invaluable, a cadence sensor is nice but not essential.

As far as what speed and effort is best for weight loss. I'd suggest ignoring most of the "rules" you'll find floating around. It's mostly nonsense. The idea that low intensity for long periods is best for "burning fat" is misleading but commonly believed. A calorie is a calorie regardless what intensity you're working at to expend it. Long low intensity can lead to you using fat reserves for energy directly but this is no more effective than expending energy from glycogen at high intensity and restoring those reserves later. I'm not sure about this bit but I think higher intensity work is thought to raise metabolic rate more effectively - don't take my word for this in case I have it wrong! The vital thing is that you increase activity without increasing food intake in the same proportion.

ai_1

Carbonator wrote:

SmoggySteve wrote:

Running only takes a pair of trainers and 5 min prep. Cycling needs a bike, a route,more prep time and much more time generally..
Knees may be an issue but whatever works best for each person.
Walking around on 20 stone for years is not great for knees............


.............Not sugesting OP only runs or only does any one thing. Just saying to consider it and come up with a good plan he can generally stick to.

Depending on starting weight I think running can often be a bad idea. Running with a high body weight means the minimum intensity to just maintain a proper gait can be too high to sustain so that you end up shuffling along with a bad posture and technique. That plus the high loadings due to high weigh increase the likelihood of injury. Nothing is more de-motivating than an injury!

If you like cycling I'd stick to that initially. If you prefer running then do it by all means. If you don't have a preference and just want an activity to start you on the path to getting you fitter and slimmer then I'd say start with cycling and move to running when you've developed a decent aerobic fitness and ideally lost some weight.

Running certainly has lots of advantages (cost, simplicity, impact is good for bone density, many prefer it over cycling in bad weather) but it has significant disadvantages too especially for anyone who's overweight. I ran a few years ago and after a knee injury I switched to cycling. I've recently returned to running and love it but it's been made much more enjoyable by the fact that I've become much more aerobically fit and somewhat lighter through cycling. Using minimal running shoes has also been a big factor but that's a whole other discussion!

Anonymous

How about the OP sets some goals.

I personally found the 5:2 diet easy to live with and effective, but another form of calorie reduction if prefered.
Couple this with mountain biking to drop a stone or two.
Then buy a road bike for another stone or two.
Then add in running when light enough and fitter.

If months/years down the line nothing happens with the mountain bike or road bike stages then just fcuk worrying about knees and jump straight to running!

Other options are gastrict band or just staying fat forever.

As I said before it is also vital that you really want to lose weight, rather than just would like to weigh less

g00se

Another +1 for 5:2 - just don't plan any long rides on one of the '2' days

Rodders30

Last year I lost 3 stone 1lb. All I did was eat healthy and cycle. I still had the odd pizza/chocolate/curry etc... just didnt go crazy.

I dont see the point of starving for 2 days, or whatever it is you have to do on that 5:2 diet.

Just stick with the very simple and what others have said, calories in = less that calories out.

Anonymous

Rodders30 wrote:

Last year I lost 3 stone 1lb. All I did was eat healthy and cycle. I still had the odd pizza/chocolate/curry etc... just didnt go crazy.

I dont see the point of starving for 2 days, or whatever it is you have to do on that 5:2 diet.

Just stick with the very simple and what others have said, calories in = less that calories out.

Glad it worked for you Rodders, but the simple fact is that sensible eating and moderate excercise does not for most.
If it did there would be no need for any diet and we would not have an obesity epidemic.

5:2's main advantage is that you are only dieting for two days a week, not seven.
There are possibly other health benefits too.

Anonymous

g00se wrote:

Another +1 for 5:2 - just don't plan any long rides on one of the '2' days

You could go for a quick run though ;-)

Rodders30

Carbonator wrote:

Rodders30 wrote:

Last year I lost 3 stone 1lb. All I did was eat healthy and cycle. I still had the odd pizza/chocolate/curry etc... just didnt go crazy.

I dont see the point of starving for 2 days, or whatever it is you have to do on that 5:2 diet.

Just stick with the very simple and what others have said, calories in = less that calories out.

Glad it worked for you Rodders, but the simple fact is that sensible eating and moderate excercise does not for most.
If it did there would be no need for any diet and we would not have an obesity epidemic.

5:2's main advantage is that you are only dieting for two days a week, not seven.
There are possibly other health benefits too.

Only because people dont have will power and want an easy way out. It does and would work if people stuck at it. Dieting is part of everyday life, not just for loosing weight.

Anonymous

People do not stick at it though so it's absolutely pointless saying it would work if they did.

Initialised

I don't really see it as Road Bike vs Mountain Bike. I have both and do both.

On mountain bike tyres roads aren't that much fun and are best seen as ways of linking up bits of trail. Conversely once a trail is less than hard packed, dry mud it becomes a chore to ride it on road tyres (file treaded 28mms can just about cope), then there's the lack of decent brakes on proper (UCI certified) road bikes.

A good session on the road burn plenty of calories and develop endurance, a similar length session on the trails will develop bike handling skills and still burn plenty of calories but the load is less consistent than on the road so not as useful for fitness.