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I used to ride my MTB a lot and even when I'd push it, I could only average about 12-14mph (almost pure street riding). One day, I wanted to see how far I could ride and I went 30 miles. Felt like I went to the east coast and back again. Took me like 4 hours. I used to fantasize about completing a "century ride" until that day.
However, I have always wondered how much faster and how much further I could ride on a road bike (if at all). I'm not even sure the bike would be THAT big of an advantage but I like to think it would be.
Do any of you have any input as to the difference in efficiency of a road bike vs. a MTB?
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Put some street oriented "slicks" on your MTB, pump them up to about 80 psi, and go ride. That bike will be about 20% less efficient than a roadie, but 20% more efficient than your MTB with off-road tires pumped up to 45 psi.
You actually get a benefit of riding a MTB on the road, as the bigger tires at a lesser PSI does not feel every bump in the road like a road bike will. I have ridding my MTB, set up as an "Urban Assault" vehicle (slicks with high PSI) over 90 miles, and it was not all that difficult. If I would have known I was so close to a Century, I would have kept riding!
still good training though.
I ride both, and I couldn't fathom riding my mountain bike on the road. When I first started out doing the roadie thing, I put slick tires on one of my old hardtail Stumpjumpers. Great to ride around the neighborhood, but pointless on the open highway. A good friend of mine just rode a 50K charity ride on his Giant Reign downhill bike with big whitewall tires on it. Did great on the climbs, but sucked on the flats. And forget about riding in a group.
There's nothing quite like riding in a paceline in the big-ring doing 25-30mph and still having plenty resistance on the pedals. You can go scary-fast on a road bike. If you've got the "engine", you can go about as fast as you want. In the club I ride with, the "A" guys are averaging over 20mph, my group is doing about 18mph. As you've already found out, you have to hustle to average 12-14 on your mountain bike. Not to mention that a lot of the road riding on your mtb is coasting.
Bottom line: Mountain bike vs. road bike on the road? Not a fair fight.
best i have done on a heavy hardtail i bought for bridge repeats and beach rides was 30mph max in a fast road group ride.no way was i in any condition to do a pull though.lol
i use this bike for the slower roadie rides and my road bike for the hammerfest rides.
im a mtb rider 1st,roadie 2nd.
I will resist the urge (kinda easy when you have no money) and tell myself I don't need to go 100 miles and that riding the MTB is still very good training (which, it is).
My new to me ride..........
Pit Row
BTW.....hope you're doing well buddy! I am healing up from some tweaked ribs and some internal bruising right now. Hope to be back on the 450 within a few weeks if these bones aren't broke.....but to soon to tell right now.
Take care man , and please stay in touch!
As far as my wreck goes......shit , it all boils down to me trying to ride like a damn teenager and my body not keeping up with my brain. It happened at one of my friends practice tracks. He has the gnarly little set of whoops which are really peaked out.....only about 1-1/2 tall , but real pointy. The only way to go through them , is either to double-double , or possibly try a triple part in the middle or something....OR , jump into them in 3rd and hammer as hard as you can and skim them. Well , I had been jumping the first 3 and having my front tire hit the 4th , and going into them in 3rd gear completely pinned and just humming across them. I did it all day , and had them dialed.
The thing is , I rode all day two days before , and all day again on the day i wrecked. I should have stopped about 2 practices before it even happened , but I was having so much fun I didn't want to stop. I was so tired I was about falling over in corners , but I kept going for some reason. My last lap around I decided to triple in and blitz them again......but I screwed up the corner coming in and lost a little of my entry speed. I tripled , but came up a little short.....lost some momentum and when I got to the last two , I hit a really bad kicker on the front side. My front wheel hit it first and I lost more speed , then when my rear wheel hit , it slammed really , really hard and it came back on me.....and shot me over the bars.
Me and the bike first landed about 20' past the last whoop upside down......then me and the bike continued to cart wheel 3 more times all the way to the next corner. Got a slight concussion , broke some ribs and bruised myself up pretty good. The scary thing was , i bruised the top of my head some how and it screwed up my spine and neck. To the point where they got swollen and I could feel about 80% of my left arm for a couple hours. It's been a week now.....and I still can't feel parts of my fingers on my left side.
I can't keep doing this shit to myself. I'm getting to old to take hits like this any more and now it's starting to affect my work. I can't help the way i ride....as I always want to push myself.....if I can't do that.....then why bother ya know? It gets boring just putting around at 1/2 speed.
Going to get healed up and finish out the year riding.....and then towards the end of the summer , I'm going to weigh my options. Thinking about just stepping away from the riding part all together. I have the rest of my life to think about and I really don't want to end up in a wheel chair or even worse.
Sorry for the long reply Butch.....just got a lot of things on my mind right now.
That's like installing chrome running boards on a KX450
All you need now is a set of tri bars on your Specialuzed and 2 water bottles on the b.ack of the seat. A white bucket helmet with the mirror clipped on it wouldn't hurt either
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