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Mountain vs Road Biking
I'd like to hear from those of you who had to make the choice of whether to
get a road or mountain bike. I'm going to purchase one or the other. I would guess it would be a while before I could afford the other. I live in Florida and there are a good number of mountain biking trails within an hours drive. But it's still at least 45 mins to get to any trailhead. For road bikes I can be on the road in 1 minute but I don't know if riding bikes on florida's roadways is a good idea. Thanks in Advance George |
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"Chris" wrote in message
om... I'd like to hear from those of you who had to make the choice of whether to get a road or mountain bike. I'm going to purchase one or the other. I would guess it would be a while before I could afford the other. I live in Florida and there are a good number of mountain biking trails within an hours drive. But it's still at least 45 mins to get to any trailhead. For road bikes I can be on the road in 1 minute but I don't know if riding bikes on florida's roadways is a good idea. Thanks in Advance George Well, there's always the option of getting a hardtail mountain bike and putting slick tires on it when you want to ride on the road... -- Scott Ehardt http://www.scehardt.com |
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"Chris" wrote in
om: I live in Florida and there are a good number of mountain biking trails within an hours drive. But it's still at least 45 mins to get to any trailhead. I have a mountain bike and a road bike. I have pretty much abandoned the mountain bike since the nearest nice trails are a 30 minute drive away. I can ride my road bike out the front door and find nice roads immediately. Eliminating the 1 hour (round trip) commute gives me 1 hour of more fun. |
#4
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Ken wrote:
"Chris" wrote in om: I live in Florida and there are a good number of mountain biking trails within an hours drive. But it's still at least 45 mins to get to any trailhead. I have a mountain bike and a road bike. I have pretty much abandoned the mountain bike since the nearest nice trails are a 30 minute drive away. I can ride my road bike out the front door and find nice roads immediately. Eliminating the 1 hour (round trip) commute gives me 1 hour of more fun. More or different? I don't enjoy road cycling (I live in London) I do enjoy mountain biking, fortunately I'm within a few miles road cycle of good off road but to me 30 mins drive to good off road cycling would be no issue. pk |
#5
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Starting over from scratch a few months ago, I picked up a used mountain
bike, thinking that this would be all I wanted. A mountain bike still makes a lot of sense in my neighborhood because the streets are sometimes rough (pot holes, etc). When I rode years before, I had one and used to go back and forth between paved roads and sidewalks so I could avoid vehicular traffic and mostly keep moving always and the mountain bike was a plus there. Several of my friends had road bikes, or both types, so I was naturally curious about the road side of riding. Eventually I sprang for an el cheapo 25 yr old Fuji RB to see if I'd like it and I did. So recently I bought another nice used road bike with better components than the Fuji. Now I find myself riding the road bike most of the time. I needed to get adjusted to the harder ride of a road bike, but it gets up to speed faster and easier and goes faster than the MB. It took a little getting used to riding down on the road bars, but that has a nice tradeoff too, as my hands and palms don't get so tired as they did on the mountain bike. I like having several hand positions on the road bike vs. basically one on the mountain bike. I plan to keep the MB to ride with family and when the weather is nasty, but the road bike is going to be my preference. My total investment between the two bikes is not 1,000 and I have about twice as much in the road bike as the mountain bike. I am really glad I figured out what I wanted before I got something good. |
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"Chris" wrote:
I'd like to hear from those of you who had to make the choice of whether to get a road or mountain bike. I'm going to purchase one or the other. I would guess it would be a while before I could afford the other. I live in Florida and there are a good number of mountain biking trails within an hours drive. But it's still at least 45 mins to get to any trailhead. For road bikes I can be on the road in 1 minute but I don't know if riding bikes on florida's roadways is a good idea. A couple thoughts... There are plenty of good places to ride a road bike in Florida - but it's such a big state, it's a bit like asking about "riding in the US"... Most of the "mountain biking" (a VERY relative term in Florida) tends to be fairly non-technical, or at least most of the riding areas have non-lethal trails. That would open up the option of having a single cyclocross bike - plenty capable on the road for anything you're likely to want to do (short of out and out racing, and even then probably wouldn't be much of a detriment). It would also allow you to carry panniers and use the bike to commute or run errands - kind of the ultimate pizza combo. I know if I could only have one bike (shudder...) it would be a 'cross. Mark Hickey Habanero Cycles http://www.habcycles.com Home of the $695 ti frame |
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"pk" wrote in
: I have a mountain bike and a road bike. I have pretty much abandoned the mountain bike since the nearest nice trails are a 30 minute drive away. I can ride my road bike out the front door and find nice roads immediately. Eliminating the 1 hour (round trip) commute gives me 1 hour of more fun. More or different? By not having to drive to and from the trailhead, I get 1 hour of *more* fun, per ride. Driving to the trailhead is not much fun. |
#8
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Chris wrote:
I'd like to hear from those of you who had to make the choice of whether to get a road or mountain bike. I'm going to purchase one or the other. I would guess it would be a while before I could afford the other. I have only a mountain bike, which I ride both on trails and on the road. My typical road course is 22 miles, and the lack of multiple had positions is very noticable, although I'm guessing bar ends would be a big improvement. Also, the road bikers always passed me, but I'm guessing I got a better workout. I think off road is more fun, although on-road is probably better exercise. Either is far better then watching TV. I have numerous trails within 25 miles, but still ride on-road more often due to the convenience of being able to ride right out of the garage. Rich |
#9
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"Chris" wrote in message om... I'd like to hear from those of you who had to make the choice of whether to get a road or mountain bike. I'm going to purchase one or the other. I would guess it would be a while before I could afford the other. You can always ride a mountain bike on any road, unless you want to ride with a group that likes to ride fast, however you cannot ride a road bike on any mountain bike trail regardless of the riding conditions. My riding is about 75% off-road, 25% on road, I feel much safer when riding on the mountain bike trails than in street traffic, plus in my opinion off-road riding is just more fun.. But to each his own, there will many that disagree with me. |
#10
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Chris wrote: I'd like to hear from those of you who had to make the choice of whether to get a road or mountain bike. I'm going to purchase one or the other. I would guess it would be a while before I could afford the other. I live in Florida and there are a good number of mountain biking trails within an hours drive. But it's still at least 45 mins to get to any trailhead. For road bikes I can be on the road in 1 minute but I don't know if riding bikes on florida's roadways is a good idea. Thanks in Advance It may depend on where you are in Florida. I've ridden on-road there, but never off-road. What are the off-road conditions like? It seems to me that you'll have little use for the super-low gears of a mountain bike, because (as I recall) the biggest hills are the freeway overpasses, right? Unless you're using low gears to plow through sand, which isn't any fun anyway. IME, riding a mountain bike on the road is close to drudgery. Riding a wider-tired road bike off-road is possible, except for crazy-extreme terrain - and again, I thought Florida lacked such terrain. My mountain bike hardly gets used, despite having a forest preserve less than a mile from my house. So my preference would be either a 'cross bike, or perhaps a touring bike. I wouldn't want my cycling to be limited to special occasions - as in, load it on the car first. And I wouldn't want to ride a mountain bike much on the road. But it occurs to me, you might want to talk with local cyclists, perhaps at a bike shop. On one hand, they may point out lots of great off-road that you don't know about; and on the other hand, they may point out miles of pleasant back roads that you've yet to discover. You might also want to check out places like http://www.floridabicycle.org/ for info or advice. |
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