Weight Considerations: Road Vs. Mountain

A road bike should be no problem for street riding on good roads. I
would recommend 36 spoke wheels properly tensioned and trued. Clearance
for 28 to 32 mm tires. You will need to keep the tires fully inflated to
avoid pinch flats.

I regularly ride a 40 year old Peugeot and a Raleigh loaded up to about
280 lbs. The only problem has been pinch flats (on the rear) before I
switched to 32mm tires. You can put a larger tire (say 30mm) on the rear
and still use a smaller one on the front (say 23mm) to decrease rolling
resistance. Most of the weight is on the rear tire.

HTH,
EJ in NJ

wrote:
Can I get opinions on what the maximum weight is a person should be
before road bikes become a bad idea?

Since mountain bikes are better suited for carry heavier loads, I was
trying to get an idea of how heavy is too heavy when it comes to Road
bikes? Is 240lbs too heavy?

This concerns street riding and nothing extreme.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

wrote:
Can I get opinions on what the maximum weight is a person should be
before road bikes become a bad idea?

Since mountain bikes are better suited for carry heavier loads, I was
trying to get an idea of how heavy is too heavy when it comes to Road
bikes? Is 240lbs too heavy?

This concerns street riding and nothing extreme.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

I know a 340 pound person who rides a stock Cannondale R800. 2002 year
I think. Carbon fork with metal steerer. 23mm tires. Some kind of
factory built Gipiemme wheels with a weird spoke lacing and oddly
formed/machined rim with flats between spokes. He has had no wheel or
equipment problems in the year or so he has ridden the bike. He is not
a high mileage person but at his weight, the 1,000 miles he puts on the
bike in a year would surface any catastrophic problems immediately.

I ride a couple times a week with a 230 pound person who has ridden the
same carbon tubed Specialized Epic with Dura Ace 8 speed and 32 hole
rims and 20 mm tires since about the mid 1990s. He does change the
tires when they wear out. The rest of the stuff stays the same. He is
a couple thousand mile a year rider.

"Nick Kew" wrote
Since he [cross]posted to uk.rec.cycling, a UK-oriented reply seems
perfectly in order. I have no idea what presence (if any) Dawes has
in the .. ahem .. colonies.

--
not me guv

Dawes does not currently export to the ..ahem.. *former* colonies. Nor are
Dawes bicycles exported to the other 37 states.
--
mark

Forgot to add that both my bikes run 23mm wide tires. I didn't like
them as much at first, but I got used to them over the first few hundred
miles. Mountain bike tires feel mushy to me now.

Since mountain bikes are better suited for carry heavier loads, I was
trying to get an idea of how heavy is too heavy when it comes to Road
bikes? Is 240lbs too heavy?

Not at all a problem for mine. It's a fairly crap road bike. Cheap
cromoly steel frame, 23mm tyres, cheapish wheels. Although it's a racer
it's been bodged up to look like a tourer and I've had long me+luggage
110kg/242lb trips on it with zero problems.

wrote:
Can I get opinions on what the maximum weight is a person should be
before road bikes become a bad idea?

Since mountain bikes are better suited for carry heavier loads, I was
trying to get an idea of how heavy is too heavy when it comes to Road
bikes? Is 240lbs too heavy?

This concerns street riding and nothing extreme.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Since I have heard of road tandems where the combined weight of 2 people
of 150lbs each would be 300 on 2 wheels I think you would be OK, but may
get more than your fair share of pinch flats. You would also have to
keep your tires near the max of 120 PSI. You might get more info by
going to Sheldon Brown's web site.
On this group you will probably get more advice than you need but at
least you will get some.
Good luck,
Bill Baka

"vernon" wrote in message
...
: Since mountain bikes are better suited for carry heavier loads, I was
: trying to get an idea of how heavy is too heavy when it comes to Road
: bikes? Is 240lbs too heavy?
:
: 240 lbs pah! you lightweight!
:
: I have a road bike that survives my 290+ lb carcase. I run it on 700c x
25
: tyres and have not had any problems. It has a chrome moly steel frame
can't
: say if carbon would survive but there again I don't love cycling enough to
: raise a mortgage for a state of the art machine.

good for you getting out there on a bike. I have heard several people in
that size range who wouldn't dream of doing it. I give you a ton of credit!

Pat in TX
:
:

wrote in message
ups.com...
Can I get opinions on what the maximum weight is a person should be
before road bikes become a bad idea?

Since mountain bikes are better suited for carry heavier loads, I was
trying to get an idea of how heavy is too heavy when it comes to Road
bikes? Is 240lbs too heavy?

This concerns street riding and nothing extreme.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.


No. Just keep away from the very light top-end bikes. A basic aluminium or
steel frame road/audax/tourer should cope without problem.

Cheers, helen s

In article . com,
says...


Can I get opinions on what the maximum weight is a person should be
before road bikes become a bad idea?

Since mountain bikes are better suited for carry heavier loads, I was
trying to get an idea of how heavy is too heavy when it comes to Road
bikes? Is 240lbs too heavy?

This concerns street riding and nothing extreme.

Depends on the bike and the parts it is built up with.
-------------
Alex

in message . com,
') wrote:

Can I get opinions on what the maximum weight is a person should be
before road bikes become a bad idea?

Depends on the road bike. You don't want ultra-light frames and
low-spoke-count wheels if you're /very/ heavy, but I have a 20 stone
(280lb) friend who rides an Isaac carbon time trial bike and a
Specialized Tarmac carbon race bike, and is devastatingly fast on both.

Since mountain bikes are better suited for carry heavier loads,

What on earth gave you that impression? It's quite false. Mountain Bikes,
like road bikes, come in a variety of different builds, and many of them
are definitely not designed to carry lardy gut buckets.

This concerns street riding and nothing extreme.

If you're riding on the street you /definitely/ don't want a mountain
bike, which isn't designed for street riding and is quite unsuitable for
it.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

:: Wisdom is better than weapons of war ::
:: Ecclesiastes 9:18 ::