definitely doable. as said, depends on your friends.

I did a pannier-ed tour from Surrey – Wiltshire – North Yorks about 10 years ago.

Cannondale beast of the east, rear tyre worn semi slick. Biggest day was 115 miles Chippenham – Burton. averaged 16mph. Felt pretty good, I certainly wasn’t suffering from all the problems Mr Smith describes.

But if I was with a bunch of roadies chompibng at the bit, it would have been frustating for them and demoralising for me.

Ask them what kind of average mph they anticipate doing it in, then take yourself out for a long ride and see if you think it’s realistic.

notice how I used the words necessarily and may ???

The guys I rode with got more back pain, particularly one so I had to play around with flipping his stem and stem spacers to make it easier.

whose says a mtb saddle is any different from a road saddle – I have a flite on one bike and an SLR on another – and imho the rest of your comments about weight distribution and core are bs as well.

“Lack of riding time” is probably the key. I can’t believe a road bike position is ergonomically comfortable. It’s just that road cyclists are deformed to fit over time.

Swapping from a mountainbike to a road bike won’t be a comfortable experience.

+1 having been through that process over the last four months.

For what its worth I did 100-mile plus road rides on a hardtail with slicks / low stem / bar-ends with no drastic consequences, before getting a proper road bike. The road bike does them a bit faster, is all…

High stem and riser bars? 😉

Right, you can start with a comfortable more upright MTB-style position, then incrementally lower/stretch it as your body adjusts.

Which is what I did, and it takes time.

A reasonably fit rider, on a slicked-up MTB should have no problem doing 100 miles. I once did 110 miles on a hardtail round the Lancashire Cycleway, and lived to tell the tale. The issue is how fast do you want to go? I only averaged about 13ph, whereas I’ve done the same distance at over on my road bike. I think you need to talk to your mates and find out…

My guess is 10-20% faster, although when I did my road riding on a flat barred fully rigid stretched out MTB it was a long time ago and I was not as fit as now.

Depends on the terrain. Rolling/hilly there doesn’t seem that much in it, on the flat maybe worth 2-3mph average over a long ride for me at the moment (reasonably fit but not a racer).

The difference is most noticeable in snap acceleration and pushing the pace 20mph+ where the MTB runs into a brick wall (as it were) rather sooner. Not an issue on long steady rides but tends to get you dropped from a quick roadie bunch if they’re riding aggressively. But then they’ll probably drop you anyway whatever you’re riding… 😉

All that said, I did have my hardtail very specifically set up ie 1.2″ slicks, rigid fork, 48-tooth big ring, narrow flat bars. And I do find the road bike more comfortable for my hands/shoulders in particular (but that’s with four months of conditioning and fettling).

That’s kind of what I thought. Much as I try and justify it, it’s not really worth me changing my slick shod mtb for a road bike to shave 3 mins off a 30 min commute. A road bike wouldn’t look right with flat pedals either 😉
I’ll just have to work on my fitness in order to chase the roadies down…

Don’t be ashamed. Make a statement! Bury them on the climbs, like an MTBer should!

is that true? when i remember i pump the slicks on mrs antigees commuter to about 80psi and have no idea what the rims are designed for 2nd hand off here – i would have though all the other forces on a rim much higher than the uniform pressure from inner tube

now putting a very narrow 700c tyre on a wide 29er rim may cause problems but that is tyre width not pressure?

Don’t know the answer but like to know

A great point that I was asking myself too giantjaunt.

The A 15 is a nightmare in a car (yes I own one :-)), never mind on a bike.

If that’s your route TAKE CARE!

seen it with 317’s that have thin road type slicks fitted and pumped to the max (for the tyre) split the tyre bead
v-brake rims have more meat at the sides but mtb disk rims only have to take 40odd psi…..

thanks i’ll look at mavic site was thinking about building some disk 700c wheels so better be more careful on rim selection

I’m thinking of the force pushing the rim outward, not the force on the bead

the only rim failure I’ve seen was the side pushed

I’d say bigger tyres exert more force either due to larger area or lower radius of curvature

pressure dictates the force on the rim.
bigger tyres would probably come off the rim before failure, it’s the narrow tyres with their higher max pressure that may cause problems.

Because pressures is force PER UNIT AREA. So 50psi is still 50psi if it’s over a big tyre or small tyre. And the area of the bead in contact with the rim is the same regardless of the size of the tyre.

BUT

A larger tyre has a greater angle between the rim and the tyre sidewall. So the bead has less purchase on the hook on the rim and as MrSmith says the tyre would be more likely to blow off rather than the rim fail.

That’s exactly what I just said.