I’ve read a lot of this now and as far as I can see, there’s no way that fitness developed pushing such thin tyres can possibly translate to mountain biking. Think about it, if you were say, training to lift huge weights, there’d be no point in say, doing power cleans with 5kg dumb bells, but in essence that’s what you’re doing with road cycling. As soon as you get on a mountain bike, your feeble road leg muscles will struggle to cope with bigger, heavier tyres

Poor troll.

There are a lot of folk on here who seem to be delusional about their fitness levels in comparison to roadies. I bet even an average road rider could leave you for dead on a MTB 🙄

Poor troll.

There are a lot of folk on here who seem to be delusional about their fitness levels in comparison to roadies. I bet even an average road rider could leave you for dead on a MTB

Absolutely.

+1

I tend to ride/train 2-3 times a week on the road bike (avg 100-150miles per week road with around 2500-3500m of climbing over the course of the 2-3 rides), and go for 2 MTB rides a week. Yes i am lucky to live in North Wales so have good MTB trails on my doorstep, along with nice roads with plenty of mountains to climb on the road also.

Does road biking help on descents on the mtb? No, skill and balls do

does it help on climbs (especialy long fore roads etc? Hell Yes

All the lads i know who combine both road and MTB are a lot faster than the lads who just MTB, so go figure.

chances are that riding a road bike will actually diminish your mountain bike fitness.

There’s some funny stuff on this thread, but that’s a cracker.
🙂

Just cutting through some of the murk here and kinda stating the obvious, surely the fitness benefits only come if you push yourself. IE poncing about for 50 miles won’t really do anything unless you are prepared to push your fitness – right?

And, to answer my second question, how much MORE comfortable amI likely to be in the winter on a roadie? Or Not? If its going to stay in the shed as much as my MTB then maybe its not worth it (I’m talking “muddy trails” and damp days btw not snow and ice).

As long as it’s got decent guards then it’s a lot cleaner than a mtb, if not you still end up wet and covered in crap. I used a road bike a lot when I lived in York as there was no local interesting off road routes, since I left it’s been out a couple of times as I’d rather hammer along the canal on my mtb if I just want a bit of exercise.

Infact just riding the mtb on the road is better exercise tham my road bike due to the much greater drag.

it’s easy to find out. Buy yrself a road bike and ride it regularly…

IE poncing about for 50 miles won’t really do anything unless you are prepared to push your fitness – right?

You can’t just ponce around for 50 miles though – it’d take forever! If you’re gonna do 50 miles, you’ll do it quick, and hard.

Whether you’ll use a road bike in winter or not is entirely up to you – some people love getting out in winter conditions, some people hate it – nobody can answer the question for you.

mtb is massively harder on you than road if you have the trails available, you do probably have good roads to ride on near you 😆

Not sure I’m convinced;

a) If I ride hard on road it will improve my aerobic ability
b) More road than MTB will decrease my anerobic ability & technical skills
c) Going out in the winter is a psychology regardless of what type of bike/terrain you ride on
d) I’m not convinced that doing 1 of my 3 rides per week on a roadie is enough to achieve a) above anyway
e) I have to buy/maintain yet another bike/kit
f) Why not just lock out my fork and ride (on the road) to my trails 3 x per week and achieve both?

I find it helps me but then my road bike weighs more than my FS, only has 10 gears and the brakes are so shonky even descending is a challenge. 😐

From my point of view before got my road bike I was getting out about once a month – now I am out three/four times a week due to reasons stated elsewhere – soon as kids asleep I can get out, no driving to trails/loading up bike. Sure its not a s good as getting out on the trails but at least it means I am out getting some exercise and actually quite enjoy it – it helps living on the coast though!

I guess the only true answer is it depends.

it depends on what type of riding/training you are doing on the road bike. You can do endurance rides (base training), intervals, Hill sprints, anaerobic threshold sprints, Big gear climbs, Seated sprints, Out of saddle sprints and various durations of intervals which target different areas.

Basically there’s a range workouts you can do which will improve various aspects of your fitness which will in turn improve your mtb riding (from a fitness perspective)

DezB – Member
‘chances are that riding a road bike will actually diminish your mountain bike fitness.’

There’s some funny stuff on this thread, but that’s a cracker.

Whoosh…

Of course taking loads of performance enhancing drugs will improve your speed/endurance. I have found out that it does not improve your bike handling skills one bit though. I went out with some roady MTBers and although they were fast on fireroad they were terrible at anything up down or at all technical. For instance they all got off and walked as there was a 25cm log lying on the trail. Great goings with them for fitness though.

But what about Chris Askrigg beating everybody on that hill climbing competition on a dirt bike? Does that mean we should all do trials to get fit?

depth-junkie – Member

Does road biking help on descents on the mtb? No, skill and balls do

I half disagree with that, I was a keen roadie from the age of around 14 and didn’t start riding mountain bikes until my mid twenties when a load of my mates bought bikes to try and shift their burgeoning beer bellies.

Being used to descending on-road at well over 50mp, I was FAR faster than any of them downhill. Yes, you can put that down to balls/confidence, but IME, the most important “technique” in descending is maintaining and carrying speed.

Another point worth mentioning – and something I’ve really noticed recently after boosting my fitness with structured roadbike and turbo training – the fitter you are, the easier it is to ride with “good technique”.

When you’re swinging from side to side, labouring over every pedal-stroke, it doesn’t matter if you’re Danny MacAskill – you’re going to struggle. The less effort and concentration you put into forward propulsion, the more energy and brain power you have to applying to however much technique you possess.

Infact just riding the mtb on the road is better exercise tham my road bike due to the much greater drag.

**** your tyres up though, and you don’t have as high gears as a road bike.

Not sure I’m convinced;

a) If I ride hard on road it will improve my aerobic ability
b) More road than MTB will decrease my anerobic ability & technical skills
c) Going out in the winter is a psychology regardless of what type of bike/terrain you ride on
d) I’m not convinced that doing 1 of my 3 rides per week on a roadie is enough to achieve a) above anyway
e) I have to buy/maintain yet another bike/kit
f) Why not just lock out my fork and ride (on the road) to my trails 3 x per week and achieve both?

A) It does if you plan your workouts and not fall into the trap of just going for a ride.
B)It won’t decrease you anaerobic skills. People that say they can’t get as tired on the road bike aren’t doing very good workouts. Try 30 sec sprints with 30 sec recoverys :wink:.
C) True its a mental battle
D)You’ll achieve something in the long run.
E) Your choice.
F) Could do but won’t be getting a structured workout in, more of a warm-up and cool-down on the road. Unless its over an hour ride, but it still makes things messy.

I have found out that it does not improve your bike handling skills one bit though. I went out with some roady MTBers and although they were fast on fireroad they were terrible at anything up down or at all technical. For instance they all got off and walked as there was a 25cm log lying on the trail. Great goings with them for fitness though.

I’ve been out riding with an elite xc racer, who I think does quite a bit of road too. He was riding a full carbon fibre bike that must have weighed about 5 grams or something. He seemed to go twice as fast as everyone else, and to be waiting at the bottom of all the downhills as well as the uphills. He also seemed happy to throw it off drops and over jumps and down near cliffs and land it like a feather, whilst keeping full speed up, where as most of us mere mortals were at least pausing to take a look and slowing right down for. I think the bike handling skills of really fit XC types are underrated, they probably aren’t as good as some pro downhillers, but I reckon many of them are much more skilled than one might expect.

Wunundred! 😀

Yes.

100 + and no reference to PERFORMANCE yet?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn29DvMITu4[/video]

My background in cycling is from the dirt jump/bmx side of things. Im not afraid to launch doubles and hit the senders.

Over the past few years Ive done alot of road cycling as its awesome being able to ride from the front door. My fitness is now at a fairly obscene level and this, combined with my technical bike handling skills means Im completely untouchable on The North Face trail and other similar trail centres. Never been overtaken once.

If you have shit bike handling skills then road riding will only help so much.

My fitness is now at a fairly obscene level and this, combined with my technical bike handling skills means Im completely untouchable on The North Face trail and other similar trail centres. Never been overtaken once.

Grrrr baby, very grrrrrrrr… You sound rad with added orsm.

no, its “gnarr-rad to the maxx”.

Yes. 4 hr MTB ride – HRM average calories burn is about 10% down on road riding.

It also means, if like me you’re a jeycore lite (TM) rider for whom big air is riding off a kerb that your legs are more used to the constant effort rather than the more ussual spank it hard to the top and pedal less hard on the way down.

After a sason of TTs including a 12hr road TT the D2D was positively pleasant despite cold/dark/end of season indifference crepping in. Give it a whizz, you might like it.

can’t read all this guff but i imagine a huge point that has been missed is the matter of efficiency. the more a movement is repeated the more efficient we are at doing it. on a road ride you will turn the pedals a brazilian times more than on an MTB ride. Therefore you get great improvement in efficiency thna when mountain biking. this is why roadies use fixed wheel bikes. more revs…

if anyone really believes that road doesn’t enhance MTB performance they should get into MTB coaching – they’d make a fortune correcting all those deluded world cup XC riders and making them faster by ditching road rides……

For MSP – [video]http://www.xcracer.com/Master-Class-With-Jose-Hermida-and-Gunn-Rita.html[/video]

60-70% on the road, not the 80% I thought. That enough for you?

It seems to me that there’s a different way to think about this. My personal and subjective opinion is that roadies are fitter because thats the point of road riding. If you ride a road bike for fun its because you get the whole suffering and personal challenge thing.
Riding a road bike won’t get you fit, wanting to ride a road bike and being prepared to really push and hurt yourself will.