I only really need to carry luggage when I'm going to work, so I have a cheapo alloy road bike with skinny tyres and low bars for the rest of the time. And if it rains (heavily) I'll stay in or take the mountain bike out.
Really can't see any time I'd need anything else - I did consider putting a compact on, but since then I've been getting less fat and riding more.
Lifes too short to ride shit roads.
The choice would be nice. 🙁
my road bike is used for fast commutes in reasonable to good weather - 30km each way in less than 1 hour, it needs to feel quick so stripped down is good, anything I need to carry is in my backpack!
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when the weather is truly foul its the trusty hybrid with full length mudguards, this is ideal for slower rides ploughing through wind and rain
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Road bikes are more adaptable than you make out rusty, a full carbon job can have a set of guards or clip a carradice on if you need a large bag.
The comfortable steel thing is balls, way more valid is the fit and tyre pressure/width
The audax style is fine if you have the time and plan to ride long distances in foul weather but most of us have shorter time windows so pick a summer focused bike and ride them on dry days. Mountain bikes go out on shit weather
some people need all the help they can get to go fast.
others want to look fast.
I am both of these people
Mudguards? I don't road ride in the rain
Luggage? I don't ride slow enough to not make it home for tea
Geometry? What it came with
[quote=molgrips ]I also did maths on this.
Clearly you didn't...
It makes a lot more difference accelerating. So on say tight twisty singletrack (for an mtb) a lb is equivalent to 20 odd watts sprinting out of a corner.
I hired a 27lb road bike two years ago, this theory was borne out - it ride fine, I only noticed the weight when accelerating.
Let me help you out with that. Rider weight 150lb, bike weight 20lb. If 1lb makes a 20W difference accelerating then you are actually Cav and I claim my £5 - your total power would be 3400W. Actually I don't think even Cav (or Chris Hoy) can generate that. Oh and I am of course also neglecting the power going into rolling and air resistance, but I guess if you're putting 3.4kW into your acceleration then I suppose the difference they make is less than the experimental error.
Extra weight doesn't really make any more difference accelerating than it does for climbing - an extra pound still only makes 0.6% difference. If your 27lb bike is being compared to a 20lb one, then that's just over 4% difference. It's generally accepted that the limit of human perception is about 5% - I very much doubt you could actually tell that you were accelerating slower, though you could almost certainly feel that it responded slower when honking for instance and you interpreted that as a slower acceleration which you weren't actually capable of feeling.
It's generally accepted that the limit of human perception is about 5%
Not round here it's not! STW is the home of the super senses with the ability to detect the difference between cable direction on hifi's and how much better changing something that costs a lot of money makes your bike.
No slouch on the road and can still take a 2" tyre.. Winner!!
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Sort of OP. My Audax bike makes a superb winter riding/training bike, that's a triple, guarded up lights etc.
Then I have my 'training' bike, basically an alloy frame with hand me down parts on it. That's what I usually ride day in day out, most club mates think that's my race bike.
Then my race bike, that's still under a dust sheet and been there since last September, not many people have seen it and I never use it on the road unless it's a race.
No slammed stems. To get a perfect fit I've had to use various spacers, I think the closest I've come to being slammed is a 3mm spacer.
The stem on my carbon bike is 'slammed' but considering its a 44cm frame with a 125mm headtube & i have an inside leg of 27" then slamming the stem doesn't really create the classic shape, my saddle is only some 65mm above the tops.