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HTF do you lot not get bored shitless when road riding? I popped out for an hour on the road tonight and all i could think about (bar sex for funny reason) was finding obstacles to jump off, pumping etc. Good job my bike had proper wheels and tyres! On a road bike it must be awful!!
If you get bored on a road bike you obviously aren't trying hard enough.
[i]Good job my bike had proper wheels and tyres![/i]
Your bike had inappropriate wheels and tyres. Road riding on a proper bike is ace.
if you read - i was NOT (and never would be) on a GHEY bike
How is road riding good tho??
You can try to ride harder, that often focusses the mind. You can look at scenery or you can use time to ponder on lifes great questions. It really depends on the motivation for the ride, if its a general sort of ride then I do use it to think, if its a focussed one hour session etc then you will find you concentrate more on that.
Road riding is all about pain.
I don't do a great deal or road riding but I also think of sex
I imagine a hot soapy t*t f***
Not to kill the boredom but to get me up the hills 😀
The object of desire this evening was Denise van Outen
it was purely to get my arse in to gear
Ralph,
Racing along in a fast moving break, or in a criterium, is pure adrenaline.
Try a few races, you'll see.
SB
It's many things.
It's travel, as you cover great distances.
It's suffering as you try, desperately, to hang onto the wheel in front of you.
It's lightness, as you glide with perfect rhythm and symmetry.
It's deafening as the blood punds in your ears and your legs scream on a 20% climb.
It's focussed and sharp as all around you is blurred when you hit 50 on a descent.
It's taking the p*ss out of your (club)mates in the café and eating cake with impunity.
It's the hard miles in winter, and the benefit in summer.
It is, when it all comes together, the [i]volupté[/i] that Jean Bobet describes. A bit like flying, just above the ground.
Depends where you live, get off the main roads, keep on the back roads....Its allways better if you throw some hills in...and some good decents!....dont become a slave to a speedo, just ride on "feel" and enjoy.
I love road riding! Speed! faster harder! Hills too.
For me it's the speed, efficiency and purity of it. You'll struggle to understand on a mountain bike on the road. It shouldn't be so different. But it is.
I kind of know what you mean, but:
The other Monday I rode home from work via the hills. Lots of steep windy lanes, it was a beautiful day, not much traffic, and I just zipped about for an hour getting home. Lvely.
On Sunday, it was another nice day and I just fancied a road ride instead of MTB. Don't know why, but once I got away from the traffic it was just peaceful. Perhaps I needed to unwind or something, I dunno. It was a base training ride so I went pretty gently, nothing in the way of pain (except for the bit where I got lost and ended up riding up the steepest hill I have ever ridden up on or off road - and cleared it! I also found some amazing countryside I never knew was there) but still covered a lot of ground. It was quite relaxing.. calming.. and just nice. Different to ragging around the woods or an all day epic on the moors.
Get a proper road bike it just feels fast and graceful. Just cruising down a road at 20mph is a joy.
racing_ralph - Member
HTF do you lot not get bored shitless when road riding? I popped out for an hour on the road tonight and all i could think about (bar sex for funny reason) was finding obstacles to jump off, pumping etc. Good job my bike had proper wheels and tyres! On a road bike it must be awful!!
What?
you can still jump off stuff and pump the terrain on a Road bike.
MTBing on the road is way slower and duller.
wrong tool for the job
50 mph on the cycle computer his evening, backed up by 48 mph logged on the gps. At those speeds you don't have time to get bored.
I fancy getting a road bike as I often cycle the local roads on my MTB. I have about £400 to spend & am thinking of something like a 2008 Giant SCR3. Would that be a reasonable choice as a starter road bike?
With my Giant Trance I can average about 14mph on a 11 mile road loop - what sort of sort would I expect to do on a road bike?
11 miles is just a warm up should easily do 20mph+ average
I did a bawhair off 100 miles on the road bike on Sunday, into some pretty stiff and constant headwinds and up some big old hills in the Arrochar Alps. Had intended to do around 30 more but time got the better of us.
It was magic.
When I got home I had a bit of fresh-baked carrot cake roughly the size of my head.
mmmmmmm.
Try it, you might like it. (the road bike, not the cake. that's all for me)
Never thought I would.
11 miles is just a warm up should easily do 20mph+ average
You're stronger than me, Mr Smith.
I have about £400 to spend & am thinking of something like a 2008 Giant SCR3. Would that be a reasonable choice as a starter road bike?
It would be perfect. Go for it.
On an 11 mile road loop I'd be looking to average 20mph provided there are no big hills. My typical short afterwork rides were 25 miles with a fair amount of hill including a 1 in 4. Used to get about 1:15 on them (about 18mph?). On the flat (Bridgwater > Weston and back) I could average 20mph+ over 40miles. On long rides 50miles+ I would average between 16 and 18mph depending on the hills (which I often went looking for).
Road Riding is gay easy and boring
Pain, effeciency and speed, it's good for the soul. You just can't get it with an mtb on the road.
Roadies are selfish knobs...
Rob you have too short an attention span 😛
Oh and LMAOCOPTERZ at the anti-road idiots
Road riding on an MTB = purgatory
Road riding on a road bike = fantastic
If you have to ask - then you obviously aren't open minded enough to understand - so I suggest you go back under your rock (or bridge!) 😆
I think I enjoy road riding more than mtbs.
Both give me a buzz.
Bit like F1 and Rally-both fast and yet different.
Maybe we shouldn't compare the two as they are very different.
Bloody mtbs...
Road riding is great. Dirty road riding is even better.
Road riding is great. Dirty road riding is even better.
I agree. Which is why I'm riding the Tour of Flanders sportive on Saturday. Grit and filth and cobbles and 22% up the Koppenberg.
It's brutal. And all the more glorious for it.
not a proper roadie - think you have to race or ride with a club to get that badge but what i like about riding road is you can look at something in the far far distance and think when i get there i'll have a coffee and a bacon buttie and it will all be my effort and then i'll ride home
It's taken me a while to get used to the distances involved. I used to think that riding 50 miles was special - now that's a warm-up.
I do a fair bit but it's no-where near as much fun as offroad. For me it's mileage and fitness. Once you get reasonably fit you can start chasing cars and really ramping it up on the flats, chase that maximum speed!
But the real buzz of road riding is seeing someone on a bike in front of you. When yuo're out mountain biking, you'll see you're catching someone, pass them, that's it. On a road bike, you'll see them, catch them, tag their back wheel for a bit to catch your breath, overtake, ride like the clappers for 5 miles, look over your shoulder to see them on your wheel, put more power down, struggle, they'll pass you, you'll tag them for five more miles.
Then the racing will really begin.
if it wasn't for other cyclists who are up for a race, road riding would be crap. (Crazy downhills at 50mph excepted.)
samuri - waste of time passing me then, sorry 8)
Yeah, I can only agree with the others above I think. It takes some mental discipline to get me to go for a road ride, but when I'm out there its strangely great fun to cover as many miles as possible, maintain the highest speed you can until you're burning out and giving in. Its far more fun with a mate as you can a) switch about to get faster and faster and b) egg each other on, c) ride to somewhere distant - not and smile and ride back. I used to ride from Wigan to the sefton coast and back, just to go and see the beach and enjoy slogging and pain over the hills between the two. Some people just dont get it.
Dont get me wrong, given the choice I'd rather take a 6" travel bike down a DH route, but you feel you've achieved something when on out the road bike. I never feel I've achieved anything on the MTB.
[i]11 miles is just a warm up should easily do 20mph+ average[/i]
If you go on a road riding forum you won't often see figures like that quoted. 20mph+ on your own is very difficult to achieve, only time I've achieved that is in a group. But maybe I'm not very good.
Road riding is fantastic - buzzing along we country roads, the buzz of tyres, the speed. I love it.
A mate of mine was like you, would never have a road bike, all about pain, head down etc etc.
Then he came out on one of our road rides and found that - funnily enough, just like our mountain bike rides - it involves riding along at a sensible pace, admiring the scenery, chatting with mates and stopping at cafes. Only a little bit further and faster.
He now has a road bike. (And a new MTb as well, to avoid allegations of gayness)