was just wondering if any of you have? when i picked up my tarmac yesterday,there were a few bit’s where i did go rough stuffing (well very few bits,but i did 😉 especially riding it back on the k & a canal towpath for the final few miles* (it actually felt pretty comfy for a road bike 🙂

i’m sure others have done some off road type excursions on their road bikes.

* i did give it a clean when i got back though 😉

tourer on 42’s yep
fixed on 28’s yep
road bike on 25’s and 28’s yep

on sustrans-y type, towpaths, downslink, surfaced off road routes all fine apart from the occasional pinch flat on the roadie (and the loose filings)

I run 28mm Marathons on my tourer and ended up on various off-road sections of Sustrans 71 (The C2C) a couple of months back. It wasn’t ideal 🙂

I used to regularly commute home on my ss road bike with 25c tyres…..via the first climb at Llandegla and the offas dyke boards 😕

Done several miles on the Downs Link on my Madone with 23c Hutchinson Fusions, never had an issue, done it in the mud too, doesn’t stick to the tyres. The odd little bit of bridleway here and there too. They’re not that fragile!

All of lee valley on ribble road bike with 25s – no problem

Done the Eroica 5 times ( that’s over Florence way ) on my roadies, tyres, well 23’s of course.
Done many a short stint on bridle ways here too, did SDW from Winchester to QEP on my Parlee in the summer, no problems at all, just made sure I had spare tubes and was carefully when going down steep bits.

Can’t see any reasonable reason why you shouldn’t do a bit of off road on yer roadie.

I do about half a mile a day off road on my road bike, 23c tyres at 130+ PSI (ain’t Strava a bitch)

It’s alright in the summer, pretty sketchy at the moment though!

Brakeless track bike CX? Sure, why not?

Whilst this looks very tame I’ll have you know it was jolly bumpy

I’ve taken my fixed giant bowery off road before. Skinny 23c race tyres and everything. Mucho fun.

Yep – fixed with panniers and bar bag on 23c on some reasonable singletrack in Northumberland, and road bike on 23c through a bit of mud when I made a poor route choice the other weekend. It’s all doable, carefully.

I’ve done some northern France/Belgium cobbles including the Arenburg forest on a carbon road bike. It was a bit bumpy but it (and I) survived!

Use to loads on a more tourer style frame on 25c. All the sustrans stuff round Durham and single track in the woods

Ridden this on 23’s also ridden most of the HONC route on 23’s,

on this bike

tree root singletrack is an experience!

Yep whilst exploring my new lovely carbon rose I did several miles on fire roads, no problems at all, only issue is little bits of gravel got inside the cosmics down the spoke holes and rattled around inside the rim. Took ages to get them out.

http://www.rsf.org.uk/about-us/history-of-cycling.html

Unmetalled roads are still roads.

I had a good ride crashing my brains out in the snow on my commuter… Skinny slicks cutting perfectly through the mud and slush to the hard stuff below, but then not gripping on it anyway. All very stupid.

Yes. Used to do a lot years ago. Things like the Ridgeway, that would have been on 27″ wheels. Then the old original HONC, and a few mixed rides. I still finish my long rides with a hardpack section near the Grand Union.

matt outandabout that was an interesting article indeed 🙂
i especially liked this quote

“We enjoyed this cycle ramble despite the fact there was short snow storm … several ramblers we met said it was impossible to complete the journey. The impossible was achieved, and as light was rapidly fading, a further ramble over Jacobs Ladder was abandoned in favour of tea.”

and this also

Many RSF pioneers continued to use steel components even after alloy became affordable this was in the belief alloy was simply not up to the wear and tear of off road riding. A recurring feature of articles is the ingenuity shown when faced with a mechanical breakdown miles from anywhere. My favourites include :

1. Using braces to tension a slipping dynamo
2. In an article entitled 37 Miles on a Baked Bean Can, a cracked down tube is held together with jubilee clips around the can.
3. Broken carrier: fashioned a saddlebag support from a flat piece of wood wedged against the seat tube and resting on the rear brake bridge.
4. Using a postage stamp to mend a puncture after discovering the repair kit had been left at home. 😆

Many moons ago, when all my friends had MTBs and I still had a road bike.
We were all amazed by what terrain I could handle.
I was arguing that MTBs were unnecessary for their sort of riding.
I bought a MTB. 😆

No joke, I once rode a road bike with perished 21mm tyres down the bit of track opposite the Beast in the Peaks (the really rocky chute down from the road, or the last section of hagg farm depending on which way you look at it), I then road up the Beast and down the Roman Road.

I had a lot of pinch flats and comedy “ohh bugger I’m going to crash, feet ofer the handlebars and hold on untill I do” moments! It only cost me £20 so I was just out exploring rather riding the same trails on the Sheffield side of the peak every week on the MTB (which was broken anyway).

The steerer snapped riding down broomhill to uni on it the next day which was scary!

I have been a little recently though more through sheer bloody mindedness about not covering the same bit of road twice on a ride and getting lost.
Kirkhill funpark was an experience.

Slippy slope on the coastal path near Aberdeen

Tyrebagger forest.