Are roadbikes the new STW niche?

Ah, but it’s fun if you’re an idiot 🙂

that will be when i cancel my subscription!

+1 for definite

Roadies aren’t hung up on kit.

They are hung up on being relentlessly grim, apparently. If you are talking, then you are a loser. If you fancy a race to the top of a climb, then you are being irresponsible and childish because they will have to tow you home (supposedly). If you smile, you are weak. If you are enjoying yourself, then you are a pathetic noob. If you make a mistake, you are dirt.

They are hung up on being relentlessly grim, apparently. If you are talking, then you are a loser. If you fancy a race to the top of a climb, then you are being irresponsible and childish because they will have to tow you home (supposedly). If you smile, you are weak. If you are enjoying yourself, then you are a pathetic noob. If you make a mistake, you are dirt

Now I know your cross, but that isn’t true.
I got passed on Sunday by a rider from the Anders Electronics team, I caught up a little later and sat on his wheel. Then more of them joined up and they were fine, all we did was talk ****ocks.

Bikes from halfords is the new niche a road bike from halfords is off the niche.

You’re lucky then. I’ve been on the local 10 a few times and trying to strike up conversation on the way there and back is like getting blood from a stone.

Are they the new niche?

Abso-bloomin-lutely and I look forward to taking my pick from the dozens of high end unridden road bikes that will start to appear on the classifieds in circa six months time.

i must be lucky, saturday training groups ride 2 up so your always talking to someone, tues n thurs chaingang is non stop talk for first 15 minutes until pace gets quick, after that your happy just to breathe right never mind talk but we always manage a chat and end up slagging someone off

Abso-bloomin-lutely and I look forward to taking my pick from the dozens of high end unridden road bikes that will start to appear on the classifieds in circa six months time.

…and that is why I bought second hand.

Maybe its you molgrips?

oldgit – Member

“roadie: you’ve only got tiagra, those wheels are too heavy, don’t wear baggies, take that peak off, i’m not riding with you until you get some proper mudguards, start using a heart rate monitor. and stop using spd’s”

You’ll never find a roadie like that…

i know dozens.

well, ok, a few.

but it’s all the roadies i know…

(the kind of people who take ‘the rules’ seriously)

Ah I think I might know them, do they wear Rapha, run Powertraps and cheat on reliability trials – they’re not roadies they’re imposters.

I think the negative opinion of roadies is of Serious Roadies in Clubs or stuff. You get serious spoddy geek blokes in every part of life. I happily go for a 60 mile road ride on my road bike, and I don’t go particularly fast, I stop for a pint, etc, have a day out. My attitude is exactly the same for MTB. It’s a nice day out, on a bike. So long as the bike works, it’s better if it’s nicer and lighter and more efficient. but that’s where I can afford/can’t afford margin is.

Cheating on reliability trials. **** that pisses me off!

This sportive is rubbish! There are no signs and I am expected to read a map! And it’s too hilly… This village hall smells of wee and rosewater A lady with ond leg overtook me on a recumbent etc etc

Never mind it cost £2 rather than £20.

how do you cheat on a reliability trial? For that matter why?

how do you cheat on a reliability trial? For that matter why?

Why ever cheat. You just miss out whole chunks to post a good time on the internet.
We even encountered it on the Rapha ride, a group blatantly missed out a 10/15km section, then overtook us in formation (cough’ossers)

I seem to have joined the shift from mtb’ing to road riding – nothing to do with it being the new ‘niche’ (I had no idea it was!), but due to a knee injury making mtb’ing not possible, but road riding OK. At the time, I did see it as ‘better than nothing’ until I was able to mtb again, but now I do prefer road riding to off-road.

It’s got minimum pre-ride faffage – quicker and easier to just grab the bike / water bottle and head out, I’ve got a huge variety of great road routes straight from the door, no having to sort out transporting bikes in cars or fuel costs, and minimal post-ride cleaning. Plus I love it! Whether that’s ambling along chatting to the new lambs, or the satisfaction of sweating to the top of a steep climb, or the letting go of the brakes for a ‘I can’t believe I’m going this fast’ descent.

Couple of downsides – most of my friends are mtb’ers (and don’t feel the love for the road), and most of the clubs are race orientated and I’m into it cos I just like road riding / having a bit of a blether / sometimes admiring the scenery and sometimes going as fast as I can / stopping for a panad or a pint. I’d really like to see more ‘social’ road rides / clubs. Also, it does seem to be a farily competitive and male dominated scene.

But I have found most roadies I meet to be pretty friendly (although I suspect that the group who called out ‘allez, allez’ at me when I was going at the speed of a snail up the hill might have bee taking the piss a little!)

Oh, and I’m not fat, nor do I have a small willy, so I guess i can get away with wearing lycra 🙂

You’re lucky then. I’ve been on the local 10 a few times and trying to strike up conversation on the way there and back is like getting blood from a stone.

Try going to the track then. You’ll meet guys there who never ride outside. You have to go to every single session that they go to for ten years before they’ll even acknowledge you with an elbow flick. Miserable feckers.

And don’t get me started on Time Trials. Now there’s a group of people who need some cheermeup drugs. Understandable though, anyone who spends their entire life working towards knocking twenty seconds off the same dismal ten/twenty five/fifty mile circuit has got to be a bit short in the personality department.

I’ve noticed all the comments on here recently about road bikes and its made me chuckle.

However alot of the comments above are interesting about mtb stuff becoming too expensive, but then you see threads with people asking which £1k + road bike to buy ?!!?

All that will happen is that manufacturers will see their sales moving from mtb’s to road bikes and start producing stupid childish named road bikes £1k + with ‘leading edge’ technology which will help the new road warriors go 1/10 of an mph quicker and make their wallets lighter…

Personally I ride alot less on the road now than I did 15-20 years ago. Roads used to be nice, but now they are full of cars and people who want to kill cyclist.

As to top speed 60 + is easily possible in the UK I’ve had 60 + on this hill http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=421135&y=444570&z=120&sv=421135,444570&st=4&ar=y&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf&dn=777&ax=421135&ay=444570&lm=0 using a 53×13

Try going to the track then

I really want to race track.

I went a couple of times with the same miserable fkkers who I met on the club 10 and I got no friendly words at all (apart from one lovely lady) and got scolded for forgetting to look once when moving out. Ok so it’s bad but give me a break.

Anyway, on the subject of niches, what’s niche in the road bike world? Are there equivalents of 69er SS or do they all just want to be like the pro roadies by wearing socks over their shoes?

however I firmly believe that CX is the new XC

Wouldn’t go quite that far, but certainly liking mine.
Got it mainly to give me that bit of roadbike fix and ability to go further afield without the tyre drag, but I can take it down any forest track or singletrack without a 2nd thought. Also allows me justification for wearing baggies and camelback instead of wearing lycra and using Veet.

My proper roadbike has remained in the store room for 7 years. Dunno how many times I pumped up the tyres, but it’s only done about 5km in that time! Might sell it (1989 Madison/Ridgeback Rapide, 531c, 105, …).

Deffo not giving up the MTB though.

most of the clubs are race orientated and I’m into it cos I just like road riding / having a bit of a blether / sometimes admiring the scenery and sometimes going as fast as I can / stopping for a panad or a pint. I’d really like to see more ‘social’ road rides / clubs

Same here, the local club seems to be very race/speed orientated rather than having fun. I may join them to see what it’s like though, when I’m fit enough to have a good 15-16mph average. I would start up a more sociable club if I had the right kind of personality and determination to be able to get it going

Same here, the local club seems to be very race/speed orientated rather than having fun. I may join them to see what it’s like though, when I’m fit enough to have a good 15-16mph average. I would start up a more sociable club if I had the right kind of personality and determination to be able to get it going

That’s because nearly every road club in the country was born out of racing. Hence the existance of CTC, RSF and audax and many others to fill the gap left for people who want to ride in a social group but not race.

As to top speed 60 + is easily possible in the UK I’ve had 60 + on this hill

Wow, I must have the aerodynamics of a brick then, 50×12 is a higher gear than 53×13 AND I’m spinning it out. Need to find some steeper hills…

If you don’t like road clubs, and yes i agree with most of the comments on here about them being miserable f****** then you could always start up your own “club”. We now meet early sunday mornings as most of us have families, and get a sociable ride in, nobody gets dropped, everbody speaks to each other, if you spend 3 hours at the back there is no problem, we enter events and have our own jerseys and “rules” are made up in the pub or as we go along.
Doesnt matter what you ride as long as your riding.

I feel somebody needs to speak out on behalf of road clubs.

My club appears to be amazingly friendly and has a very active membership with 50+ turning out to weekly time trials, 5-10 racing on weekends, sunday club runs attract 30+ in good weather, the chaingangs need 3 separate groups to keep the numbers manageable. The car park at the TT HQ is buzzing with chatter, newcomers are really well looked after. And all of this in a town of 12,000 fixed population and another 8000 odd students (who have their own MTB club). I might add that our catchment area is quite big but mostly comprises of sea or the Cambrian mountains.

It’s not just us though. At races and events all the local clubs are friendly and if we are on foreign turf racing in another region for example, there is a certain camaraderie amongst other welsh clubs. It’s not just a Welsh thing though. When visiting the in-laws, I decided to look up the local club (Wigan Wheelers)
and ask if I might join them for their club run. I was welcomed with open arms and spent 4 hours being shown the hills around the Commonwelth Games road race circuit. There wasn’t a moment during that ride that I wasn’t chatting away to one of the group.

I can’t quite begin to imagine what some of you might be doing to report that nobody even said a word to you when you joined in on their runs. If they were competing in a TT or on a chaingang then obviously you can’t talk, but other than that, I’m flummoxed.

Put me down as a skinny tyred lycra wearer. Mostly the road bike, but also the CX bike when it’s mucky out or i’m just out for an hour or two.
No shortage of banter with the blokes i’ve ridden with, just the same as mountain bikers really, but without the unnecessary GNARR! that some mtbers feel they need to exhibit.

No interest in riding the MTB at the moment, although i’ll probably keep it as the Purbecks are only a couple of miles away.

Race BMX is being kept for special occasions (like when the kids are old enough to go to the track) :-).

yesterday was proof why for me mountain biking will always be the type of riding that i love the most.went out on a loop onto the ridgeway/marlbrough downs.saw more wildlife on that ride than i have seen in a long time.the weather was fantastic,so were the views.my legs were working well (compared to usual lack of fitness).the terrain was great.to me when i ride my mtb i feel alive (even if it is bad weather/muddy)i just wouldn’t feel the same just riding on the road (and i did have a road bike a long time ago raleigh elan) all cycling is good,but it is mountain biking that moves me the most :D.although as i wrote earlier would still love to get a boardman team carbon road bike 😀

Roadies aren’t hung up on kit.
They are hung up on being relentlessly grim, apparently. If you are talking, then you are a loser. If you fancy a race to the top of a climb, then you are being irresponsible and childish because they will have to tow you home (supposedly). If you smile, you are weak. If you are enjoying yourself, then you are a pathetic noob. If you make a mistake, you are dirt.

Bought road bike recently, wasn’t getting out on MTB as much as I wanted, due to both cost of driving interesting places, but also lack of time at weekends in general. Went out with the local road club on a Wednesday a couple of times (before I started my new job) and can only say what a lovely bunch they are! Mainly old guys to be fair on a midweek ride, but all of them very friendly to a young newbie with a shiny new bike, and very helpful too. Riding 2 abreast for 50 miles you get ample opportunity to have a good chat with everyone, as you do also at the obligatory 45 minute cafe stop… 15mph average is more than manageable too if youve got a modest level of fitness.

Really enjoyed it, shame I’ve got a job again now! Though if not mtbing on a Sunday, may well end up going out on their Sunday ride instead…

Definitely still prefer MTBing though, as an activity it’s just more thrilling, but a good club road ride can be plenty of fun and a good opportunity to socialise whilst exercising too.