How much faster are road bikes?

Forget on road, my road bike (track bike to be specific) was quicker off road (fire roads and easy single track) than my MTB.

The narrower/lighter tyres feel a lot faster but it is mainly the position. Riding in the drops instantly gets you 1-2mph with same effort.

Many years ago when dabbling with a road bike I compared it to my XC MTB running 1.5 slicks and the road bike was 1-2mph fast on all the loops I ride with same level of effort (as fast as I could go)

how-much-faster-are-road-bikes

considerably faster in my experience?

I have a carbon fibre 29’er XC race bike with 38/26 x 11-36 – not a slow bike by any means

I have a carbon fibre road race bike with 52/36 x 11-25

The road bike is much faster for less energy expenditure; this becomes even more noticeable over longer distances

Even on my daily commute (15km each way) I will get there 5 minutes quicker on the road bike, and that gap is with me pushing hard on the MTB

59% of the numbers on this thread are made up.

Road bikes are optimised for riding on the road, it would be a damning inditement of designers if they where not faster. Lighter, much thinner wheels and higher tyre pressures, correct gearing, better aero position etc. I have to say I’m not the fastest on an mtb but roadies come past at roughly twice the speed including uphill 😳 clearly a big part of that is fitness …

There is a difference even between road bikes. I had a 2013 Specialized Roubaix, which was okay but dull. I passed it on to my son and bought a 2014 Roubaix SL4, which has a much nicer frame and rides better. When I jumped onto the older bike I realised there was a clear difference; it was easy to get dropped and difficult to get back on because the bike simply wasn’t as fast, probably only by a couple of percent. Now my son and my cycling buddy are both on Tarmac SL4s and I’m struggling as they are probably a couple of percent faster than the Roubaix.

Even on my daily commute (15km each way) I will get there 5 minutes quicker on the road bike, and that gap is with me pushing hard on the MTB

I still struggle with this. That means if you’re doing 20mph on the road you’re doing less than 17mph on the MTB, or 18mph on the road bike and 15.5 on the MTB. No way is there that big a difference between a lightweight XC race bike and a road bike. That’s psychological.

No, I disagree, read my post just above yours.

I’ve just placed an order for a new bike, which is supposed to be very fast indeed especially up hills. It’s going to be interesting to see whether it really is faster and allows me to keep up with my regular cycling buddies who are both on theoretically faster bikes than mine at the moment.

globalti – Member
I’ve just placed an order for a new bike, which is supposed to be very fast indeed especially up hills.

eBikes don’t count, irrespective of type 😆

They’re not that fast

Riding back from the Chase last night there was one up ahead, and a fat bike with a tail wind is a force to be reckoned with

I was reeling him in when the b*****d turned off

Hahahaha!!

3 years commuting average speed:

mountain bike with xc tryes = 0
mountain bike with slicks = +2mph
road rat with flat bar = +3mph
road rat with drop bar = +4mph
weight weenie road bike I don’t need = ??

The variation across the spectrum of MTBs though is far greater than the difference between a fast MTB and a road bike.

No, I disagree, read my post just above yours.

Just dug out a post I made a year or so back on something vaguely similar.

——————-
**Non-scientific anecdote alert**

There’s a segment on my normal commute, which by virtue of being on my commute I’ve done 307 times as of this morning.

This has principally been done on two bikes:

22lb Allez with mud guards and that
17lb Madone without mudguards and that

At various times I’ve had a real dig on this segment (it’s 0.7 miles, a shallow (2% average) climb, normally I just plod up it, depends on wind, whether I’m KoM or not etc etc. Just downloaded the average stats (and removed the times there were traffic lights on it) for the two bikes and the results are as follows:

Allez:
176 attempts
2:38:56 average
1:50 fastest

Madone:
69 attempts
2:37:32 average
1:48 fastest

So… on that segment it makes sod all difference – 1.2 seconds, or roughly 0.9% difference. That’s over 2 years and various levels of fitness. Annoyingly you can’t download power data from Veloviewer, as I’ve always got a PowerTap on the Allez, and often have it on the Madone too.

So, through the miracle of woeful extrapolation, and to answer the OP’s question if the Madone was consistently 0.9% faster, and your 50 miles took 3 hours then I’d be 1.62 minutes faster. I think.
————-

Since I wrote that I have a new ‘nice’ road bike, which is faster, but it’s still not in the realms that people are talking about on here of being 30%+ faster, and I’ve not done similar assessment on quite how much faster.

The variation across the spectrum of MTBs though is far greater than the difference between a fast MTB and a road bike.

Agreed – but Esher Shore specifically mentioned a lightweight XC 29er, and my comment was aimed at that.

Hmm.. but without knowing the bike, lightweight and XC mean different things to different people.

Esher Shore has posted pictures of a carbon Stumpjumper before, and said he raced XC at a national level. Fair to assume his definition tallies with mine at least, but our experiences of the speed differential varies significantly!

I think the speed differential varies quite significantly depending on the mtb you’re talking about, however the OP sounds like he has a lightweight hardtail with a head down position and fast rolling slicks. It is by no means going to be 1/3rd slower (as some MTBs undoubtedly will be), but it will by all means be slower.

I think the difference between my fast road bike and commuter is about the same as the commuter to the XC bike (with 26er semi slicks on). The difference from this to my big bike is far bigger (on road/canal towpath type riding anyway).

OP will only know by buying a road bike and getting it set up nicely.

NJee – You’ve posted stats for 2 road bikes though not an MTB and a roadbike

Position woulm make the most difference (once you’d got the knobblies off) and I’d reckon your 2 bikes are pretty similar in set up? Esher shore doesnt say whether he’s put slicks on his mtb either

Also esher shore might be running out of top end gearing wise on descents add al that upo and it might make a bit more difference than your exemple

NJee – You’ve posted stats for 2 road bikes though not an MTB and a roadbike

I know that, it was more in response to gti’s comment about “fast road bikes” making a big difference.

Gearing is a bit of a non issue unless you’re running a 28t single ring IMO. Red herring.

here are the 2 bikes in question:

The road bike? I can easily ride at 35 km/h with little effort.

To roll that fast on the MTB I would be pushing hard, there is a lot of resistance from the tires and aerodynamic drag from the up right riding position.

The road bike is much faster to accelerate from a standing start – which is constant during my London commute with many traffic lights.

The MTB works well if the journey is uninterrupted as the heavier and larger (29″) wheels hold speed well once rolling.

If I need to go fast (late for work) and the road is clear (i.e. Commercial road) I can go well over 50 km/h on the road bike, no chance of hitting that on the MTB.

Then consider the gearing (adjusted for 700x 25c road tire / 29 x 2.0″ mtb tire)

Gearing on the road bike: 125.1″ – 38.1″

Gearing on the MTB: 98.3″ – 20.5″

Molgrips opined “You’ll be in agony after 5 miles.”

Certain sections of the road community would say if it’s not hurting you aren’t trying hard enough 🙂

(I am not one of their number).

Just had a look at my little shake down segment on Stava, I’ve done it on my Kaffenback (Heavy road sort of thing) and my Singular Swift 29er with 2.4″ wide tires on. Kaffenback is 2X10 and the Swift at the time was 3X8….

The Kaffenback was 46 Seconds faster over the about 4 miles quick run around, on one of the climbs I was 15 sec faster on the Kaffenback a whole 0.8mph faster….

Kaffenback 14.7 mph average, 38.7 mph top.
Swift 13.1 mph average, 31.3 mph top.

Of course I’m very unfit and just like nice bikes…. as you can see the difference for me is bugger all but I would rather take the Kaffenback on my commute.

Cheers, Steve

It’s not just about how much faster a road bike is than a mountain bike but the effort involved in maintaining that speed. I can certainly maintain a similar if not identical speed on my mountain bike but only for a few miles and I’m jiggered afterwards. Put in a hill or two and I’m nowhere near.

I certainly couldn’t commute day after day on my mountain bike at the same speed as on my commuter (a Genesis Croix de Fer) which is about 10% slower than my Spesh Roubaix, more correctly I’m 10% slower on the Genesis. I might, just might, manage it for one day.