Mountain Bikers on Road Club Rides

clubber it wasnt a hard training or at least I dont think so. If I was out on a training ride and some fat basyard on a 28 pound MTB could keep up with me for 10 miles I would give up cycling and take up dominoes.

I still have my old Quinns 10 speed racer which I like to ride long distance (long for me that is) I rode the Isle of Man TT course last year 37.75 miles in 2 and a half hours even though I nearly blew up on the climb up the mountain. Too much Okells bitter the night before.

I know well of the club that BD is referring to above…

As for the original post, that and the single ride I went on corresponds to everything that road cycling clubs tend to be. Plus, having pretty much been told to “**** off the road you ****, you’re in our way” by the London dynarod club, I have no desire to do it, and my mates experiences are broadly similar. There’s a level of elitism and snobbishness that’s just not necessary. I have road bikes, I probably ride them 80% of the time, but I make sure I do it with people I want to ride with.

Davidb, and your club will probably be happy to hear I have no intention of joining them. I don’t need club kit and rudeness to know I can ride a road bike.

pants – Maybe they were just a miserable bunch of gits. Or they were all knackered at the end of a long ride.

This I hate roadie sh*t really **** me off, I ride MTB’s I ride road bikes too.
They are all just bikes!
To 95% of the population a bike whether its a MTB, road, TT, cruiser, BMX, shopper, tandem, trike whatever… its just a bike.
I just derided a MTB mate on Facebook because I have met him every Saturday morning for the last few weeks on my road bike and when he doesnt speak just because he blanks roadies. (Could be the overstuffed lycra sausage look that is giving him the boak maybe though tbh)
I ride with a road club and like every club most people are good guys and there are some t*ts but that would be the same if it was a snakes and ladders club!
People just need to (to use a favourite parlance of my 7 year old) CHILLAX 🙂

My club’s runs tend to involve a long stretch of sociability and chat at the start, then get quicker and quieter as people warm up and we get into the hills. After the tea stop we’re downhill all the way home and the hammer really goes down.

But there is in general a lot less nattering than on mtb group rides I’ve been on certainly.

my experiences of a road club match Mick’s up above. Extremely accomodating, my first few rides no-one had any problems with me tagging on the back learning the lingo. I also attacked the climbs at first not understanding why everyone seemed to climb up really slowly but no-one seemd to have any problems with it. I usually turned up in cut down jeans and a t-shirt too, no-one seemed to mind.

Of course, it all changed when I started racing. Apparently cut down jeans aren’t acceptable shorts for a race. People on crappy old Raleigh bikes are to be spat on especially when they start coming in the top ten in amateur 25 mile sprints.

This I hate roadie sh*t really **** me off, I ride MTB’s I ride road bikes too.

it’s not about that, it’s about disliking unpleasant people :o)

“That’s fast going on an MTB slipstreaming or not. “

He was on a road bike.

Roadying is probably a bit like gay sex, only the committed practitioner can understand the pleasure, from the outside it just looks like purgatory.

I think this thread needs a machismo rating to warn the innocent.

A lot of the negative comments posted here do apply to groups of MTB’ers as well.
One thing I can’t stand IME of MTB’ers is the nasty underlying competative edge some people have, ok fine on it’s own but often it’s unleashed a mid so called social rides.
I often here bragging about how riders on mountainbikes tore up some roadies.
The thing is group sunday road rides are training rides usually with fairly tight agendas, so for someone to tag on a road ride and out pace them is fine, but the people that do that are competing with riders that are out training not racing.

Well i agree about the elitism… In my experience roadies are a sad bunch who does not speak to a fellow cyclist when they cross him/her.

Understanding the pleasure of road riding is easy for plenty of people including all those mtbers that turn up to clubs to have a go, not expecting to be looked down on. That’s not what this is about. Understanding why you’d ride with a club that’s full of people who are to55ers and who want to drop you at the end of a ride to teach you a lesson for something you probably didn’t realise is ‘wrong’ is the question here.

Roadying is probably a bit like gay sex,

Ah that explains it then its all a pain in the arse 😆

just because you don’t agree with it or understand it doesn’t mean it’s it’s wrong.
much like real life all types of cycling have their fair share of gear-fetishists, pain-merchants, serial apologists/complainers, slackers and complete narrow minded tossers.

deal with it. ride with people you get on with and stop worrying about what other people think or do.

“Fat Roadie Kicks Off” – lol seeing as I’ve won a number of hill climbs and am accused of having a toast rack instead of a chest.

Here’s another go at the OP

“A bloke came on one of our rides the other day, it was quite a tough one. Most of us worked together to make it easier for the weaker riders and ensured that we would all get home together. However, he insisted on disrupting the ride and showing off. I wasn’t too happy about that and we had a polite word with him but he carried on anyway. Near the end of the ride he could not keep up, mainly due to his showing off which had depleted his energy.”

I actually meant it as humorous piss take Viz type rant not a troll post, but there you go. My MTB forum guidelines are 100% vindicated, in fact I think I’m going to do some more work on them this weekend to bring them up to date with current practice.

I’m very proud of my road club, they do loads for the community and new/old riders alike. They are all incredibly sociable and patient and only ever ask that new riders **listen** to advise when joining rides for the first time. Sadly many don’t.

simonfbarnes – Member
This I hate roadie sh*t really **** me off, I ride MTB’s I ride road bikes too.
it’s not about that, it’s about disliking unpleasant people :o)

Exactly Simon, thats my point. the world is full of tw*ts but its also full of good guys too 🙂 in fact there are far more of them. Nobody should let a few of the bad ones put them off a whole sport. Only thing that puts me off road riding is getting an absolute kicking every saturday 🙂

Hang on a mo I’ve just remembered. Back in the seventies when I raced in B&W the fast guys did use to drop me if I slacked off and never waited if I punctured.
The utter barstewards.

“Fat Roadie Kicks Off” – lol seeing as I’ve won a number of hill climbs and am accused of having a toast rack instead of a chest.

Here’s another go at the OP

“A bloke came on one of our rides the other day, it was quite a tough one. Most of us worked together to make it easier for the weaker riders and ensured that we would all get home together. However, he insisted on disrupting the ride and showing off. I wasn’t too happy about that and we had a polite word with him but he carried on anyway. Near the end of the ride he could not keep up, mainly due to his showing off which had depleted his energy.”

I actually meant it as humorous piss take Viz type rant not a troll post, but there you go. My MTB forum guidelines are 100% vindicated, in fact I think I’m going to do some more work on them this weekend to bring them up to date with current practice.

I’m very proud of my road club, they do loads for the community and new/old riders alike. They are all incredibly sociable and patient and only ever ask that new riders **listen** to advise when joining rides for the first time. Sadly many don’t.

Have you also won back pedalling races? 😉

Oh Jesus, I just read some of the blog link that was posted up earlier. Seems that we’re in the presence of a new messiah after reading just a snippet of the self-indulgent ramblings of a clear self-obsessive.

I’m sure a saw a couple of riders using “small under the shirt” Camelbaks during the Tour a few years back. One may have been Lance during a team time trial.
Didn’t Lance use a helmet with a peak during the Tour of California recently?

the name must prove embarrassing when used in verbal introduction, ie. “Hello, you must be ‘WickerNuts'”

I chuckled at this. 🙂

Just ‘cos Lance did it doesn’t make it right.

DavidB – will you please name your club?

Or at least re-assure me that it’s not in the Cheshire/Manchester/Peaks area.

pk-ripper .. can I use that quote on my site!

Or at least re-assure me that it’s not in the Cheshire/Manchester/Peaks area.

Higgo – I ride with a Manchester club. It’s very friendly and is in the process of re-growing* with stacks of new members. People are into all sorts of different stuff, whether sociable Sunday rides, sportives, road racing, time trialling, touring, track, cross, MTB racing.

I joined the club a couple of years ago having got bitten by the road riding bug. I was expecting much weirdness based on my prejudices as a MTBer (I think, as I recall, I got all of these prejudices from MBUK back in the early ’90s!).

They’re an exceedingly friendly bunch, are actively sociable outside the riding (if you want that, cool if not) and are also very encouraging of all new members. There are at least two groups riding on a Sunday – even during the summer, where traditionally club runs are less popular with racing members. Sunday rides tend (unless otherwise agreed) to have a “no-one gets left behind” policy, which is good for the likes of me for whom gravity is a serious issue.

If you want any more info, drop me a line at ourmaninthenorth AT googlemail.com.

Oh, and if you need any further incentive, me and another chap are putting together an off road ride for later in the summer. That’s off road on our carbon race bikes….

*Having had the likes of Chris Boardman and reg Harris as members, it used to be the premier amateur racing club in the country.

Manchester Wheelers/Truman Steel? or that Kodak sponsored squad??

Thought Reg Harris was a southerner as my first ‘proper’ bike was a Reg Harris and I’m err a southerner!

After much mickey taking recently a female MTBing friend of mine bought herself a decent road bike and decided to go on a club ride. The condescending sh*te she had to put up with when she turned up first time with her Camelback (ooh, that will hurt your back love’ – how? it doesnt hurt for 8 hr MTB rides, hardly gonna do the same for a 2 hr pootle with a load of Lance wannabes). The derision at her MTB shoes and spds made her go and buy road shoes and pedals the week after. Funnily enough, she did comment that they all went really slowly up hills and she overtook most of them.

I dont think she has been back. Did her first DH race at Moelfre last week though and everyone was really friendly and helpful… Funny that. Hopefully she is selling the Trek carbon road tat and buying a Session 88.

“I’m sorry but you just don’t wear a Camelback on a road bike, in the same way that you don’t wear a peaked helmet”

i do, why not? did a sportive like that a few weeks ago. it’s just a bike ride, on or off road..

For the same reason you don’t wear tank tops at a Metallica gig..you just don’t

For the same reason you don’t wear tank tops at a Metallica gig..you just don’t

That is really a good reason… To be honest I hope you are trolling as you sound exactly like the kind of tosser I cross during my commute everyday.
Not tough enough to do proper rides, so ride a shiny expensive carbon frame along the coast, cant really go much faster than a commuter with an over stuffed messenger bag a 12kg old and crappy SS road bike a peaked helmet and mtb shoes but are too much right they own arses that they cant be bothered to abide to the basics rules of politeness

Basic rules of politeness probably include not calling people tossers don’t they?

But sadly I don’t really fit your cyclist profile very well juan

The camelback thing is like, over long brake hoses or mismatched valve to logo positioning or 9″ forks on an on-one or weeds in bike against wall shots….etc..

Manchester Wheelers/Truman Steel? or that Kodak sponsored squad??

Thought Reg Harris was a southerner as my first ‘proper’ bike was a Reg Harris and I’m err a southerner!

Yep, Manchester Wheelers.

No longer sponsored by Trumans Steel (unlike the glory days, which some of the older members are fond of going on about).

Reg Harris was from Birtle, near Bury!

Anyway, if you’re interested in coming out on a club run, you would be very welcome. Even with a camelback, peaked helmet, hairy legs and all the stuff that seems to have got everyone so excited in this thread…

😀

He has become caught up in achievement and forgotten the simple pleasures to be had in riding your bike whilst not giving a toss how fast, how hard or how difficult your riding should be. He’s succumbed to the virtual arms race of equipping my bike with the latest gadgets and gears and forgotten that it’s just as much fun to ride when you do it with others and take pleasure from their enjoyment rather than your own.

Bollicks innit?

——————————————————

Salut juan 🙂

Salut strato 😀

Thanks for the offer, but I’m firmly based down sarf. Complete with shaven legs (camelbak & peak in the bin) I’m an old fuddy duddy you see.

I did have a few run is with the Manchester/Truman guys in the 70’s and early 80’s. Then IIRC they were one of the first clubs to get sponsored big time and competed on a different level.
Anyway bought back a few good memories of the old red white and blue jerseys.

What tosser wrote that load of old crap stratobiker. Sounds like some sort of up their own arse messiah type?

Me and my mate rode our bikes for the BBC’s Messiah.

Sounds like some sort of up their own arse messiah type

You mean a roadie then :d

oldgit – sorry! I thought Higgo had posted that, so the comment about hairy legs was for him..! (Though, of course, you’re more than welcome to come and give us a kicking next time you’re up North..!) 😀

The Trumans Steel days were one of semi-professionalism, AFAIK, and so there was lots of concern that the playing field wasn’t level. It certainly seemed to attract the best riders at the time….

We still wear the same jersey (as originally designed by Reg Harris). I’m no racer (next year, when I’m well again and fit enough), but I do get a sense of pride in pulling on the jersey.

Did you ever come across Harold “H” Nelson – the soigneur of some distinction?

Is he the guy with the ‘face’ that looked like he had done a few rounds with Henry Cooper and come off the worse?