Repost - Should You Ride a MTB on the Road?
Should you ride a MTB on the road? Why or why not?
I ride a mountain bike on the road every day of my life. I've had both mountain and road bikes, and I prefer mountain bikes for almost all of my daily riding on the street. My mountain bike has suspension, I can go off road at a moments notice and handle rough terrain, less joint fatigue from potholes and bumps, as well as retaining more control when I hit a big bump or pothole at a high rate of speed.
There’s plenty of times that I hit a big bump or pothole at a high rate of speed, and am thankful that I had suspension that dealt with it fine instead of it putting my traction and control momentarily in the air, while possibly jerking my steering one way or the other, which causes the bike to lose control and end up flipping the bike and lying in the street. Not only is that dangerous to your well being, but that danger multiplies when you’re riding with heavy traffic.
When I'm doing 100 mile rides on the road with my mountain bike, I'll switch out my tires to city slickers which are thinner road bike type tires that fit on mountain bikes and have similar benefits as road bike tires such as higher tire pressure, lower rolling resistance, and lower weight, which brings the weight of my mountain bike close to a road bike, only I have full suspension for long range comfort and better control on the road.
I find more upside to riding a mountain bike on the road than downside.
-Robin Bailey, One-day 147.5 mile holder
Absolutely. Ride the bike that you have, there's no reason not to. It's not like there is anything inherently dangerous or unsafe about riding a mountain bike on the road.
That said, over time, if you continue to ride on the road, you'll notice some things about your mountain bike that make it less than ideal for riding on road:
- A mountain bike typically has wider tires with knobbies. This makes the mountain bike a bit slower and louder compared to bikes designed for the road. Yes, you can swap out the tires for smooth tires and that alone will make a huge difference.
- A mountain bike is somewhat heavier than a comparably priced road bike. The added weight may make climbing hills a bit harder, but not really a big deal either
- A mountain bike has all sorts of features that are not as necessary for road riding: shocks/suspension, beefier brakes, etc. These features add weight (see #2) and/or make handling not as ideal. Once again, not a big deal.
- Mountain bikes tend to be higher theft targets than road bikes. So if you leave you plan on using your mountain bike for transportation and lock it up outside, be sure to lock it up securely.
-Andrew Hsu
My mountain bike is my primary bike in the winter for both off and on road. I do find myself cursing the mountain bike on the road because it is so much slower and inefficient compared to my road bikes on the tarmac.
Mountain bikes differ from road bikes in more ways then just weight or tire rolling resistance. Yes they are heavier and yes the wide tires with knobs roll with much less resistance than road tires, but geometry is even more of a factor then you think. The mountain bike puts you in a position of rough off-road control and agility. The road bike puts you in a position of maximal power and aerodynamics. When I am on my mountain bike on a beautiful day on the road, I feel like I can’t get it up to speed, and I want to go off into the ditch and ride off road. I can be frustrating when energy going in does not give performance out on the road like a carbon road bike.
That doesn’t mean you can’t ride a mountain bike on the road. Have fun and ride all you want. Just don’t hop on a modern road bike on the road or you will be spoiled.
Also, buy a 2nd set of rims and put a road tire on the mountain bike. The lower rolling resistance on the tarmac will amaze you. Bottom line is, just ride what you have and have fun.
-Darian VanGorkum, Podiatrist
I know of a mountain bike coach who advised his clients not to ride road bikes as part of their training. He says that if you want to put in some road miles for your cardio, then do it on your mountain bike.
"Every time you create a movement, your brain is using the nervous system to tell your muscles how hard to contract, what order to contract in, and how long to contract for. Your nervous system starts to create a "software" program for that movement so that it becomes more instinctual. The more you repeat a movement, the better your brain and the nervous system learn that movement and the more refined and ingrained the "software program" for that pattern becomes.
Because a road bike puts you in a different position and tends to be far lighter than your mountain bike, your nervous system will create a different "software" program for your brain to create that movement. While they look similar, riding a mountain bike and riding a road bike are two different tasks from your brain and nervous systems perspective.
Some top strength coaches in other sports think that this may lead to inefficient movement over the long run as your body tries to figure out which of the two similar movement patterns to use at any given time. This is why you don't find many baseball pitchers throwing heavy baseballs or golfers swinging lighter clubs in the off-season than what they compete with. These other coaches recognize the impact of the nervous system on training and either have their athletes doing the same thing they do in their sport or engaging in cross-training.
Since mountain biking and road riding are not so far apart, you can not consider road riding to be cross-training.
-Mike Tatreau
Yeah sure why not, there's absolutely no problem, yeah rolling resistance is a concern, but it's all about enjoying the ride. I ride an mtb on the roads ever day that too with the stock knobby tires (cause they are not too tall knobs) and at the end of my daily ride I go for a short trail ride. In fact I ride as much as 60 to 70 km on the road and only 20 or 25 km on the trails, so to reach the location I obviously need to ride the roads… Efficiency of an MTB on road is pretty less than a road bike, but you do have an additional advantage of agility though you would like to be less aggressive as stability is required for those turns and overall manoeuvring. So, at the end of the day, In my opinion, be it a road bike or an MTB, just enjoy the ride… It's all about the happiness you derive from it…
P. S. A set of slick tires, even better, added grip and boost to efficiency too.
-Siddhant Bhattacharjee
If you have a mountain bike, there are only two reasons not to take it on the road:
- When you also have a road bike
- When you have Single Track
Otherwise, go shred that asphalt!
The primary disadvantages to the mountain bike on the road are that you’ll go a little slower because of rolling resistance (knobbies), weight, and aerodynamics. You'll also use tires fairly quickly compared to road tires, so the cost per mile is a little higher.
But all that is nothing compared to the upside: You’re riding your bike!
-Blake Bennett
I lighter weight hard tail with a good road slick at high pressure makes a great urban/street ride. My wife doesn't have her own bikes, she just rides one of mine if she goes with me and often she chooses my comfort geometry roadie. This leaves me riding my hartdtail for street duty and I find I can still out ride her, going up hills is a breeze due to the gearing and the smooth, low resistance tires are surprisingly fast plus I'm impervious to even the worst road conditions and can hop curbs and have a little fun on whatever terrain we are going through/over. I can even roll down stairs.
Overall its a great street ride for all but the fastest and longest trips... Though if you're geared for a cross country race you'll still have enough gear to go plenty fast.
Can't remember what my specific tires are but just stop in and ask a good bike shop and they'll have some plus tubes to go with them. You'll generally need new tubes too because they are much more narrow than the typical off road tire. I run mine at 80 psi and now keep most of my bikes with flip over, SPDs on one side and a platform on the other so she can pick whichever bike she likes and not need to worry about my clipless pedals preventing her from just grabbing a bike and going. Yes I ride SPD on my road bikes too as I prefer the lugs that surround the cleat on my mountain biking shoes so I can walk like a regular human when I'm off my bike. Imagine baseball cleats where the metal SPD cleat is buried between the lugs in the forfoot area.
-Tyler Bourne, World traveler
Folks who ride off road a lot realize that you do better when you put in training miles on road, many more miles than off road, for the conditioning, and of course the other piece in mountain biking is technical skills which you can only get good at doing it on the dirt.
So you could have both a mountain bike and a road bike, a good choice, or you could do what friends of mine do which is buy new wheels for your mountain bike and put slicks on them, and with quick releases you can easily swap out wheels depending on where you’re riding that day.
Not totally necessary, you can ride your knobbies on the asphalt, but they will slow you down, which is not as inspirational doing the miles. And even with slicks you won’t be able to hang with the roadies, mostly because of the geometry of a road bike, which gets you out of the wind and puts your body in an ideal position to deliver efficient power to the pedals, where a mountain bike is set up more for stability and maneuverability.
-Stephen Wright, Riding 40,000 miles in total