6 ms·

This is why us 40 somethings all take up road cycling. Less stress on the body but the gear and exhilaration is still there. MTB is still very tempting but the

This is why us 40 somethings all take up road cycling. Less stress on the body but the gear and exhilaration is still there. MTB is still very tempting but the falls are more frequent.

modernerd 8y ago
I see the appeal of road cycling and I investigated it (I'm in a bike-friendly city that hosts road cycling events) but feel put off by: - Sharing roads with fast heavy vehicles at speed. - Lycra. - The expense. A good road bike seems to cost ~10× more than a great skateboard or longboard (but about the same as an electric longboard). - Friends who've had big crashes on the road; intuitively it feels like it should be safer than mountain biking, but I'm not so sure.
- Haydos585x2 8y ago
  You don't need to become a MAMIL or even buy expensive gear to road ride. I cycle on a $250 mountain bike in running shorts and a singlet. I'll wear jeans and a jumper if it's cold. Crashes are a reality, the same as driving a car. I've never had a crash with another road user, sometimes people don't see me but they don't see me in my car or motorbike either. You can ride with lights and hi-vis gear if you feel the need to.
  - shortoncash 8y ago
    Pothole crashes happen; it's easy to get mental hypnosis out there on the long rides. Route selection and choosing a low traffic time of day is your best defense against cars, but some drivers are just bad drivers. There's no dodging that risk, but it helps if you're willing to drive out of your way to find empty, nice routes.
- gerad 8y ago
  Mountain biking is wayyy safer. You're way more likely to get bruises and bumps, but much less likely to get put in the hospital for a month (or worse).
- VLM 8y ago
  I hike many rail-to-trail conversions on asphalt, sometimes gravel, thru the mountains, sharing the paved trail with roughly equal numbers of bikers. That solves many of your problems, while creating others. It would be financially advisable to research fees if any as tickets can be expensive. If you like bicycling in groups/crowds you enter the trail in a urban area, if you want to experience empty trails enter the trail from a rural farm county park. I don't road bike but AFAIK the cheapest way to have a bike that weighs one pound less isn't hyper-expensive materials but diet based weight loss about a month ago. In the spirit of the old weight lifting joke, or maybe wisdom, that illegal steroid use might make you look like you have an extra year's lifting experience while causing significant medical problems, and in that context the medically safest replacement for illegal steroid use that gets you to the same place without any medical danger is simply to start lifting one year earlier, and a lot of money is made in the market convincing people that patience is not an alternative.
  - bigwheeler 8y ago
    THIS. There has been an explosion in rail trails development over the last decade or so. Check out https://www.railstotrails.org https://www.railstotrails.org for help finding one. Also, pick up a gravel or touring bike from a company like surly or salsa, and it becomes less about the weight of your bike and more about where you can go...
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > Sharing roads with fast heavy vehicles at speed. Carefully plot your routes. > Lycra. No need for that bs, a t-shirt, jeans and good shoes are all you need. > The expense. A good road bike seems to cost ~10× more than a great skateboard or longboard (but about the same as an electric longboard). You can buy great used bikes for relatively little money. I just bought a top of the line roadbike that's a bit older for $200 which I used regularly, another for $150, which I converted into a hometrainer: https://jacquesmattheij.com/trainification https://jacquesmattheij.com/trainification Don't fret about the quality of the bike, until you reach competition level it is totally unimportant. I regularly pass people on much better bikes with all the goodies and just yesterday I in turn was passed by someone in at least their sixties on a bike that was much older than mine and I wouldn't have been able to catch him no matter how hard I tried. The bike rarely matters. > Friends who've had big crashes on the road; intuitively it feels like it should be safer than mountain biking, but I'm not so sure. I've crashed pretty hard about 2 years ago. It was my own fault, riding a recumbent on a regular road. Still, I got lucky, broke my leg badly but nothing else.
  - shortoncash 8y ago
    You probably already know this, but if you're road cycling any distance at all, lycra is your friend. When you cross 85-100mi, the quality of your clothing makes all the difference in the world.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      The vast majority of the people I see riding on Saturdays and Sundays on their $4K bikes dressed out like they're leading the charge for the Tour de France tend to do distances where there really is no difference in what you wear. My own trips max out at about 100k / day and I'm far more worried about sunburn, flats, insect swarms or getting caught in bad weather than I am about skin abrasion, absorption or cooling. If you do go for competition cycling then maybe it is worth it to you to spend the extra $ but for the most part it seems to me that people just love to have an excuse to spend their $ to look like they are professional athletes. Their bellies usually tell a different story, but fortunately for them lycra seems to stretch really well ;)
mtbcoder 8y ago
> MTB is still very tempting but the falls are more frequent. Falls aren't any more frequent riding XC than on a road bike. I'm about to turn 40 and I much prefer the flow of good singletrack over tarmac any day.
- rorykoehler 8y ago
  They're definitely more frequent on mtb but when you crash on the road you really know about it.
bigwheeler 8y ago
I think the frequency of falling in mountain biking is relative to how often you go out and push yourself to get better. You could just ride easy trails, don’t try to set record speeds on the downhills, and your chances of crashing are pretty slim (disclaimer: I’ve been riding flats for 20 years, so it has always been easy for me to put my foot down when things get squirrelly!) Road biking on the other hand, gives you significantly less control over what takes you down. Often it’s a car, not your own fault.

This is why us 40 somethings all take up road cycling. Less stress on the body but the gear and exhilaration is still there. MTB is still very tempting but the falls are more frequent.

modernerd 8y ago

I see the appeal of road cycling and I investigated it (I'm in a bike-friendly city that hosts road cycling events) but feel put off by: - Sharing roads with fast heavy vehicles at speed. - Lycra. - The expense. A good road bike seems to cost ~10× more than a great skateboard or longboard (but about the same as an electric longboard). - Friends who've had big crashes on the road; intuitively it feels like it should be safer than mountain biking, but I'm not so sure.

Haydos585x2 8y ago
You don't need to become a MAMIL or even buy expensive gear to road ride. I cycle on a $250 mountain bike in running shorts and a singlet. I'll wear jeans and a jumper if it's cold. Crashes are a reality, the same as driving a car. I've never had a crash with another road user, sometimes people don't see me but they don't see me in my car or motorbike either. You can ride with lights and hi-vis gear if you feel the need to.
- shortoncash 8y ago
  Pothole crashes happen; it's easy to get mental hypnosis out there on the long rides. Route selection and choosing a low traffic time of day is your best defense against cars, but some drivers are just bad drivers. There's no dodging that risk, but it helps if you're willing to drive out of your way to find empty, nice routes.
gerad 8y ago
Mountain biking is wayyy safer. You're way more likely to get bruises and bumps, but much less likely to get put in the hospital for a month (or worse).
VLM 8y ago
I hike many rail-to-trail conversions on asphalt, sometimes gravel, thru the mountains, sharing the paved trail with roughly equal numbers of bikers. That solves many of your problems, while creating others. It would be financially advisable to research fees if any as tickets can be expensive. If you like bicycling in groups/crowds you enter the trail in a urban area, if you want to experience empty trails enter the trail from a rural farm county park. I don't road bike but AFAIK the cheapest way to have a bike that weighs one pound less isn't hyper-expensive materials but diet based weight loss about a month ago. In the spirit of the old weight lifting joke, or maybe wisdom, that illegal steroid use might make you look like you have an extra year's lifting experience while causing significant medical problems, and in that context the medically safest replacement for illegal steroid use that gets you to the same place without any medical danger is simply to start lifting one year earlier, and a lot of money is made in the market convincing people that patience is not an alternative.
- bigwheeler 8y ago
  THIS. There has been an explosion in rail trails development over the last decade or so. Check out https://www.railstotrails.org https://www.railstotrails.org for help finding one. Also, pick up a gravel or touring bike from a company like surly or salsa, and it becomes less about the weight of your bike and more about where you can go...
jacquesm 8y ago
> Sharing roads with fast heavy vehicles at speed. Carefully plot your routes. > Lycra. No need for that bs, a t-shirt, jeans and good shoes are all you need. > The expense. A good road bike seems to cost ~10× more than a great skateboard or longboard (but about the same as an electric longboard). You can buy great used bikes for relatively little money. I just bought a top of the line roadbike that's a bit older for $200 which I used regularly, another for $150, which I converted into a hometrainer: https://jacquesmattheij.com/trainification https://jacquesmattheij.com/trainification Don't fret about the quality of the bike, until you reach competition level it is totally unimportant. I regularly pass people on much better bikes with all the goodies and just yesterday I in turn was passed by someone in at least their sixties on a bike that was much older than mine and I wouldn't have been able to catch him no matter how hard I tried. The bike rarely matters. > Friends who've had big crashes on the road; intuitively it feels like it should be safer than mountain biking, but I'm not so sure. I've crashed pretty hard about 2 years ago. It was my own fault, riding a recumbent on a regular road. Still, I got lucky, broke my leg badly but nothing else.
- shortoncash 8y ago
  You probably already know this, but if you're road cycling any distance at all, lycra is your friend. When you cross 85-100mi, the quality of your clothing makes all the difference in the world.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    The vast majority of the people I see riding on Saturdays and Sundays on their $4K bikes dressed out like they're leading the charge for the Tour de France tend to do distances where there really is no difference in what you wear. My own trips max out at about 100k / day and I'm far more worried about sunburn, flats, insect swarms or getting caught in bad weather than I am about skin abrasion, absorption or cooling. If you do go for competition cycling then maybe it is worth it to you to spend the extra $ but for the most part it seems to me that people just love to have an excuse to spend their $ to look like they are professional athletes. Their bellies usually tell a different story, but fortunately for them lycra seems to stretch really well ;)

mtbcoder 8y ago

> MTB is still very tempting but the falls are more frequent. Falls aren't any more frequent riding XC than on a road bike. I'm about to turn 40 and I much prefer the flow of good singletrack over tarmac any day.

rorykoehler 8y ago
They're definitely more frequent on mtb but when you crash on the road you really know about it.

bigwheeler 8y ago

I think the frequency of falling in mountain biking is relative to how often you go out and push yourself to get better. You could just ride easy trails, don’t try to set record speeds on the downhills, and your chances of crashing are pretty slim (disclaimer: I’ve been riding flats for 20 years, so it has always been easy for me to put my foot down when things get squirrelly!) Road biking on the other hand, gives you significantly less control over what takes you down. Often it’s a car, not your own fault.