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Yeah, there's a difference between utility riders and hobby riders. You wouldn't be able to keep up on my Saturday rides on a hybrid unless you've got world-tou

Yeah, there's a difference between utility riders and hobby riders. You wouldn't be able to keep up on my Saturday rides on a hybrid unless you've got world-tour legs. The riding position and gearing are just not intended for go-fast go-far riding. You don't really even see many hybrids on large-scale charity rides, at least in the US. And yeah, quite often people do load up bikes to drive to a ride. I guess for transportation riders this sounds weird, but if you live in location A and the you want to do a group ride at location B that's 20 miles away (not unusual in a big urban area), then I'm not sure what else you'd do. I'm likely going to a ride out in the southwestern suburbs here in Houston on Saturday, for example. The start is 23 miles from my house, and there's not a great cycling-friendly way to get there, so I'll load up and drive. I do share your concern about long-term use. We're far enough into the electronic shifting era that early systems are falling out of the support window. Shimano's earliest Di2 systems were only 10-speed, for example; I imagine finding replacement rear derailleurs for that system is nearly impossible now, but OTOH lifespan of a rear derailleur is pretty long. The version of SRAM's eTap on my bike is 11-speed; it's been updated since, so new bikes come with a 12-speed version called AXS. I don't know if I could easily get a replacement derailleur for mine, but TBH I also wonder that about the mechanical Ultegra derailleur on my other road bike.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
I don't think my city is quite as hostile as houston but is in the same class. I'll ride 20 miles to the start of a ride pretty often, or sometimes take the bus if the route lines up. This is very common in urban fixed gear culture, but our rides tend to be small and ad-hoc compared to the big organized road bike ones. I've done those a few times and was actively made unwelcome so it's not particularly surprising it's not extremely on your radar. Nonetheless my city has an active community a couple thousand strong that would consider it unusual to drive to a ride.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  >I'll ride 20 miles to the start of a ride pretty often Given that weekend road rides here often start at 0700, I'm absolutely not gonna do that. ;) And don't get me wrong; Houston isn't nearly as hostile to cycling as it was 20 years ago. We just made the top 50 cities for bike-ability (#29!), which is recognition of the improvements we've been slowly making -- protected surface lanes are part of that, but the BIGGEST part is the large-and-growing system of trails along the bayous, some of which mesh in with rails-to-trails initiatives. You can ride for hours on these trails with only minimal interaction with conventional streets, and they're laid in ways that make commutes viable for lots of people. https://abc13.com/houston-biking-bike-friendly-city-bikeability-ranking-cycling/11919267/ https://abc13.com/houston-biking-bike-friendly-city-bikeabil...
petre 4y ago
Heh, I got an all road bike mostly because of the annoying headwind and the fixed hand positions on the hybrid. You can usually find older mechanical parts on ebay or even NOS or just use a newer Ultegra or 105 if it's still 11 speed. I'm still on mechanical parts, the all road bike is on 10 speed GRX. Mostly never drive to ride, only if I have to ride more than 50 km away and the route is bike hostile. People drive their mountain bikes to the trailhead in my area though. I also never race. What I sometimes do is randomly pick some roadies and try to keep up with them. What actually happens is ending up keeping up with some girl on a nondescript hybrid who has dropped the roadies.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  Yeah, me either. But the city I live in is geographically huge (Houston), so if I want to ride with Group X in a given suburb, it's gonna involve a long drive first. OTOH, most of the time I can't be arsed to do that. My "home" groups are all inner-loop rides that I can ride to (< 5 miles from my house). That said, if I'm looking for gravel, the best sets of gravel roads are all at least an hour from the city center. Same goes for the best MTB trails. It is what it is.
rasz 4y ago
> You wouldn't be able to keep up on my Saturday rides on a hybrid unless you've got world-tour legs. I would easily, using my grandfathers bike and <$1K aliexpress electric bike conversion kit.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

I don't think my city is quite as hostile as houston but is in the same class. I'll ride 20 miles to the start of a ride pretty often, or sometimes take the bus if the route lines up. This is very common in urban fixed gear culture, but our rides tend to be small and ad-hoc compared to the big organized road bike ones. I've done those a few times and was actively made unwelcome so it's not particularly surprising it's not extremely on your radar. Nonetheless my city has an active community a couple thousand strong that would consider it unusual to drive to a ride.

ubermonkey 4y ago
>I'll ride 20 miles to the start of a ride pretty often Given that weekend road rides here often start at 0700, I'm absolutely not gonna do that. ;) And don't get me wrong; Houston isn't nearly as hostile to cycling as it was 20 years ago. We just made the top 50 cities for bike-ability (#29!), which is recognition of the improvements we've been slowly making -- protected surface lanes are part of that, but the BIGGEST part is the large-and-growing system of trails along the bayous, some of which mesh in with rails-to-trails initiatives. You can ride for hours on these trails with only minimal interaction with conventional streets, and they're laid in ways that make commutes viable for lots of people. https://abc13.com/houston-biking-bike-friendly-city-bikeability-ranking-cycling/11919267/ https://abc13.com/houston-biking-bike-friendly-city-bikeabil...

petre 4y ago

Heh, I got an all road bike mostly because of the annoying headwind and the fixed hand positions on the hybrid. You can usually find older mechanical parts on ebay or even NOS or just use a newer Ultegra or 105 if it's still 11 speed. I'm still on mechanical parts, the all road bike is on 10 speed GRX. Mostly never drive to ride, only if I have to ride more than 50 km away and the route is bike hostile. People drive their mountain bikes to the trailhead in my area though. I also never race. What I sometimes do is randomly pick some roadies and try to keep up with them. What actually happens is ending up keeping up with some girl on a nondescript hybrid who has dropped the roadies.

ubermonkey 4y ago
Yeah, me either. But the city I live in is geographically huge (Houston), so if I want to ride with Group X in a given suburb, it's gonna involve a long drive first. OTOH, most of the time I can't be arsed to do that. My "home" groups are all inner-loop rides that I can ride to (< 5 miles from my house). That said, if I'm looking for gravel, the best sets of gravel roads are all at least an hour from the city center. Same goes for the best MTB trails. It is what it is.

rasz 4y ago

> You wouldn't be able to keep up on my Saturday rides on a hybrid unless you've got world-tour legs. I would easily, using my grandfathers bike and <$1K aliexpress electric bike conversion kit.