After hearing to all the jibber jabber about how much better road bikes are, i thought i'd give Karens' road bike a trip into work today.
Admittedly the weather was particularly rubbish, but yesterday was as well so I believe I can make a comparison.
Overall it wasn't that much quicker although it is easier to swap down on to the drops for the hard slogs. The steering is no where near as responsive, the brakes are rubbish, the pedals are far too slippery and too reliant on the straps, there's nowhere for my luggage, the handlebars may have more positional options but due to the shape there's no comfort and the extra weight on the hands and arms due to the body position adds even more points against.
In summary, a lot of these niggles can be tweaked to improve the comfort of the ride, and it's only a matter of time to get used to the different riding styles, but to be honest, I prefer my mtb. I know where I am with that, the brakes work when I want them to (I'm sorry but there's no excuse for old caliper style brakes these days!), oh and I've kind of got used to my mtb gear range.....
One man's responsive is another man's twitchy!!
ReplyDeleteLuggage is irrelevant - you have a rack on one bike and not the other... pedals etc. can be changed (roadies use clipless pedals - vastly superior to all other approaches but they scare the crap out of me off-road so I only have them on my road bikes!). As for comfort, perhaps using your wife's bike isn't a fair test as it will be the wrong geometry for you... a well fitted road bike is very comfortable, but an ill-fitting on is horrible (I know, as I have one of each!)
The brakes, however... you are so right. In the wet, road bike brakes are utter junk!!!
Brakes aside, I think you're being too harsh on an unfamiliar and ill-fitting bike (though that's not so suggest you should prefer it to your MTB of course!... ), if you want to make a proper comparison, you'd have to ride a well-fitted bike for a while until you're used to it, then compare! :)
I have two road bikes, a hybrid and a mountain bike... and I'd pick the good roadie (the one that fits!) on roads every time as by far the best choice... just as the mountain bike is the only option off-road.