More on using bus lanes

Perhaps they haven't found a more suitable forum to have tedious
arguments on the internet?

 

What for? Ona a road it doesn't do anything goo for you at all.

 

I must be doing something wrong. I keep wishing I'd bought a bike with
rear suspension rather than just front everytime I crash through
another pothole.

 

Around €1600, IIRC (although discounted to that). But no, it's not
13-14kg. Not sure what part of "a tad over 12kg" wasn't clear.

A modern _race_ bike, you mean. OK, so I know in the UK they're the
vast majority, but here in Basel, for example, the vast majority of
road bikes will weigh considerably more than that.

And smaller diameter in most cases. But you can fit quite narrow
tyres, say a 32, to both road and mountain bikes, in which case there
will be no difference.

Depends on your gearing, dunnit?

Well, if you're comparing _one_ mountain bike with _one_ road bike,
then extrapolating, I can do the same, right?

Right. So I used to do the ~20mile ride from MK to my work in Bedford
most days for around nine months. I started out doing it on my ~12.5kg
Cadex front-suspended MTB, with semi-slicks on it. Then I went through
a couple of tourers, before ending up with the Mercian (which was
originally an Audax bike). En route is a particularly big hill up to
Cranfield (and down again) which is both a real tester of fitness and
also of maximum speed.

Over the entire time I was doing it, my best time was 57 minutes. Done
a few times, some of them on the Mercian, some on the Cadex.
Exactly[1] the same times. Top speed down the long straight hill from
Cranfield towards MK? 43mph. Again, _exactly_[1] the same speed was
recorded on those two bikes.

For both measures, the other bikes I used were slower, so I'm not
suggesting that all bikes are the same, but with modified gearing,
semi-slick tyres and a low riding position, there's no reason to
suppose that a mountain bike, even still with its non-lockable,
low-end suspension forks, will always be inherently slower than even a
pretty decent race bike.


[1] For measurable meanings of 'exact', of course.

 

Yes, you're doing something wrong. Try riding _round_ the potholes,
not through them.

Of course, I'm assuming 'road' to be mostly level tarmac, where you
may be thinking of the rural cart-tracks around you...

 

Heh. Not quite cart-tracks, but very rough single-track roads.

 

Chicheley Hill. I had my GSXR1000 reading 180mph going *up* the hill
and maxed out every bike I've taken there going down it.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

You said "IIRC" about the weight. I actually looked it up. The reason I
said probably is that you might have changed or added components, for
instance mudguards (or mud).

Why argue, anyway? The point is that the suspension and the stronger
componentry on a mountain bike weighs "some" kg, and it's not really
helping you if you're not going offroad.

The Edinburgh Cycles courier that Hog is talking about is definitely what
you'd call a race bike. Here in UK I'd call that a "road" bike. The other
stuff you're on about I'd call a hybrid, commuter or touring bike.

[snip long argumenty bit]

Horses for courses: for commuting I'd definitely choose something similar
to ride.

But it's not tremendously easy to try and discuss the difference between
different styles of bike if you're going to argue that they're all
identical (when you change various components).

 

....with a keep left sign at the start of the line.

I do the same bit of road each day.

 

It's not a newspaper article. It's a blog post on a site owned and
operated by a newspaper.

The URL begins http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/, which
should be a bit of a giveaway.

 

Learn to bunny-hop.

 

So? My point remains the same.

 

Only if you have an iron arse, or ride on billiard-table smooth tarmac.
By ****, it made a huge difference to my comfort when I fitted a set of
Bombers to the front and a Fat Arse saddle to the back, and I'm not
conscious of any greater effort being needed to pedal.

 

I am a cyclist, and proud of it. But I'm not biting any more.

 

My carbon summer bike is about as rigid as it gets. But I find it
really comfortable. You get used to it.

 

http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebw..._SupersetQRY=Kcourier&f_SortOrderID=-1&f_bct=

I'm pretty sure that's what Hog has, which is a single-speed hybrid in
my book, not remotely a road or race bike.

 

Don't crash through pot holes then.

27in wheels make more difference to comfort than suspension on the
road.

 

That bike is in the category "Commuter/Leisure - Speed - Close to road
bike performance from a bike with flat bars". So it's a road-bike styled
commuter bike.

 

That's why Julius Caesar invented knees. It also helped him outrun
dinosaurs.

 

Close but no
http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebw...D=13013&f_SupersetQRY=&f_SortOrderID=0&f_bct=