After the Hybrid ...

[mimitabby]

Mimitabby, why can't you ride your Bianchi through the winter?

I can Salsabarb; DH just didn't want me weighing it down with fenders.
TOO LATE I ALREADY BOUGHT YELLOW ONES!!

[salsabike]

I expect the Bianchi will look very cool with its yellow fenders, and will work just fine for you all through the winter! Looking forward to seeing it.

[DDH]

Well, I guess I am not the norm. My DH and I started out years and years ago on Mountain bikes. We rode on the road, we rode off road, and where ever we wanted to go on them. We pulled (at the time) our 3 yr old in a trailor until he got older and too heavy. Then we quit riding, because we couldn't pull him and between work and not being able to take the child and him not being able to keep up himself, well we just quit.
Fast forward to about 2 months ago. I got my good ole mountain bike back out and started riding again. DS is old enough to leave alone for an hour or so while I ride, or I ride while he is in school. I ride anwhere from 10 to 15 miles on my daily rides and DH and I try to take a long ride of 20 miles or more once a week. We are trying to build up endurance so we can ride the 50mile distance in the Waco ride the end of this month.

After reading all these post I feel like we are abnormal. We are talking about getting Hybrid's now. Our thinking is that the hybrid will be better for the road than the mountain bikes are but we won't have the headaches of flats and such so much as you do on a road bike.
Are we doing the wrong thing, going from mountain bikes to hybrids?

I'm kind of confused now. I get the impression from the posts that the hybirds are slow, heavy and hard to ride. Is that the case?

[KnottedYet]

Do you have slicks on the mtn bikes?

If you love the good ol' mtn bikes, I wouldn't change over to a hybrid. Unless the mtn bikes are too heavy.

If you really want to go dramatically faster than a mtn bike with slicks, you'd probably do better with a touring/road bike. Try a few when you try the hybrids. (touring or cyclocross geometry will be slacker than sport/racing geometry and might be more comfortable for you)

Take a peek at the bike in my avatar. It's a Kona Dew, a cyclocross geometry frame with a flat bar. Sort of a "fast hybrid" with road wheels and commuter tires. I like the flat bars for commuting and shorter rides, but for rides longer than 30 or 40 miles I really prefer a road bike and drop bars.

[DDH]

Yea, DH just recently in the past week or so, put slicks on my bike. Before that I was riding with a more street type tire but not slick.
The only reason we are talking about getting new ones is because these are about 10 years old and they are pretty antiquated.
So we thought if we were going to get new ones we would go ahead and get hybrids. The road bikes are almost out of the question, unless I carry my bike everywhere I want to ride. I live in the country on a terribly out of shape dirt, cleachy, rocky, road.

I'm just wondering if the hybrid will be a step up a little as far as speed goes? I avg, about 11 or 12 on my mountain bike and that is with a lot of hills. I would like to go on longer rides but need more speed to be able to get it done in a decent amount of time and not spend my whole day riding. lOL

[Geonz]

Pooks, if going more than 10 mph is still an "event," then there really is no need to switch to a road bike, which will tend to go faster
I"m just too cheap to go to a road bike when I can go as fast as I want to on my 7500FX - though when I got it, there were no Pilots or other models that were more upright.
I'm one of those people who've stuck with hybrids and gone gazillions of miles... but it's a *fast* hybrid, modified to be almost like a road bike, just more upright (which *does* impact speed ... at 15+ mph). While the hybrid-to-road may be "overrepresented" here, I know a lot of riders. The ones who ride "functionally" - errands and personal fitness, but mostly on their own - often stick to the bigger tires & upright. The ones in the club almost all go to road bikes within a year or two of being fully "bitten" - or to thinner tyres if they don't have the budget for a new bike.
DDH, Switching out tires can easily add 2 mph speed immediately... for me, that was from 35's to 28's, and 35's aren't even full "mountain bike" tires." So a hybrid prob'ly will be a "step up" from mt. bike... but if you've already switched out tires, maybe not.

[pooks]

Pooks, if going more than 10 mph is still an "event," then there really is no need to switch to a road bike, which will tend to go faster

Well that's just me having warring desires. Because I'd love to ride faster in general -- it's just when it's going downhill that it freaks me out!

On the other hand, in our neighborhood every "downhill" is usually leading to a stop sign at the bottom or a T-intersection where you have to turn right or left, so I'm not going downhill and going, "Weeee!" I'm going dowhill thinking, "Oh god can I stop if I'm going this fast?!?"

I did find one hill that doesn't do that and am working on going faster on it.

[KnottedYet]

Here's my bike:

http://www.konaworld.com/shopping_ca...6&parentid=253

I average 14-16 mph on the flats with my Kona. It is much faster than my old (and long gone) mtb and my recumbent (which I sold, too). On my Trek road bike I averaged 18 mph or so on the flats.

The Kona wheels are wide to hold some pretty wide tires (1 3/8 inch). I ride on gravel, grass, and asphalt. I ride through potholes and glass. I inevitably steer TOWARD shiney objects and run over them!

I'm very happy with my Kona hybrid/cyclocross/commuter. It's perfect for the purposes i bought it for. (general riding and commuting on a variety of surfaces)

[mimitabby]

Yea, DH just recently in the past week or so, put slicks on my bike. Before that I was riding with a more street type tire but not slick.
The only reason we are talking about getting new ones is because these are about 10 years old and they are pretty antiquated.
So we thought if we were going to get new ones we would go ahead and get hybrids. The road bikes are almost out of the question, unless I carry my bike everywhere I want to ride. I live in the country on a terribly out of shape dirt, cleachy, rocky, road.

I'm just wondering if the hybrid will be a step up a little as far as speed goes? I avg, about 11 or 12 on my mountain bike and that is with a lot of hills. I would like to go on longer rides but need more speed to be able to get it done in a decent amount of time and not spend my whole day riding. lOL

Donna, a good hybrid will help your speed. It should be lighter and faster than your MTB!