After the Hybrid ...

[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.

[mimitabby]

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.

Pooks, maybe you should be practicing fast stops?
push your backside as far back as you can, and stop that way.
this helps you keep your weight behind the bike which makes a fast stop
safer. If you feel better about stops, maybe you will feel better about going fast. There's no way i can go fast down a hill if there is a stop sign 100 feet away.

[7rider]

RE: bike snobs.
Oooo, they just raise my hackles.
I'm one of those folks with a $4,000 road bike. I recently did a metric century with a girlfriend of mine who rode her $400 flat bar road bike. Yeah, she had trouble keeping up with me on the hills - she was pushing 26 pounds of bike up the hill versus my 18. But, lordy, did we have fun. It was a great event ... I just didn't want to do that long of a ride on my flat bar bike because of pedal/cleat issues (only AFTER the ride, did it occur to me that I could have swapped pedals between my two bikes!). Did I care what she rode, or that - gasp! - we should be seen together with such different bikes??? Heck no!
I also wear a CamelBak when doing long rides on my expensive road bike (shocking to those roadie snobs, I know!)
To Heck with bike snobs.
What's important is not WHAT you ride. What's important is that you enjoy riding what you ride.
If you ride a mountain bike and want to get something different and are looking at a hybrid, don't feel like you are looking in the wrong place. There is nothing wrong with a hybrid. They are great bikes. They will continue to be great bikes. For many they are a start, for others they are a destination.
Just ride and enjoy it!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I'm one of those folks with a $4,000 road bike. I recently did a metric century with a girlfriend of mine who rode her $400 flat bar road bike. Yeah, she had trouble keeping up with me on the hills - she was pushing 26 pounds of bike up the hill versus my 18. But, lordy, did we have fun.

Sometimes the difference in bike FRAME weight is partially negated if the riders and added gear are of different weight. It's really the TOTAL of everything together that should be compared. My steel road bike weighs 27 pounds when weighed "fully loaded" with all my gear- saddle bag and tools and extra tube, water bottles, heavier 700x37c tires for gravel road riding, cable&lock, frame-attached tire pump, etc. Yes, I'd like to lessen that total a bit- and I plan to lose 5-8 more pounds off my body to meet that goal.

[Geonz]

Yesterday my friedn and I were the last ones in on a long ride... which ended in a "wonderful" downhill. We'd gotten lost, and he had gotten lost twice - so he'd done a good 15 extra miles.
This route had some downhills that were not just steep, but horribly bumpy... I mean stuff-could-fly-off-your-bike-that-had-been-attached bumpy, and definitely loosen-your-kidneys-while-you're-at-it bumpy. So *everybody* took those slowly... and a couple people including my buddy were feeling a bit beaten about the head and shoulders (or back and backside, as the case may be - his problem was shoulders).
We were so late that two friends got in their car to come after us, and they went by and we said "whew!" and agreed wholeheartedly that that "wonderful" downhill just wasn't that much fun anyway (he might have enjoyed it earlier... I just don't get thrills from hills - they're simply a challenge to my fears, which is noble and I don't mind doing it... but I don't do it for fun... any more than say jumping off the 10 meter diving board).
Alas, though... our extended hitchhiking thumbs were interpreted by the driver as "thumbs up!" - and he assumed that of course we wanted the joy of that hill! (Our other friend tried unsuccessfully to convince him that we were trying to thumb a ride... andt his was one case where my "default grimace grin" looked too much like a smile...)
But for me, at least, the road bike posture kicks in twice as many "CAN WE SLOW DOWN NOW???" reflexes as the hybrid. I like being able to lean in and pedal hard **when I want to** ... and to sit back like a little old lady and push the bike forward when I'm more in my "need time to react to everything, thank you" mode.
ON the other hand... I sometimes muse that like other things, yoga and what have you, it might simply take a little time to learn to be comfortable in the more "always proactive" position.

And Regina... was your friend... from *lower* MoCo? P.G.? [ fondly remembering childhood and crossing class & culture lines...]

[7rider]

And Regina... was your friend... from *lower* MoCo? P.G.? [ fondly remembering childhood and crossing class & culture lines...]

Nope. She's a co-worker - also here in "MoCo". She just has priorities other than fancy bicycles (go figure!).

[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!