Quote Originally Posted by Irulan View Post
I'm not a road rider... other than the confidence issue and braking, is there any crossover from road technique to mtb dh technique? As I understand it, the body positions are totally different, and any dynamic riding on a road bike is going to be much more subtle than a MTB...?
My roots are actually way back in BMX riding, but I've been into MTBing for years now. This past spring I started road biking for the first time because I had a major knee surgery and smooth peddling/roads was ideal for recovery. I get far more nervous about riding my road bike than I do DH MTBing. That is 100% because of cars. They scare the life out of me. Anyway, I really don't find much crossover at all other than cardio. I will continue road biking simply because it improves my cardio more than MTBing does. That makes climbing technical section on my MTB far easier. But other than that, everything feels different and I have different focuses. Road biking is fairly predictable and I feel like improvement on a road bike is mostly due to fitness. However, I've grown up on bikes and am naturally comfortable on them. So perhaps that would be different for somebody who is newer to the sport. I also don't ride clipless on my mtb, so that was an adjustment. So not much cross over in my opinion - apart from the obvious - that I'm riding a bike!