Is it me or are there less people taking up Mountain Biking?

[EggyBum6969]

a fairly light weight marin 1x9 mtb,using the newer version
of the Schwalbe Marathon Supreme folding Touring Tyres 2.0


I've not had a puncture since i bought those tyres

at 70psi they make you feel like your wheels and bike are imortal

 

[cce]

where are you riding to need 2 inch tyres on the road? Beirut?

my 28mm bontrager road tyres have zero punctures in over 2k miles, and I pulled 12 pieces of glass out of one of them the other day

 

[EggyBum6969]

where are you riding to need 2 inch tyres on the road? Beirut?

my 28mm bontrager road tyres have zero punctures in over 2k miles, and I pulled 12 pieces of glass out of one of them the other day

north west england they make a mtb feel great

the roads are like a warzone, potholes an storm drain covers, small to medium fallen branches an plenty of broken glass

around here they always resuface the roads a couple of weeks
before the gas or electric guys go digging it all up an turn the flat smooth
roads an cycle lanes into a patchy bumpfest :evil:

 

[PurpleFrog]

Re: Re:

The last time a cyclist died on one of the roads I use it was because he was commuting at night in the rain on a bike with 25mm tyres: he hit a a small ding in the road that was hidden beneath a puddle and then an HGV mushed him. He'd have been just as fast on 40mm tyres and he almost certainly wouldn't have died.

I don't know you can jump to that conclusion.

Of course you know. And it's hardly a jump: you just don't like it. You understand perfectly well that a bike with a narrow high pressure tyre is much more likely to crash when it hits a pothole the rider can't possibly see.

If you ride a bike that can be crashed simply by getting its wheel caught in a grate or the most minor pot hole, you are risking your life to some degree. This isn't rocket science: potholes that can throw riders off bikes with 25mm tyres are much more common than those that can throw riders off 40mm tyres. Holes that will wreck a bike on a 25mm tyre may be ignored indefinitely, but anything that will do for a 40mm crosser tyre will bother cars too and get repaired quickly. As for anything likely to take out a mountain bike on 55mm slicks, well, the army will probably complain because of the risk to tanks.

Surely you could equally posit that, had the HGV been at a safe distance, there would have been time for the driver to react and avoid the crashing cyclist?

Yes, you could "posit" that. At least, if you had never seen a halfway busy road. (And had no grasp of logic - you're trying to disprove a hypothesis by proving an alternative *when they are non-exclusive*. Which is silly.) If you had seen a normal road, then you would know that it is usual for cyclists to ride slower than the big things with engines. So cyclists sit towards the kerb and the big things pass them. A lot! The idea that all traffic should sit behind you and never get closer than what would be the safe stopping distance if you crash and get thrown into the middle of the road is rather bizarre and not a little selfish - you literally have to believe that no driver should overtake a cyclist ever, when overtaking was the normal state for the road the guy was on, and to hell with the carrying capacity of the British road network. Good luck convincing anyone who drives of that, let alone everyone...

Riding a 25mm tyre bike is far from the most dangerous thing you can do - but, honestly, you should remember that they are designed as sports equipment, not as a method of transportation, and the designers quite rightly traded off all-weather capability and robust handling to get seconds off race times. (And no, they're not really faster than bikes with 40mm tyres - at least not in the context of a commute; if you don't understand why, ask and I'll explain the physics of air resistance vs rolling resistance and how a road racer is optimized for the wrong power output level outside a race.)

 

[Totoro]

I've got a few friends who have bought brand new mountain bikes and only ridden them a few times and now the bikes stay locked away and forgotten.

I can see people being put off by riding on the roads ( I hate it) but once you hit the trails its all good.

 

[PurpleFrog]

where are you riding to need 2 inch tyres on the road? Beirut?

That was Weston Super Mare, thanks.

And pot holes - as that guy found out - don't have to be frequent to put you in front of an HGV.

Again, no, riding narrow tyres isn't terribly dangerous - but if you were designing a bike for transportation cycling, they're not what you'd spec. At any sane commuter output good 40 or 55mm tyres will be as fast. The large contact patch will also stand a better chance if you hit a diesel slick or junk dropped on the road - and it will let you pull a much sharper emergency turn if you know what you're. Which most people don't, but I hope everyone does on a mountain biking forum. (It won't normally let you brake faster though - toppling forces are the limit there not contact patch.)

my 28mm bontrager road tyres have zero punctures in over 2k miles, and I pulled 12 pieces of glass out of one of them the other day

Whoopy doo! That's... well, pretty ordinary: I have a friend who has been using the same pair of Marathon Supremes for 2 years on his commute, which has to add up to 5k miles, with zero punctures. But what makes you think that has anything to do with whether they'll catch in a grate or a pot hole you don't see?

Again, this isn't "ROAD BIKES = DEATH!!!" - just a statement that they are badly designed as transportation. The tiny aero advantage of narrow tyres makes no sense outside of a race, the rolling resistance advantage people think they give doesn't really exist (or rather it is related to other factors and people are too bloody stupid and lazy to rtfm), and having a tiny contact patch and no suspension in the tyre when you don't have to is bad engineering.

 

[cce]

Whoopy doo! That's... well, pretty ordinary: I have a friend who has been using the same pair of Marathon Supremes for 2 years on his commute, which has to add up to 5k miles, with zero punctures. But what makes you think that has anything to do with whether they'll catch in a grate or a pot hole you don't see?

I ride my bike with my eyes open as a rule.

And ANY decent cyclist knows you don't ride into a puddle like that

 

[widowmaker]

Re:

When I made the transition from Roadbike to MTB in the mid/late 80's there was not a lot of choice which bikes you could ride, there was Roadbikes, MTB's and 'shopping bikes' I went into my local bike shop looking at new bikes recently, and the range is pretty wide from hardcore road bikes, to relaxed geometry roadbikes, drop bar roadbikes, sports hybrid with carbon forks hybrids to all sort of MTB's.

I just scratched my head grabbed a catalogue and went home for a lie down :facepalm:

Then decided to build my own exactly as I want

 

[PurpleFrog]

Whoopy doo! That's... well, pretty ordinary: I have a friend who has been using the same pair of Marathon Supremes for 2 years on his commute, which has to add up to 5k miles, with zero punctures. But what makes you think that has anything to do with whether they'll catch in a grate or a pot hole you don't see?

I ride my bike with my eyes open as a rule.

And ANY decent cyclist knows you don't ride into a puddle like that

So when the whole road is slick with rain, you stop riding and wait until it has dried out? That might add a day or two to your commute. Or do you carry Handle Bar Mounted Sonar so that you can detect the tell the difference between puddles and water tarmac at night? In the rain - on a busy road with the glare of car and truck lights in your face?

I really don't find the "I shall never ride into a puddle" argument convincing. Not when it is applied to narrow yet busy roads at rush hour on dark nights. It's more of a bizarre fantasy that confuses reducing the number of puddles you ride through with absolute success.

 

[cce]

Whoopy doo! That's... well, pretty ordinary: I have a friend who has been using the same pair of Marathon Supremes for 2 years on his commute, which has to add up to 5k miles, with zero punctures. But what makes you think that has anything to do with whether they'll catch in a grate or a pot hole you don't see?

I ride my bike with my eyes open as a rule.

And ANY decent cyclist knows you don't ride into a puddle like that

So when the whole road is slick with rain, you stop riding and wait until it has dried out? That might add a day or two to your commute. Or do you carry Handle Bar Mounted Sonar so that you can detect the tell the difference between puddles and water tarmac at night? In the rain - on a busy road with the glare of car and truck lights in your face?

I really don't find the "I shall never ride into a puddle" argument convincing. Not when it is applied to narrow yet busy roads at rush hour on dark nights. It's more of a bizarre fantasy that confuses reducing the number of puddles you ride through with absolute success.

There's a huge difference between riding on a surface that has water on it and riding into a puddle which may have unknown obstacles in it.