Might have to get a road bike, anyone help?

[soggz]

Have to be honest, never thought of using an MTB. Not sure I'd really want to on a 60 mile road race either. Food for thought though.

Im doing a 65 miler on march 18th this year for the longleat lionheart in aid of the british heart foundation.All i got is a Raleigh Pioneer 160 commuter bike (i took the mud guards and panniers off)
with skinny tires and sus forks and that'll have to do!
http://www.thelionheart.co.uk/event-registration/

 

[feetabix]

mtb on slicks will do the job fine.....gearing may need a tweek and make sure you have a change of hand position available as big miles on one set of grips can get tedious.....a well sorted road bike is the best way though if an option!...

 

[The Ken]

Put slicks on your MTB and change the front ring to a 50 (or more) - that will do you fine. Don't buy a road bike unless you really want one, I ended up putting flat bars and bar ends on mine, but as I have finally entered a race I need to go back to drops as they don't allow bar ends on anything other than a mtb.

 

[development_cycle]

I'm a bit unsure about why this thrad\ has been moved but anupdate to all thos concerned. I have made a decision to build an MTB that I bought already into a drop bar crossy thing for the event, or at least I think anyway. So the question now is, what drop bars are good for this and will fit an mtb stem, and just as important is levers/shifters' this is most certainly a complete mystery for me.

Answers on a postcard please

 

[The Ken]

I've just fitted a midge bar from on-one - wide flared ends, short drop average reach and very offroadable, I'm using modern shimano "brifters" - they sit at an angle on this bar but I prefer it.

 

[development_cycle]

bars sound good, they good for mtb stem? Also when you say brifters do you just mean standard sti's for road bikes? If so would they be ok with v brakes?

 

[The Ken]

Brifters: brake shifter combo = standard road STI fit but I also had road flat bar shifters (with seperate v levers) and these didn't fit - think road bike diameters are constant where as mtb are 26in the middle and drop to 22 where the bit fit.

To be honest I don't know the leverage differences for caliper brakes and V's so can't be sure if road levers could pull v brakes - I suspect not but they could probably pull cantis.

 

[development_cycle]

Ah, well the stem is an mtb one and the frame is for V brakes so whatever "brifters" I get will need to cope with V brakes, and the bars would have to go into a 25.4mm gap. I could shim I suppose

 

[REKIBorter]

You can get mini vbrakes that work with road levers. Cyclocross bikes use them. Saying that, having efficient braking on a road bike with skinny tyres is asking for trouble when the roads are wet. Road bikes have crappy caliper brakes for a very good reason.