Road Cycling - OK, I am officially a MTB-er and a roadie

I love mountain biking, but I also love the 15 miles road-rides to and from the mountain trail. So, I buy myself a road bike :D

Earlier today I picked up a brand-new 2002 Giant TCR2 at $250 less than the 2003 model. Everything is stock except the pedals. I am too cheap to buy a pair of road shoes, so I swapped the SPD-R with SPD-A pedals :)

Riding around the neighbourhood, I find the road-riding position to be a bit "unnatural" (compared with the MTB riding position). Cornering and turning feel very different, even feel a bit scary at first. But I am pretty sure that as I spend more time on it, I'll get used to it.

ONE CONCERN: I can easily bend arms when I put my hands on the hoods, but I still feel a lot of weight on my wrist (again, compared to MTB). I test-rode a lot of "race" bikes and all the LBS' people I asked said that's normal, and I just need to get used to that riding position. The "sport" road bikes, on the otherhand, feel more comfortable right-of-the-bat because of the high-rise stem and longer head-tube. But everybody wants a "race" bike, right .... ;) Anyway, right now I am not sure how comfortable my hands will be on long-rides. My LBS guy told me to give it a try for a week and comeback if I want a higher rise or shorter stem. So, we'll see.

BTW, I told my wife to blame you guys for my addiction :D

Yeah, I have this problem, too. I was a MTB'er long before I had a road bike and started riding on the road a lot. I'm 6'2" with long arms, so I have a longish stem on my road bike. On long rides, I can have a lot of numbness in the hands, which I later found out is a fairly common complaint.

First and best - you can move the hoods/lever up higher on bar - to the point where the hoods are *almost* level with the top of your bars. But this can make shifting/braking in the drops difficult. If you're a natural MTB'er like me, you'll likely hate the feeling of riding down in the drops - and unless you do a road race or find yourself in wind often, you won't need to ride down there much.

Second, you should change your hand position often. This is good for anyone. A doctor in Bicycling mag suggested a weird position that I now use all the time when out on the road: instead of straddling the hoods with your thumb and 1st finger - straddle them between your 1st and 2nd fingers. It feels bizzare at first, but give your hands a great rest.

Finally - I went to a (true) 90 degree stem, which results in about 17 degrees of rise. A shorter one would probably make a huge difference, too. I can't do that, though, due to my long arms.

Your wife is right. Everyone on this site is an enabling jerk.

I consider myself to be part of both groups. I ride a MTB with slick tyres and SPD pedals and so on. The thing I like is those epic century rides in the Tweed Valley that combine the best of both worlds.

Here's what I did.

1. Do what you have to do to move the bars so they are 1-2
inches below your saddle.

2. With your drops level with the ground, move your hoods to where they are level or a little higher than the top of your bars.

3. Move your saddle back a little, and tilt the nose up a little.


Unless you are a real road racer this will not hurt your times in the least, and it will make the bike much easier on the hands. Go to eBay and look at the for sale used bikes and notice the bar to saddle ratio, on about 95% of them are bars real close to the saddle hight, I'm not talking about the new bikes! The point I am making is that most bikes being ridden arn't set up like they look on the web pages or catalogs!
I personaly like my bike setup so if I'm in the drops I'm a little uncomfortable. This works well for me for fast down hills and long windy streches, but most people would be surprised how airo you can get on the hoods by droping your elbows and crouching rather than going into the drops.

Thanks for all the replies. My concern turned out to be not a big issue. A couple of miles into the ride and some handle-bar adjustments along the way, I finally found a comfortable setup. Yeah, I am still not very comfortable on the drop and it's hard to reach the brake levers unless I bend my elbow so that my lower forearms are parallel to the ground.

The thing that I thought would not be an issue turned out to be a major pain in the butt-ock, literally. It hurt pretty bad :crash:, I had to stand most of the way back home. The saddle seems to be quite comfy when test-riding the bike. Probably it's the road riding position that put the pressure on different part of my behind?

To summarize my first "road" ride: It's FUN FUN FUN.... I can't believe it's gonna be this fun. Now I understand the appeal. All the moderate hills that I felt on my MTB seem to disappear. I was expecting a lot of standing up (because of the double chainring), but I was just smooth sailing over the hills. What's up with that... :D I guess it's time to hit bigger hills.

Top speed: 32 mph
Avg speed: 15.5 mph
Distance: 21 miles