Commuting - If cars have 'em, what about road bikes?

I understand that the fork acts like a shock absorber. Sort of...How come regular road bikes don't have shocks in the front and back?

Two reasons I can think of:
1. Suspensions are heavy.
2. Some of the energy of pedaling goes into flexing the suspention.

Going over rough pavement? Rise up off the seat.

Pedaling efficiency and weight. The fact that the suspension soaks up some pedaling power, road bike riders dislike it. Suspension systems are also heavier. Many higher end bikes, like the Specialized Roubaix(French spelling is wierd), are designed to soak up some vibrations. Also, a road bike weighs at most 20 pounds, where as a car weighs 3000 pounds. This makes it much easier for the structure to be thrown around by the bumps, whereas a car would fall apart without suspension. One more angle, road bikes are for performance and cars are for convinence.

Cannondale makes a road bike with a front shock. If you like, buy that one.

Road bikes are an acquired taste. Seriously. I'm getting ready to buy my first road bike and noticed that you really don't need a dual suspension. If you want that kind of bike, buy a slow mountain bike. Giant also sells a dual suspension hybrid if you like but there are not that many buyers.

A road biker is looking for speed. Plain and simple. Once you spend several thousand miles on a hybrid, (like me) you'll be looking for that extra speed. Your type of question comes from someone who is just starting out. Quite frankly, in about another two years, you'll either be out of this sport or looking for your first road bike.

There is no reason why a road bike should come with dual suspension as you will compromise the frame to nothing more than a hybrid. You do not pay top dollar for a road bike to get hybrid type perfomance.

I found riding a road bike to be just as comfortable as riding a hybrid. I never thought this was possible but you have to try out the latests bikes to see for youself. A steel road bike absorbs the shock just as good as a hybird without transferring it to the rider. It took me nearly four years to find this out! I hope you don't take as long as me before you try your first non-suspension road bike.

Cars have suspensions because they have several thousand pounds of weight hitting large bumps. A road bike you're not supposed to go into large potholes and bumps with them.
High performance F1 cars have extremely tight suspensions on them too, you can't drive em offroad like you can with a mountain bike.

My road bike rides smoother on most roads than my mountain bike with front suspension.

Doesn't suspension in cars and other 4 wheel vehicles help keep the car firmly planted in turns and such?

Since 90% of the total vehicle weight of a road bike is in the rider, flexing of the arms and legs of the rider provides all the suspension needed. In a car 97% of the total vehicle weight is in the part between the occupants and the wheels, so suspension is needed between that part and the wheels.

I have nothing else to add to the topic on hand, just a few random thoughts on road bike suspension, if you are looking into it:

After some really long rides, or rides with more then a few miles of cobblestone type roads, I have dreams about the Moots Vamoots YBB (http://www.moots.com/bike-rd-vamootsybb.php). My dream touring / commuting bike would be built off the cyclocross version of the same frame.

Rock shocks also came out with a front suspension fork for road bikes, called the the ruby. I think RST had a 700c fork out a few years ago, but i have never seen one with my own eyes. Other then a few cyclocross races, 700c suspension forks were a big flop.

Lastly, you can always add a suspension seat post to your bike, but i wouldn't recommend it, the always changing geometry will drive you nuts, and then some.

Better comparison whould be motorcycles.

Actually, some steel bikes do have a built in vibration damping ability. Viewing the front hub and liniing it up with the front of the handlebars, I can clearly see the fore-aft flex when I ride over rough pavement. The ride of my older LeMond Zurich is much preferable to the Trek OCLV I used to own: CF mutes higher freq road noise, but does nothing to absorb rough pavement vibration. At least, that's my experience.

One more angle, road bikes are for performance and cars are for convinence.

Tell that to Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, Mazda (particularly RX-7s :) ) et. al. :D

I do agree with you that suspensions do not belong on road bikes. Certainly, there's room for a bit of compliance, but certainly nothing that could be labeled as "suspension".

Going to a carbon fibre fork on my bike was like adding suspension... the steel was already pretty smooth but the CF made a difference... planning on a CF post as soon as I can afford it too. Also, on a roadbike you aren't going to be hitting any big bumps like you do on a mountainbike... potholes have a tendency to eat rims afterall.

Going to a carbon fibre fork on my bike was like adding suspension... the steel was already pretty smooth but the CF made a difference... planning on a CF post as soon as I can afford it too. Also, on a roadbike you aren't going to be hitting any big bumps like you do on a mountainbike... potholes have a tendency to eat rims afterall.

Yeah on my commute home, I hit "2 miles of rough road" where they striate the pavement before paving. That's when I said...hmmm some shocks'd be real nice on this road bike! Then a motorcycle passed, snickering...he had shocks on his bike and it got me thinking about suspension.

Road bikes are an acquired taste.


This statement struck me as odd. Didn't most of us grow up riding road bikes? For me at least, MTBs didn't really hit the market until I was in my 20s.

FWIW, my fixie has a Rock Shox Ruby fork on it and I love it. Great for city riding with crappy roads and potholes. Sort of heavy, yeah, but I make up for it by not having all the extra stuff on a multi-speed bike.

A tire's air pocket does most of the shock absorbing on a road bike--so just use a road bike with room for @28c tire?

Buy a Softride

I understand that the fork acts like a shock absorber. Sort of...How come regular road bikes don't have shocks in the front and back?

Regular road bikes don't have shocks because of the natural spring roadies' buns have.

Thatis why biker-dude butts are so nice lookin'.


:D