Violet

I switched to 25s when I had a road bike, which is back when 23c was standard and 25c was considered fat LOL. seems like 25c is standard now for roadies which is an improvement (but any decent country road here is chipseal, so 28c seems like a sensibile choice especially if you're over 70kg.

Still, that's only for gravel, 28c won't take you very far on single track

pierce

if the single track is mostly clay/sandstone, and not too steep, (and not horse rutted) sure, you can go miles on a road bike tire.

much past that, yeah, a x35 or x38 will get you a little better control, and a CX tire better traction on loose stuff, but its not a big leap to where you better be on a fat tire mountain with gnarlies-er-gnobbies.... and it pretty quickly gets to where even the best of those are hard to stay rubber side down if you're hitting deep sand, sloshy-wet deep mud, etc. on my full suspension disc braked stumpjumper with 26x2.3's, I hit a mud puddle a few years ago that completely swallowed my front wheel above the axle. I found myself staring from way up high with the disk brake locked and holding my back wheel in the air while I slow-mo'd my way down, managed to unclip (yup, SPD pedals) and got my foot out wide enough to catch the bank and kept from falling into said mud up to my knees. the buff young mtn bikers coming up the hill (I was going down) about fell off their bikes laughitng at this fat bearded old guy (tm) doing the slow mo endo. they helped me pull the bike out, with a great big sucking noise. took me weeks to get all the mud grit out of that disk brake, hah!

johnread

Interesting discussion..... One of the limitations of the Sirrus Limited was the inability for it to wear anything much larger than a 25mm tire. The 28's that came on my wife's Vita Comp were a bit too large for it. The Crux ships with 34's and looks like it will handle even larger tires. The tires and drop bars were the ultimate determinants to the trade. Don't get me wrong; the Limited is a truly awesome bike with somewhat of a identity crisis - not as fast on the road as a bike with drop bars, not stable enough on anything other than pavement. But what a quality bike!

Of course, the Crux has its share of compromises too, but for my style of riding and expectations for versatility, it's a little more suitable than the Limited. At least until the NEXT shiny piece of hardware hits the floor of my LBS! I think I am developing some sort of addiction or personality disorder....

pierce

one thing to note, not all tires are the same at a given size. for instance, Continental Gator series tires tend to be a little smaller than their indicated sizes.... so even if another x28 was too big, its quite possible a gatorskin 700-28 would fit. awesome tires, btw.

kaliayev

Yup. Actually Shimano's Deore components were first designed and released as their touring line up. Bike companies took different approaches when hybrids first started to appear. As mentioned some were mountain bike frames with some road components. Trek's approach in 1990 with their top line 790/750 was to take the 520 frame and put a flat bar on it and add some mountain bike components.

corwin1968

My 1995 Trek Multitrack (a classic hybrid) has virtually the same frame angles and lengths as the same size Surly Cross Check and Soma Double Cross, both Cyclocross bikes. I think that for most people, these are the perfect bike when equipped with flat-bars and mtb gearing. Mountain bikes and road bikes are the fringe where the enthusiasts tend to operate. A good, flat-bar, wide-range geared bike is great for the average more casual rider.

I think when hybrids first became popular in the 90's, the term did mean something. They were literally a hybrid between a mountain and a road bike. Now the term has evolved and the way I see it used most, it seems to refer to comfort oriented bikes with various levels of suspension. However, lot's of other bike types fall into the hybrid category so the term really may not mean much any more.

pierce

the derailleurs on that stumpjumper were "Suntour Moun-Tech". worked absolutely great until finally the upper pulley on the rear derailleur wore out all its teeth and wouldn't shift the chain reliably, this was after 20 years of riding. I replaced it with a Alivio.

robble

bwhaha! You caused quite a conniption fit in there! I had a great many laughs seeing all the indignation.

I only wish you hadn't requested it to be moved.

Burton

As far as I know the primary defining differences between mountain bikes and road bikes were chain line, wheel rim diameter and rear axle spacing. Hybrids initially borrowed the larger rim size and rigid front end from road bikes, and matched that with a lower mtb gearing and a frame with a wider rear axle spacing.

Some of that still stands. The 135mm rear axle spacing normally found on hybrid or mtb wheel-sets is different from the 130mm spacing found on road bikes. So if you have a performance hybrid with a 130mm rear axle spacing and a cranket with a chainline of 45mm or less - it IS actually a flat bar road bike.

pierce

in the old OLD days, road bikes had 120mm rear axle spacings, so the difference from road to mountain's 135mm was significant.

with road bikes gaped out to 130mm, the difference there is less significant.


speaking of spacing and chainline... I've never seen a spec sheet on the FRONT sprocket spacings for doubles adn triples intended for 7/8/9/10 speed systems

giantcfr1

I think Bike Forums should change our Sub-Forum title to Hybrids, Cross-bikes and Flatbars.

The Chemist

While my bikes are marketed by Giant as flat bar road bikes (FCR = flat bar compact road) I would certainly say they're more like hybrids than true flat bar road bikes. The brakes are V-Brakes, not road calipers, the shifters (and front derailleur) are Deore and not a road series (though the rear derailleur is Sora), and the tires are 28C with room enough for at least 35C.

I've made them a little more road-y with the addition of road wheels (though still with 28C tires, as I don't like the idea of going narrower on Shanghai's rutted and debris strewn side streets) but they are still much closer to a true hybrid than a flat bar road bike.

kaliayev

A majority of touring frames have been built to 135mm for a while now and more recently cross bikes. With the advent of the growing popularity of using disc brakes on road bikes 135mm is becoming more common with them also. IMO the lines are getting blurry.

corwin1968

Why have the dropout widths been different? Is it basically a matter of strength with mountain, hybrid and touring bikes having wider dropouts for more sturdy hubs or is there another reason? And why do road bike have "road" brakes? Is there some distinct advantage to that type of brake or is it just tradition?

bjjoondo 

Well being 50+ I remember back in the early 80's, when Stumpjumper took MTB's put on slick tries and few other changes and called them, "CITY BIKES", to me this is the orginal "HYBIRD". Now if a bicycle has 50/34 crankset, 11-25/27 Cassette, can't use any tires larger than 28mm and has "flat bars", then POO on the Almighty 41'ers, it's a "FLAT BAR ROAD BIKE", not a hybrid, jmnsho and YMMV.

bjjoondo 

My friend, you have a awesome "Cyclo-Cross Bike", it's not a Hybrid, they've had Cyclo-cross bikes "long" before there ever was a Hybird, ENJOY!

fietsbob

Neither Fish , nor Fowl..

mobilemail

Life got easier for me when I realized that most of the bike designations we use, "hybrid", "fitness bike", "comfort bike", "commuter", "city bike", "sport-touring", "touring", "atb", were just created as marketing terms to differentiate from what was already on the floor. After a while you realize that one bike can probably fit all but the most purpose-specific designs. A true racing bike and a true gravity bike will never be good at average use. But for the other 80%, call it what you will. And to make my point, consider the following and tell me if they are hybrids; why or why not:
https://yaxofg.bay.livefilestore.com...051.JPG?psid=1
https://a7xd7w.bay.livefilestore.com...176.JPG?psid=1

kaliayev

I would not call either a hybrid. They are both purpose built bikes. The first is a classic and one of the best known touring bikes. I agree Treks first hybrids, especially early 90's lugged framed 750s and 790s, where little more than 520s with flat bars, mountain bike shifters and brake levers, and different gearing. Later Trek hybrids had longer wheel bases, longer top tubes, and more lax geometries. The later bike is a classic mountain bike. 26" wheels, different geometry, longer wheel base than hybrids, higher bottom bracket, and built to take wider tires. Great off road, but not so much on pavement.

pierce

indeed. First cyclocross bike I ever saw was in Spence Wolfe's Cupertino Cyclery, after he'd retired to Pacific Grove and reopened his shop in the late 70s... it was a small frame classic italian race bike (Colnago or something but I don't remember specifically), with a 5-speed campagnolo neuvo record setup, and knobby silk clement sewups.

I was in there because he was flat out the best wheel builder in Monterey (or probably northern california), and I was having him build me a nice set of wheels with superchampion 'gentleman' touring rims, 4X in back, 3X in front, on my campy NR hubs. old school.

cs1

I had no idea Specialized made anything that nice. Beautiful bike.

pierce

those high end Sirrus's are essentially Roubaix frames, with flat bars and slightly fatter tires.

johnread

Exactly right, pierce! That's both the benefit and the drawback of the Sirrus Limited. It's a great bike from a materials and componentry standpoint, but it suffers from an identity crisis: it makes a lot of compromises as a road bike, but is not versatile enough to make the cut as a hybrid. I wouldn't want to relegate it to the status of a "curiosity", but for me it just couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to be when it grows up!

SHOFINE

I reckon GF wanted to call it a hybrid.

Burton

I think the ultimate hybrid USED TO BE the embodied in the Cannondale BadBoy line-up. Those bikes were designed to accept either a 26" wheelset OR a 700 series wheelset and depending on the model - the frame could have either. The 'new and improved' versions keep the styling, but have less frame clearances and as a result - are less versatile.