Hello,

I used to ride a couple miles to school when I was 11-14 on a Walmart Roadmaster Mountain bike. Now I'm 22 and want to get back into bike commuting. My intended trips are relatively short trips to the grocery store, bank, etc though I might start riding the bike to my girlfriend's place 14 miles away and am interested in doing some rides with the Midnight Ridazz. Part of why I want to switch to riding my bike, in addition to reducing general wear on my car, is that the roads where I live (North Hollywood, CA) are deteriorating rapidly and I'm tired of hitting pothole after pothole and shortening the life of my car's suspension.

Not North Hollywood, but a pretty good example of what I'm trying to avoid:



I'm currently using a loaner Schwinn LeTour and am worried about those same potholes causing me headaches on a Road bike. I lost the rear tube on Tuesday by running over some glass (resulting in a slow leak... I'm currently on old 700 x 1 1/4 tires with no kevlar ) but a full blow out because of a pothole is what scares me (mostly because of ignorance and inexperience with road bikes). Are road conditions like this a real problem for a road bike? Obviously the idea is to avoid bad parts of the road but sometimes that is not possible here (seriously, I've been on roads in little forgotten desert towns in Mexico that were in better shape). If so should I get a mountain bike and run slicks? Would a pair of new tires (like these) be all I really need to stay safe?

I'm used to driving off curbs and hillsides with a Mountain bike as a kid so I'm just not confident in road bike tires yet.

Thanks!