Originally Posted by
Trakhak
Yes, they are; or, more accurately, hybrids are really touring bikes. During the brief period in the late '80s when mountain bikes represented about 95% of the U.S. adult bike market (although it didn't seem brief at the time if, as was the case in the shop where I worked, you had a bunch of road bikes in stock), touring bikes were a small percentage of the remaining 5%.
Manufacturers made a few changes to touring and sport touring bikes (throwing on flat bars, ATB brake and shifter levers, and slightly larger and knobbier tires, mostly) and discovered that they could move some of their stagnant inventory. Presto: hybrids.
I don't understand why some people revere touring bikes and abhor hybrids; they're essentially the same bike.
No. They aren't "essentially the same bike". They may look a lot alike and are a fine example of
convergent evolution in bicycles but they aren't the
same bike. Most hybrids have a shorter wheelbase and aren't built to carry the loads that touring bikes are built to carry. They may be
used as touring bikes but if you've ever had a chance to compare a 'true' touring bike like the Cannondales or the LHT or even a classic '80s touring bike to a shorter wheelbase bike like most hybrids in loaded touring conditions, you'll notice the differences almost immediately.
Originally Posted by
njkayaker
The differences between bicycle types is small and they blend together. They sit on a spectrum.
It's sort-of like this.
racing -> performance road -> [ "sport touring" -> cyclocross -> randonee ] -> touring -> hybrid -> mountain bikes.
The order of [ "sport touring" -> cyclocross -> randonee ] might not always be as listed.
It's important to realize that the labels (eg, "hybrid") don't have precise meanings and what they refer to can change over time.
There are some hybrids that are closer to a touring bike and others that are closer to mountain bikes. Hybrids often come (now) with suspension forks, which are not really needed for road use. Hybrids are also often set-up for more casual riders (for example, they often have wide seats and have very upright postures).
To continue in the evolutionary vane, bicycles classes are more like a tree than a spectrum. A spectrum is a continuum by which you can use some mechanism to split the continuum into its parts or you can use that same mechanism to recombine them. The tree analogy works better because you have the trunk or parent species - in this case the
Draisine which gave rise to the ordinary before going extinct which in turn gave rise to the Rudge Safety cycle before going extinct and the Rudge gave rise to all the other bicycle we see today. Racing bikes diverged from touring bikes early on while mountain bikes arose from fat tire American cruisers which themselves split from touring bikes.
"Hybrids" can be thought of as an early attempt at a "29er" that just never really caught on with the mountain bike crowd. Cyclocross bikes diverged from touring bikes because some crazy Belgians were bored and drunk and it was winter
It's not really a case of one class or type of bike lead to another but that the purposes of the bikes changed with time and the class of bikes followed those changes. The bicycling world really is a wonderful example of all the mechanisms of evolution and natural selection.
So endth the lesson
