Originally Posted by
jmiked
I'm riding a Specialized Camber Elite 29er mountain bike at the moment, which I like very much. I was in the LBS last week looking at road bikes, considering whether or not to put one on my wish list. My question is:
Given that I rarely go over 20mph or ride more than 25 miles on a trip, is there any real advantage to a separate road bike? The 29er seems to do just fine on paved roads. It doesn't have really aggressive tires, so it doesn't make a lot of noise or have a lot of rumble/vibration.
The only significant differences I can think of for a road bike are an 8-10 pound weight advantage and slightly better gearing for road use. Frankly that's not really enough to sway me much. And honestly, I like the comfort of the full-suspension Camber.
Any thoughts would be welcome.
Like everything else, it depends.
If you are going to limit your rides to less than 21 mph and never go over 25 miles, probably not. But it is possible that if you got a decent road bike, the bug would bite you. You would be going out and riding 50 miles. Then you would want to do a metric century, 63 miles. Then you would want to do a century. But then again maybe not.
Also I know people who ride long distances and stick to things like hybrids. So maybe for some inexplicable reason (I say this in jest being a confirmed road bike rider and I do not understand why anyone would ever ride with anything else), a road bike isn't for you.