Originally Posted by formula4speed

Hey all, fairly new to the forum so wanted to say hi. Just started commuting by bike a couple months ago, I'm pretty lucky to have an easy ride in (weather not withstanding). A mostly flat, 6.2 miles ride each way lets me relax before and after work. Started out aiming to just bike in once or twice a week but realized it's way more fun than driving so now I'm usually biking 3 or 4 days.

Since I've noticed other new guys sharing their roadie stories I suppose I should share mine as well. I'm leaving work from my 3rd or 4th time commuting by bike and I come to the red light leaving our industrial complex. After stopping another biker pulls up next to me at the light on a road bike, at the time I was riding my MTB because it's all I owned. After chatting for a few minutes about our routes home, the light turns green. I tell him "go ahead, you're probably going to smoke me", since he appears to have been riding a while and has a road bike. He simply smiles and says "Yep" and pedals through the intersection with me following. I pedaled as hard as I could, not really having a good reason to think I could outrun this guy. After a couple hundred yards I realized something, I was right, he smoked me. I don't think he was even trying. The moral of the story is I was not (and probably still am not) very fast on a mountain bike with nobby tires on pavement. It did help convince me to buy a cyclocross bike, a Cannondale CAADX which I really enjoy riding to work and is much faster.