Between 1999 and 2004, I commuted 13.4 km rt per day year round on my heavy dual suspension mountain bike with knobby tires. Most of the year the paved roads were bare and dry. Occasionally in the winter there would be snow and ice.

But I also rode long distances on that bicycle. I rode my first 200K randonnee on it, and numerous centuries (100 miles).


If you feel like a 10 mile ride on a bicycle like that is hard work, all I can suggest is ... ride more. As you build up your fitness level, it gets easier.

yeah, what's up with that? When we were looking for bikes for out kids, that's all you can find. We found some kid road/hybrids we could order, but they were $$$$. Maybe that's the deal - no one wants to pay $800+ for a bike a kid will grow out of in a year or two.

No, I think it's that people (the general public) doesn't toally understand what those bikes are supposed to be used for. Like someone mentioned earlier, why does X-Mart sell all those ****ty full suspension MTBs? People don't understand the full suspension is for actually mountain biking)although the suspension on X-mart bikes shouldn't be used anywhere), they just ride it in the store, see that there aren't any bumps, and buy it, keeping on the knobbies and everything. They'd be more comfortable, and better off for future use, getting a used rigid MTB off of Craigslist or Ebay, for the same price, and slapping on slicks and a rear rack, and bringing it to their LBS for a tune-up. People won't stop buying them, because they see them as practically disposable, so X-Mart will keep selling them.

This.

Mountain bikes are the default for kids and WalMart goers. Everyone wants to brag about their mountain bike. Fitness for a purpose is of no matter.

It's like the $3 million Ferrari that uber rich guy has. He is an idiot and bought a crappy Italian car; a $100,000 Porsche is far better than a $3 mil Ferrari. What a Ferrari can do is leave the lot, pull up to a race track, and win. A Porsche can do that too, especially on the Autocross. A Porsche can also daily drive without bankrupting you or completely disintegrating.

Fitness for purpose. Ferraris aren't road cars; Mountain bikes aren't road bikes. Nobody cares, they want the phallic enhancement.

Again, I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, but I was kind of making a mental distinction between actual mountain bikes and mountain bike shaped objects (which are the actual default for kids' bikes and WalMart). From what I've seen here, cyccocommute definitely commutes on mountain bikes. A bunch of other people commute on converted rigid ex-mountain bikes. And there are some menacing looking windmills on the horizon.

I see what you mean. Most kids in my town treat their bikes (mostly overpriced BMXes) like ****, and just get a new one when it gets so messed up they actually notice (I saw a kid with rust on an exposed steerer tube), but think they're better than me because I have a skinny-tired single-speed, that I can actually ride for more than just 5 or 10 minutes at a time

I rode my full squish to work last Friday, one of the guys wanted to see what a 2k bike looked like. It's not something I'm going to do again------any time soon.

I'm more interested in "why do people commute on mountain bikes?" There is no distinction between mountain bikes and mountain biked shaped objects in consumerism, just like there is no distinction between cheese and processed cheese-like product. If you want to get technical, you can go ahead and make a very complete, very accurate case; and it will continue to not matter, because millions of people will continue to associate with mountain bikes by the Wal-Mart special they had as a kid, and assume they're just superior to road bikes because they're automatically cooler (i.e. the assumption of additional feature rather than alternate purpose; people believe one thing is just another, lesser thing capable of more stuff because it's better).

This is similar to people building giant off-road monster machines and never taking them off the road, or putting off-road tires on their truck because it's a big truck and the big knobby tires go on big powerful off-road trucks. They have no clue what they're doing; they just associate the visual image with power.

I am a newbie when it comes to bikes but not when it comes to cars (especially exotic italians). Your comparison is not a good one. There are Ferraris built for the race track and Ferraris built for every day use. Bill Gates had bought one of the first F50s for over a million dollars fifteen years ago. Why is he an idiot for buying a street legal formula 1 car? Just because you are jealous of the rich guy, it doesn't mean he is an idiot... nor that the car is crappy...

So regarding bikes, are you really saying that mountain bikes are not contributing to one's fitness?

I've never owned a mountain bike; a hybrid is as close as I've been.

That said, I would wager that more people ride hardtail mtbs to work than any other kind of bike. They aren't the folks you see posting to BF, though; they are the folks who don't have a car. They ride to work out of necessity, on a $70 Wal-Mart special because that is all they can afford. When they can, they'll buy a car and never ride again. But right now, their ride to work is on a mtb at 7 mph.

The average Ferrari driver dodges pot holes and bumps like landmines, while the average Porsche driver rides over them. Street legalized race track cars are still track cars; they're not rugged for street use. Ferrari has a few models that can take the streets, I believe; they would like to compete in the LeMans, after all. Still, most of those things are dedicated race cars, and you don't want them hammering cruddy city streets.

I actually chose a hardtail mtb for commuting over a hybrid. They fit me better which is afterall the most important point. I did put high pressure tires on it but it still weighs in at 28lbs none the less and can hop over potholes and take gravel lanes with ease. If I feel the need to ride in on 23mm tires I can always take my uber light carbon/al road bike to work on occasion. I really cannot figure the point in the question.

I'd estimate that about 95% of the bikes in the rack at work are mountain bikes. They actually do make sense here, as the "paved" city streets are such a mess of frost cracks, potholes, and gravel "patches", especially in spring. Lately I've been seeing a high-end road bike in the rack.

They are perfectly good bicycles. Going top speed is not always the top priority. And even a full suspension bike - at least the ones that come equipped with two derailleurs, can be not too bad to ride if you pump the tires up a bit harder... and raise the seatpost. Not super fast, but fast enough, and still fun to ride.

I commute on this from time to time. For me, commuting is not only about fitness & saving some money on gas, it's about having fun :)

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...s0224/fuji.jpg

Thank goodness for that, or I would never ride!

I LOVE the curviness of this bike! What bike is this??? The racks looks like it was custom made for it. The curves reminds me of voluptuous women!

You should try to get out more.:roflmao2:

The rack is a Soma Fabrication Deco. I thought it was perfect the first time I saw it.

Don't know how old you are Andy_K but I'm 46. The natural progression for people in my generation was to have a "muscle bike" as a kid: Ape hangers, sissy bars, banana seats, and fat slicks on the back. Then they moved on to "10 speeds" (road bikes) as tweens or early teens.

As a kid I had the unique experience of having an older brother who rather than getting a car at 16 or 18, he saved is money from part time jobs and got a Peugeot. He didn't even have a drivers license. He was 10 years older than me and I idolized him. To me a white Peugeot with presta valves was a "real" bike.

A couple years after college in the late 80's when I finally had some cash in my pocket, I decided to get my own Peugeot. By this time MTBs were all the rage and road bikes just weren't selling. I got my Peugeot for a song. I remember I had to pay extra though for one with Presta valves. I had almost let them sell me one with Schraders instead, but I remembered my brother's bike had Prestas so I had to get Prestas. I knew virtually nothing about bikes. I didn't get all the fuss over MTBs. To get to anything that remotely resembled a mountain required several hours of driving.

I tell this story because if I hadn't had a brother like that I would have got a mountain bike like everyone else was at that time. 10 years later I did get a RockHopper and did take it off road now and then but by far the most miles I put on it were on pavement.

It's fashion. Not by coincidence SUVs got popular around the same time. If you ask people why they get SUVs when they have no intention of driving them offroad, people will tell you they feel safer in them. I also think they like the idea that they could drive offroad if they wanted. The same is true of MTBs.

Anyway, outside of cities, I think kids don't see many people riding on road bikes so they're just foreign to them. A geared road bike from a shop is also a lot more expensive than an MTB.

To understand how great a role fashion plays in what we buy you have to look no farther than my son's bike. It's actually not a bad bike. It's a K2. What's interesting about it is the tubes. It's got really fat tubes, - but it's steel. It has fat tubes because that's what adult MTBs have, not because there's any need for steel tubes to be that fat.

It's all about image and what people are used to, not necessarily what makes the most sense. Low price helps a lot too.

Incidentally, my brother is in his later 50s and still owns and rides that Peugeot. It's a little rustier than it was in 1976, but if anything to me that makes it even more of a "real" bike.

Just leave the car metaphors alone buddy, you're weakening your case. The cars are for all intents equivalent these days in terms of durability on the streets, it's the owners that are different. You buy a Porsche because you want to go fast. You buy a Ferrari because you want everyone to know. At the end of the day though a Porsche is like a Specialized S-Works carbon and a Ferrari is like a boutique handmade road frame. Neither is a mountain bike.

If you want to make a car metaphor here the more effective one would be comparing a Lotus Exige(high-performance road bike parallel) to Jeep Wrangler(good mountain bike parallel). Sure, you can use either every day on the streets, but why would you want to when Audi makes a good, fun, practical commuter type vehicle in the A6 Allroad(simultaneously a light-duty trail bike and sporty-roadie)?

:speedy:I commuted on a basic mountain bike for about 2 years before changing to a roadbike. Then I found a roadbike was just too fast for the 6 mile park path I rode!

Rode a mtb for 3 years 20 miles each way - Id still be riding it if wasn't such a maintain ence hog. Cannondale f5 furio or something like that. Specialized Crosstail Armadillos, a fizik seat, and that baby moves. Easily kept up with unloaded commuters on road bikes.

I commute on 3 different bikes now. I have an Trek Mountain Track with studded knobbies as I live in snow and pot holeville, I have a Motobecane single speed which I ride on clean road days, and now that my daughter has emphatically stated she will not ride a bike while at college but prefers the bus I have a 1984 Montery Beach Cruiser with knobbies on it too. Yes its a little more work but man am I having fun with it, especially since it only has 24inch tires. But I am short so I can actually ride a kids bike pretty comfortably. I just think its what you have to commute on that should determine your choice. If I lived somewhere flat and didnt have to worry about snow, ice, coyotes, and pot holes and the occasional bear I might stick to the single speed.

My main commuter is a converted Stumpy. I already had the bike and didn't want to buy another bike just for the commute. I ditched the suspension fork for a rigid and have knobbies with minimal tread that roll pretty fast but still provide some off road grip. My commute is mainly on a mix of cobble/gravel/paved trails. My ideal commute bike would be drop bar, aluminum, 700c, disc brake, touring/cx geo with rack/fender mounts. I almost have that with my Stumpy conversion and getting is close was only a matter of a small cash outlay.