Hello, I am deciding between two bikes for conmuting, the main use would be 3 to 4 mile per day, bike lane and occasional potholes, sidewalks etc. Is there a difference of using a MTB group set vs a Race bike gropup set? in this case Sram x7 vs Shimano Tiagra


Best regards

A MTB group will have lower gearing, which would be helpful on hills. But your commute is so short that it probably doesn't matter which one of those you choose, unless your commute is all hills one way. Even then, a race groupset will give you higher gearing for speed, which may be beneficial for downhills and flats if you like to go fast.

What would be better in the long run? For purely that 3-4 mile commute, really anything will do. But if you're planning on doing anything more extensive or other types of riding, you'll have to take that into consideration.

MTB parts are cheaper and easier to find. Better "bang for the buck". Road parts (and bikes) are nicer to ride on good roads where it is smart to ride fiast in the first place. For urban areas and short commute, MTB is the best choice I think. For commuting in general.

We don't know if the OP will be needing parts anytime soon-- or ever-- and while there are other factors outside the OP's request that are *far* more important than category of gruppo, I think that, strictly speaking, Dan515 is right: it doesn't matter.

If the question is what type of bike for commuting 4 miles along sidewalks and potholed streets, I'd agree with you, MTB for that.

3-4 miles coud be easily done on a single speed, as chaadster, more info is needed from the OP, do you need fenders, rack, will the bike be used for other purposes?

Generally a road bike (racer) will be faster than an MTB purely down to the gearing and geometry of the bike, for hills, unless they are very severe, for the distance you are looking at, it wouldn't make much difference.

I have a MTB, a hybrid and a road bike.

I love riding road bike in the open road. For commuting, I go to the city. 7km open road, plus 3 km city traffic. Hybrid is more upright, so I can see better. Cars can see me better. Hybrid can be ridden more quickly on badly paved city roads. It can be jumped across lanes to take shortcuts. It can take backpack and panniers with my stuff (groceries, spare clothes, winter jacket when I get worm from peddaling).

Hybrid uses MTB parts which are half the price of road bike parts. Road bike STIs cost some 5 times the cost of decent MTB trigger shifters.

Hybrid can take fenders, which are good for going to and from work (a puddle doesn't require you to change clothes).


I'd always go for MTB, or Hybrid. MTB is more manouverable, smaller, while Hybrid is a bit faster.


Road bike is nice, but I use it the least for commuting. On some summer days when I don't run many errands and when traffic is light so I'm not forced to use poorly paved dedicated bicycle paths.

My options are the Sirrus comp and the Wilier bassano, both are hybrids, but the sirrus comp comes with MTB componentry. I wont be needing racks, fenders etc. I dont like single speeds either, I prefer the ability of changing speeds and have a more sporty feeling. No hills around, just flat city.

Either of those bikes would be much more than good enough for your purposes. I'd lean toward the Sirrus for the higher spoke count wheels, but more than that if you ride them both and one feels better to you then go with that one.

Ride them each and see which you like. The Bassano has a compact crankset and a pretty wide ratio cassette. Even in relatively hilly areas you should be covered unless you want to pull a trailer or something. The Sirrus has an even wider ratio cassette but that can be a downside. Sometimes it's nice to have less of a difference between each gear.

Something to check out would be the tire clearance of each bike. The Bassano comes with 25mm tires and the Sirrus 28 if I've got my facts straight. You're going to feel the bumps more on Bassano with the stock tires.

To me these decisions can come down to what else you might want to do the bike. While not a full on road bike, the Bassano is a sportier machine than the Sirrus.

That´s a good point, eventually I would like to do maybe some road or long distances

If you're not going to do some group training, I'd go for MTB setup. Only in a training group ride you need tight gear spacing of road setup - for everything else MTB parts are cheaper, a bit less demanding on maintenance.

For commuting, after a while, you might just learn to like and appreciate fatter tyres and fenders. Rear rack to leave all the goodies off your back (tremendous change in comfort that way).

Or you could get a cheap mtb/hybrid with fenders for bad days, and get a nice road bike for hot nice weather (if your roads are of good quality, road bike IS a joy to ride).

if its the new 10 speed tiagra 4600 i would go with that. its basically slightly tweaked 5600 105 which is a very durable drive train. my anecdotal experience with mtb drive trains suggest that they do not wear as well as road transmissions (this may be because i've only ridden deore lx).

Gearing can be considerably altered by a simple cassette change.
I run a 12-21 on my MB/grocery getter and 12-23 on my hybrid.
That's what works best for my flat landscape.

The rear is shimano 105, the rest is tiagra 4600. Mu doubt is what bike will be better in the end for commuting. The sirrus is a bit more upright position, if this can be of some importance. What group is going to resist better the side walks, pot holes etc.

Is the more road oriented bike like the bassano going to suffer more in general in an urban enviroment or I wont note any difference beyond riding style and the less upright position?

I can't recommend enough a MTB commuter with a rear rack, panniers, fenders. Get some fat tires on there and soak up the potholes :-)

Thanks, I just like better a more sporty set up, in where a I live is pretty dry and no rain, I dont really need the pannies and racks either

Last question regarding this, the bassano comes with 25 tyres, can i cahnge them to 28 or 32 ? it has caliper road brakes. I used to have a trek fx with 32 tyres , that withd was good for commuting, 28 must be similar, it is going vey much difference changing to 25? what would you recommend for commuting


thanks a lot for all this input

I commute on almost all my bikes.. if you want it to be good for all around I say the mtb groupo!

Its the Ratios that are the gears. 52:13, and 44:11 are both a 4:1 ratio..

the 'Speeds' is just a hardware inventory how many cogs , and chainrings..

I've been using 700x28 on one bike and 26x1.25 (~32) on another. I don't notice a lot of performance difference between those and the 700x25 on my road bike. They definitely soak up the road buzz better. I needed to get new tires for my commuter this week and I decided on 700x35. It's been my experience that tire construction (rubber compound, thread count and tread pattern) makes more of a difference in how the tire feels than width. There's a point where weight also makes a tire feel slow, but it takes a pretty big change between whatever you have been riding before you feel it.

If you want the option of wide tires, it's probably best to go with the Sirrus. Even if you found 700x28 tires that fit the Bassano, they'd probably be small 28's.

From what it looks like, the sirrus for sure has eyelets for rack/fenders. The bassano may have rear eyelets, but I'm not seeing any in the front for a fender. The sirrus could move to rack/fenders if you feel so inclined later.

My cyclocross commuter (with rack/fender) runs on 28s. I like that size tire since it still rolls well, but by adjusting the tire pressure I can have a smoother ride than my road bike with 23s (with the same tire) if I want. The rubber also lasts a bit longer than the narrower tires. The bassano might be able to fit wider tires, but i don't see anything that specifies the limits and I'm not finding pictures showing the tire clearance on the front fork.

My wife has a bike with 25s and she doesn't seem to mind it compared to her mountain bike's much wider 1.5" tires.

Doesn't matter.

The weak link in dealing with sidewalks and potholes in NOT the gruppo.

What it is then? am i am going to note a difference in absorbing road buzz between a 25 ans 28?

If it's a lot of chuck holes you're dealing with, I'd even go with a 32 or even a 35. Heck, I ride a lot of smooth roads and I *love* my 32mm tires for the super plush ride they offer without sacrificing speed. (I'm averaging 15mph for a 15 mile commute with 1000' of climing, on a 42/17 singlespeed.)

By "race" do you mean "road"? Because people do race mtbs...