kleinsamuel

I am trying to under stand the diff between a road bike and a hybrid. Is it beacuse it has drop downs that it is a road bike? I look at some bikes example the giant rapid and giant defy the frame is nearly exactly the same maybe a inch diff and one is calles a hybrid and the other a road


The bigger question is that a few lbs talked me out of a road bike seeing I am 6.4 and weigh 240 they tell me it won't hold up as good on the ny roads which are pretty bumby. Is it tru. I mean just because I put drop downs will it suddenly be ore likley to warp the wheels etc.especially seeing on a lpot of hybrids the wheels are just as thin

qmsdc15

You are correct. Many hybrids are vey much like road bikes, except for the handlebars. Not all of them though. The salesman was probably trying to steer you to a sturdier type of hybrid. Guys your size often use wheels built with stronger rims and more spokes than what you'll find on most bikes, and certain road racing frames and components come with rider weight limits, but you can ride a drop bar bike if you choose.

No, the type of handlebars does not effect the durability or strength of the rest of the bike.

xoxoxoxoLive

We still do not all agree on this forum what a Hybrid is, ( LOL ), but since your 6' 4" tall and weigh 240,
I think you will get a lot better more informed answers at this link. https://www.bikeforums.net/forumdispl...(200-lb-91-kg) They are
very friendly, and cater to people your size. Richard

javal

bigger resemblance between hybrids and CX if you want to compare sturdyness and versatility.

qmsdc15

Excellent suggestions from xoxoxo and javal. The Clydesdales can tell you what will hold up under your weight. Cyclocross bike is an obvious choice for a big guy who wants to ride drop bars. Why didn't I think of that?

khutch

Some bikes are optimized to do one specific thing. Road bikes are optimized to go as fast as possible on fairly smooth roads. Hybrid bikes attempt to do several things well but generally cannot do any of them quite as well as a specialist bike will. If you like to do a variety of things and you only want one bike a hybrid is a good choice. If you like to do a variety of things and your wallet and garage support the purchase of multiple bikes then you buy many, many bikes. It depends on you. It sounds like you really want a fast road bike and if so that is what you probably should buy. You can get "performance hybrids" that are indeed very much like road bikes and some of them even come with drop handlebars though that is quite rare (the only one I can think of right now is the Marin Lombard and it may not be a bad choice for someone your size but roadies will laugh you to scorn for having disk brakes). I will second the notion to ask this question again on the Clyde/Athena forum. Road bike riders are often 140 pounds or less and zero body fat. Road bikes are made with them in mind and the Clyde forum is a good place to get advice on which bikes or what modifications are needed in your weight range. A performance hybrid can be a very fast bike but the ones that are will be so much like a road bike that they too will need any modifications necessary to make a road bike sing for a 240 pound rider. So if you really want a road bike you should really get a road bike and your fellow Clydes can tell you how to go about it.

Ken

qmsdc15

"Road bike riders are often 140 pounds or less and zero body fat. Road bikes are made with them in mind."

Agree with this and the rest of your post. There are many drop bar bikes that would not be suitable for this rider, but not all of them.

kleinsamuel

I posted it over there and I will see what they come back with. But on the cyclocross thing I tried one out a specialized and found it was very heavy compared to the giant rapid I tried at the same time

AdelaaR

If a bike is going to be sturdier, it is likely to be heavier aswell. (unless you go REAL high in price).
But ... good news!
Bike weight isn't very important
Consider your weight: 240
Now add the weight of a very light bike: 240 + 15 = 255.
Or ... add the weight of a medium weight bike: 240 + 25 = 265.
The difference is less than 4%!
Now consider that even total weight isn't very important, unless you are climbing.

It is perfectly logical that cyclocross bikes, with their high spoke count and other durability modifications, are heavier than ultralight roadbikes.
However: you have no choice ... you need a sturdy bike that can take a beating and so what you need is a heavy duty hybrid or a cyclocrosser if you like drops.

meanwhile

The bike industry has stupid terminology. "Road bike" normally means "road racing bike". As well as having drops the frame of a road racer will have shorter chainstays, a steeper steering angle and a shorter top tube than almost any hybrid.

And a one inch difference in length can have a huge effect on the handling of a frame, especially combined with a the angle change that will usually result.

meanwhile

Once your 240lb carcass is on a bike the difference in bike weight hardly matters - with a 17lb racer total vehicle weight for performance purposes would be 257lbs and with a 22lb crosser it would be 262lbs - so you'd lose about 2% in acceleration.

That said, I dislike the Tricross and would advise a rider of your weight against a partially carbon bike for anything but racing. (I weigh 220lb myself.) The problem is that minor accidents can cause the carbon layers to separate ("delaminate") without any visible sign. Then you hit a bump on a 30mph descent and SNAP! Aluminium and steel are safer materials for the heavy brigade. It's not that people are dying in droves from failures of the Tricross's partly carbon fork, it's just there's no reason to take the risk.

I'd suggest looking at a Kona Jake and a Surly Cross Check.

kleinsamuel

I know logicly is makes sense that it shouldn't be a big diff in those few pounds but I seem to feel it even for example if i fill my tires that bit more it makes a big diff. Any maybe its in the mind but I felt the giant rapid was faster then the specilized cyclocross

khutch

Perceptions can be misleading. For example if you ride for a while with lower tire pressure and then pump them up to max you will feel that the bike is faster. The truth is that on smooth surfaces the bike will be a bit faster but the perception of the increase in speed will be greater than the actual increase in speed. Hard as rock tires transmit a lot of vibration to the rider that softer tires absorb and the vibration feels like a speed increase. You should probably try the road bike section too, there must be a few heavyweights there who know what brands and modifications you might want to consider. Small weight savings will make no difference on recreational rides but aside from any feeling they give you of increased speed if you are racing, even just informally against your buddies, a few pounds can be the difference between winning and being a close second. At your weight you may not be well served by the lightest available bikes but fairly light ones may be just fine for you. This is outside my experience range, I topped out at about 200 and over the last year of renewed bike riding I dropped down to 185. I don't know how much difference 40 pounds makes to the average bike but I believe my Dahon commuter is rated to about 230 pounds. By the time I got my Fuji performance hybrid I was already down to 185. It does not seem to have any issues at that weight and it is very much like Fuji's similarly priced road bikes.

Ken

Wanderer

IF THIS HELPS AT all = Bikes like the Sirrus, and FX treks, and any othert mfrs same type offering are really flat bar road bikes.

Many might disagree, but that;s what they are.

They are marketed as Hybrids, because that's a niche they fit in.

xoxoxoxoLive

Very bold statement on this forum! But correct........Richard : )

Dunbar

If you're starting from a point of being new to cycling and are out of shape I'd get a used hybrid on Craigslist. You don't know what kind of bike you will enjoy but I can almost guarantee a road bike will feel uncomfortable at the outset. That way if you decide to upgrade you can sell the hybrid for a small loss.

meanwhile

Tyre pressure can make a big difference to rolling resistance.* The Giant should have been faster than the Tricross - as standard the Tricross is fitted with tyres that are especially bomb proof but especially slow. Replace them with, say, 35mm Marathon Supremes and its a different bike. (But still not one I'd buy.)

Anyway, weight has little to do with bike speed. Aerodynamics (mostly of rider position - and faster = less comfortable usually) and tyre rolling resistance are what count on the flat. Bike weight has a small (again, in this case call it 2%) effect in steep climbs.

*Although the placebo effect is also significant: higher pressure creates more vibration and riders interpret this as more speed. In fact "feels faster" is usually wrong.

meanwhile

The old version of the Sirrus was almost identical to the Allez racing frame - it just had about 2cm added to the chainstays to tame the ride a little. Pointless bikes in my opinion - they're crippled by the narrow tyre clearances. I don't think the Trek FX is really of this genre - the clearances are too wide as remember, the crank "Q factor" too high, and the steering angle is wrong. It's more like a flat barred tourer with v-brakes.

Talldog

Actually, my 7.9FX (105 cranks) has less measured Q factor than my Trek 1500 road racer. Head angle varies between 71.5 to 72.5 on the 7.9FX depending on frame size. Lots of road racers with head angles like that. Have never checked my 7.5FX but my guess is that it is not spec'd the same as the 7.9FX vis a vis crank Q and such. But I suppose I could actually check instead of just assuming it to be so.

Wanderer

Im not trying to argue this point, but stand by my previous statement of them being flat bar road bikes. Being a Hybrid is just an added bonus. As opposed to "racing" road bikes.

Certainly, tourers, and relaxed road bikes would fit with the flat bar road bikes, as all the same/similar genre.

The fact that they have enough room for decent sized tires for added comfort and capacity, is also very sweet. More powerful V brakes also make stopping nicer, and more controlled.

I still consider many Hybrids, and certain road bikes (along with tourers) to be "road bikes."

IMHO - no more arguement from me!

Daddy Wags

The real beauty of the hybrid over the road bike..... The hybrid accommodates by belly to a greater degree of comfort, and my neck doesn't hurt as bad taking in the sights.

meanwhile

Only a very small proportion of Trek FXs sold will be 7.9s with road bike cranks.

A comparable size Allez - a middle of the road road bike - will be 73.5. The 1 degree difference doesn't sound much, but it is - because steering angles don't vary from 0 to 90 degrees but from around (for a large bike) 71.5 to 74. The whole performance range is crammed into only about three degrees. Even a large size Surly LHT - a bike sold on its relaxed handling - has a 72 degree steerer. A large Specialized Tarmac would be up 74 degrees - and a bike designed to be ridden on the road probably shouldn't get any steeper than this. The difference in handling between a Tarmac and an LHT is pretty damn huge, too.

meanwhile

That's because you insist on sanity and comprehensibility. The bike industry prefers a mixture of historical debris and marketing bs. Even if you look at the subforums here the "Road forum" is for people who ride road racing bikes. If I was World Dictator I'd make them call it the "Road racing forum" and all those 23mm-tyred neck-ruining prostate-tormenting $4000 carbon fibre bikes "road racers."

AdelaaR

I agree.
But most people that ride road racing bikes aren't actually racing them.
They think they need a road racing bike and they want one because their racing heroes have one.
In actuality many of these riders ride too slow to have benefits of a road racer and could be much better off with a decent touring bike.
I know this because I live in the heart of the Flemmish cycleworld and so I pass these guys all the time.

meanwhile

That depends if you call a sportive a race; sportives are really big in the UK at least. They're somewhat competitive, but most riders just aim to finish inside the allowed time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclosportive

Road racers aren't a great design for sportives - they often include poor road surfaces of the type that pros switch to crossers with 28mm tyres - but they're where all those $4000 carbon racing bikes live.

Completely true. They'd probably be faster on a tourer or crosser as well as more comfortable and less injury prone. What's fastest for a 25 year old in peak condition is often pathological for a chubby 45 year old.