Understandable. I get little out of it unless I'm hitting up the canyons with fun descents or touring around the city(which works well here because LA is gigantic) in regular clothes. Hardly touched my road bikes for several months after getting into mountain biking. Boy I wish I could live closer to the trails.

i just did 25 miles at an avg speed of 9.7mph, and im ecstatic. if i did that on the road i wouldve wanted to blow my brains out

i gotta go far far away from here to get any nice road riding (with the afformentioned canyons and fun descents and climbs)

How far? Road or Mountain, I have to ride for at least an hour to get the the good stuff. It's all in millionaires' territory too.

local mtb trails are about 2 miles from my house (the good network, theres closer but crappier ones), half the week i commute via some of these trails and i can switch the route up to/from

legit mountain climbs/descents on road are 70 miles from my house in any direction, the typical roadie ride here is to ride up to the closest mountain then ride back. the road to/from is some of the most boring **** ever, idunno if you went out on 9w with justin when you were in our hood

Other than commuting, and some MUPs on my SS, I do not get road riding. To me, it is boring. I am glad those who like it, like it. But I far prefer the dirt and mud, especially the tight forest riding in between the trees.

Nah, we just rode around Manhattan. Now I don't feel so bad about my distances because they do make for good warm ups to the climbs.

in the right setting i like it, but im starting to realize that setting is just too far to be worth it at this point

manhattan is fun cuz on the surface its nuts, but in reality everyone knows the score and the cars arent even going fast so its not as big of a deal as you initially think
its the most fun on a track bike, i like to play little mental games of how far i can go without stopping by weaving in and out of people and cars and everything

I am lucky, I have a good (but small) place 5 minutes from my house, and two amazing places about 25 minutes each from my house.

Yeah, at first I was a little scared because I saw how unruly the driving is. After half an hour I learned I can ride anywhere on the road, go with the flow, and am generally as fast or faster than the cars. It turned out to be hell of a lot of fun and I felt safer than in more "organized" traffic.

its great, its almost as if cars and bikes are cooperating, the peds are the only problem really

i feel safer riding there than here in the burbs, here i get yelled at and **** thrown at me because im using "their road"

Get into hick/redneck country and they don't throw **** at you, they try to run you over with their pickup truck. You are nothing more than pre roadkill to them.

lol, if im bumble**** im gonna be in the woods on singletrack, not on the roads

I didn't really get to show him much because of work. I was a bad host. Plus my cheapo wheelset was all wonky.

and I agree, I feel much more comfortable riding around manhattan than I do on the streets up in the burbs by my parents house.

Its organized chaos in the city, its just pure chaos in the suburbs.

No way, because of you I got to hang out on the aircraft carrier and look at the Enterprise!

Today I realized that I'm moving in about a week -- Kinda freaking out lol

Road riding is fun to me still. Long climbs yield such epic views, and descending is fun.

I like all forms of bike riding. I enjoy road riding for the same thing. I like to torture myself on climbs and see how fast I can get back down a hill. Plus its fun to knock out miles.

I like the fixed gear for bumming around or for times when I can zone out and not really worry about traffic.

All that said, mountain biking is such a hoot. There's a great feeling of accomplishment when you come down hill with a bunch of rocky portions and drops and you just let off the brakes and let it rip.

I'm currently looking at touring bikes. All my friends want me to go bike camping with them and all of [MENTION=303015]Mumonkan[/MENTION] posts and videos of his adventures is making the idea super tempting.

Today I got some pink anodized headset spacers in the mail. When I try using them on the bike, the top cap won't snug down as it will with the spacers I have on there now -- almost feels like the bolt is bottoming out, which doesn't make sense. Stack height is the same, only observable difference in the spacers being the new pink ones are a slightly smaller outer diameter. Seems weird.

Today I started my bull**** winter PE class so I can graduate. w00t

yeah well @Muffin Man you can go out your backdoor and have options of which mountain you wanna climb. lol

@SpeshulEd you dont need to get a touring bike, just dont be one of those hobos that dumps their entire apartment in 18 panneirs. strap on some bikepacking bags to your favorite road bike. you dont need a special bike to go adventuring. most important thing is to just do it!

like i said i do enjoy a good road ride, but the ingredients arent as easily available to me

But I want a new bike!

Actually, there's a mid 80's Cannondale (what looks to be) ST500 on craigslist right now that I'm going to go look at. The thing looks like it's never been ridden, still has the dork disk on the bike and everything and they only want $125 for it.

My "touring bike" is a late 80's Specialized Hard Rock I got on Craigslist for $80. Did a quick tune-up, new tires and chain, fenders and panniers, and I couldn't be happier. Ridden it fully loaded well over 1k miles (even in a bit of snow at Crater Lake) with no issues at all. Just replaced the brake pads yesterday, chain is at the halfway done mark.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/El...=w1394-h785-no

^all that stuff blows my mind

well i mean key word i said was need, that doesnt mean dont buy one lol

80s/90s steel bikes make great touring/rando/long distance bikes

Nice. I have kept an eye out for one my size for a long time to also turn one into a touring bike. I know several people have done the same and there are quite a few drop bar conversions of these in C&V. I have a 24" Panasonic mtb in reserve but the fork is too flexy for my liking. It fits 2" tires, which is nice.

Yeah, 2" tires WITH fenders on this bad boy! I was originally planning on doing a drop bar conversion too, but surprisingly really dig these grip-twist shifters and risers, so just leaving them alone for the time being. I'd never really taken grip-twist shifters seriously, and totally see how they'd be annoying for real mountain biking, but for touring they're great. Was expecting them to be uncomfortable on longer all-day rides without more hand positions, but since I'm so upright it's fine.