It crept up on me

argonsixar

Retro Guru
I just realised that I now ride my mountain bike more than my road bikes. Apart from dog walkers, the hassle is much less and the stress is way down. One too many near misses on the road have subconsciously moved me off road. I cant say I miss the road experience much. Any one else gone the same way ?
 
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I haven't had a road bike for years, however, I don't have a car, so I don't have the option of driving somewhere and doing a purely off-road ride around a wooldand trail. All my rides involve some road riding and I'll head off down canal paths, or bridleways where they're available.

The other day a friend and I did about a 40 mile route out and back in the North Downs through the country lanes. For the most part, the lanes are pretty much empty, once out of town, I reckon we only encountered a dozen or so cars during the whole journey.

The lanes can be quite rough and there is often a lot of debris in the centre, mud and gravel, with tyre tracks either side, so probably not ideal for super skinny slick road tyres, but you can ride on tarmac and avoid a lot of traffic if you pick your routes carefully.
 
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I seem to have gone the other way !! My riding was nearly all off road apart from the odd mile to link sections together, guess because I never really did much road it's resurrected my interest in riding, and the back lanes round here a very quiet which helps :)

Mick
 
I have to think quite hard to remember the last time I used a mountain bike. July last year I think. Almost exclusively on road these days. I do use my old MTB with slicks on road during the winter thanks to the shocking condition of said roads!
 
I had a period where i was pretty much road only, had moved to another city/state didn't know any trails, so bought a road bike, then I moved back home, onto old trails...well actually new trails in old area, but even before I did the move wasn't really riding much... so no fitness, no skills... couldnt hardly ride the trails, well not to enjoy them anyway, so just kept on road for a coupe of years, then slowly eased back into it, now Im riding mtb more than road.
Still enjoy the road bike, it's different, but still fun, but mtbing is my true love... although for the first couple of months this year I ran more than I rode either haha...then injuries, boo.
 
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Mixture for me usually but what with the lovely weather we've been having I've been out more on the mtb lately and agree that it's still by far my true favourite discipline.

Avoiding busy roads, exploring new routes through all sorts of terrain is just awesome. I went out on Saturday and ended up in granny ring winding up a steep grassy singletrack for miles. Sounds boring but it was reasonably challenging, totally silent (other than the sound of birds and a small stream alongside) and just mega relaxing.

The ride back down was a fast, dusty bridleway with big drainage channels to jump and some nice corners.

As I said to a mate of mine later on, "you couldn't do that on a road bike".

Joe
 
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