Bumps, microscopic bumps...

monkeyslayer

Took a road bike out for the very first time today on 70km hilly spin having been on hard tail and full suspension mtb's for years and have a few queries...

noticed the impact of even slightly rough road on my wrists, nothing painful, but does this get easier on them? (ie. military road surface)

i've used rim brakes before but don't remember them being as lethal, hydraulics obviously being more powerful and probably no comparison in terms of expectations, but is it common for a road bike to take several seconds to come to a full stop?

drop bars, though I like having my hands on the hoods of the brakes, I don't feel safe holding the drop bars, throws my center of gravity all over the place, just need to get used to it? or are my bars too low/saddle to high? Fit is fine so far except this.

gearing, gearing ratios seem quite different but is it common to use the granny gears on a hill climb? with a few exceptions i never really had to go that low on an mtb.

few more queries but can't think of em right now but enjoying this new bike, a very different feel from my xc country bike

DualFrontDiscs

monkeyslayer wrote: »

Took a road bike out for the very first time today on 70km hilly spin having been on hard tail and full suspension mtb's for years and have a few queries...

noticed the impact of even slightly rough road on my wrists, nothing painful, but does this get easier on them? (ie. military road surface)

i've used rim brakes before but don't remember them being as lethal, hydraulics obviously being more powerful and probably no comparison in terms of expectations, but is it common for a road bike to take several seconds to come to a full stop?

It's probably all to do with expectations and what you are used to.

monkeyslayer wrote: »

drop bars, though I like having my hands on the hoods of the brakes, I don't feel safe holding the drop bars, throws my center of gravity all over the place, just need to get used to it?

+1, I only go on the drops into a strong headwind. I'm not a road racer though.

monkeyslayer wrote: »

gearing, gearing ratios seem quite different but is it common to use the granny gears on a hill climb? with a few exceptions i never really had to go that low on an mtb.

The smallest chainring on my mtb is 20t. The smallest on my touring triple is 32t. The smallest on a racing bike is......maybe 39t.

It's something similar (in reverse and less pronounced) on the respective cassettes.

The mtb is geared so you can stay seated (for grip) and grind your way up slippy, rutted surfaces. You'd rarely need it in 'regular riding'.

monkeyslayer wrote: »

few more queries but can't think of em right now but enjoying this new bike, a very different feel from my xc country bike

manwithaplan

This is probably obvious but you will notice a big difference in braking performance from the drops rather than the hoods. It's not just due to aerodynamic considerations that descending is best done on the drops.

Were you wearing (gel padded) gloves? If not you will notice a difference on your wrists if you put them on. I'm not a fan of gloves myself at this time of year but I have pretty thick bar tape and it works for me.

I go all the way down the gears in the mountains often enough,even though I have a compact. My climbing is improving and I haven't had to get off yet but I prefer to spin up the tougher climbs. There's no shame in it!

AstraMonti

monkeyslayer wrote: »

noticed the impact of even slightly rough road on my wrists, nothing painful, but does this get easier on them? (ie. military road surface)

Did you have some good gloves with padding? You can also get bar tape with gel.

i've used rim brakes before but don't remember them being as lethal, hydraulics obviously being more powerful and probably no comparison in terms of expectations, but is it common for a road bike to take several seconds to come to a full stop?

Well depending on the speed obviously, but no, road brakes are grand. Check if they are centered on the braking surface of the rim and check if the cables need tightening.

drop bars, though I like having my hands on the hoods of the brakes, I don't feel safe holding the drop bars, throws my center of gravity all over the place, just need to get used to it? or are my bars too low/saddle to high? Fit is fine so far except this.

If you don't safe feel while on the drops you either have a wrong position on the bike or you just need to get used to it. A correct setup is really important on a road bike.

gearing, gearing ratios seem quite different but is it common to use the granny gears on a hill climb? with a few exceptions i never really had to go that low on an mtb.

The important part on a hill is to keep spinning, it doesn't matter in what gear and ring you are if you can keep spinning and going up

thebouldwhacker

Last year I went back to riding a road bike after 10 years of flat bar/mtb and it took me a while to get used to it, I had all the points you made and more. When I had it out on day 1 I went out for a 50km spin and returned after 10km coz I was sure I was gonna buckle the wheels.... Take your time and before you know it you'll be pulling on the lycra and your baggies will get shoved farther back in your drawers:D
But in saying that, as said above, make sure your brakes are connecting with the rim correctly and the cables are tight enough. Enjoy!!

seamus

monkeyslayer wrote: »

noticed the impact of even slightly rough road on my wrists, nothing painful, but does this get easier on them? (ie. military road surface)

As said, get yourself some good padded gloves. You're running much more solid tyres and no suspension, so you will just feel it more. You do get used to it though and much like mountain biking you can also choose your line on the road to ease the trip.

i've used rim brakes before but don't remember them being as lethal, hydraulics obviously being more powerful and probably no comparison in terms of expectations, but is it common for a road bike to take several seconds to come to a full stop?

Extreme deceleration isn't quite so critical on a road bike. It's all about picking the best line, reading the road ahead and wasting as little speed as possible. So the brakes don't need to be able to stop you on a penny. That said, when you're riding with unfamiliar brakes, you'll tend to to avoid hauling on them too strongly in case you lock the wheels. You'll adjust.

drop bars, though I like having my hands on the hoods of the brakes, I don't feel safe holding the drop bars, throws my center of gravity all over the place, just need to get used to it? or are my bars too low/saddle to high? Fit is fine so far except this.

It feels weird for the first while. A little like using bar ends for steering, but much lower. I thought it felt like suicide using drops at high speed, but now I feel much shakier using the hoods on a descent. The drops take the most time to adjust to, I'm still getting used to them.

gearing, gearing ratios seem quite different but is it common to use the granny gears on a hill climb? with a few exceptions i never really had to go that low on an mtb.

As said, the lowest gear on a road bike is usually somewhere in the middle of an MTB's range. Where an MTB is typically 22/32/42 a road bike's smallest ring is usually 30 (in the case of a triple) or 34 (or more). There's no shame is switching to the small ring

Anything you find different or weird is usually a case of just getting used to it.

monkeyslayer

cheers for advice! nice one re gel gloves, i'll be buying a pair for sure. Nice to know re the granny gears that i'll just need to work a bit harder on the road bike if i'm using it, especially for them sunday detox spins with the few too many beers the night before...

suppose the drop bar thing is also having my face a little too close to the handle bars, almost all roads will have a hole, and i like my teeth

looking forward to my next spin on it, my poor xc bike looking a little redundant in the corner already

Lumen

The brakes on a road bike should be powerful enough to throw you over the bars.

Practice that a few times until you've gained confidence.

doozerie

If your road bike is racing geometry, or close to it, it'll likely position you further forward onto the handlebars than your mountain bike, so you'll feel it more in your wrists, arms, and shoulders initially until your body adapts (it's a bit like the extra hammering that your upper body takes on a downhill on the MTB). You'll probably also find that with your hands on the flats of the handlebars, and relatively close to the stem, you'll feel more vibration too than you would with them at the outer edges of MTB handlebars. And when on the hoods, it'll feel different because of the rotation on your wrist compared to gripping MTB bars (unless you used bar ends a lot on the MTB which is close to the same wrist position). Those things combined with the higher pressure tyres and lack of suspension, as already mentioned, will make it feel very different at the start but you'll probably find you adapt quite quickly as the differences are not really as extreme as they seem at first.

If being on the drops feels wrong then it could be just lack of familiarity with the position or else, as you mention, the drop from your saddle to handlebars could be too far. There is no exact science to getting your fit right, or maybe more correctly there are multiple "exact sciences" most of which give different results! Some of the better fit guides should get you in the right ballpark and then you just fine tune it according to what feels right for you. Start with checking the saddle height and go from there - one rough guide to saddle height that works for some (me included), but not for others, is to position it so that you can pedal with your heels on the pedals with a slight bend on your knee at full extension but not so high that you have to rock your hips as you pedal.

If your fit seems "right" after checking it but you still don't feel right on the drops, you could consider changing the bars for compact bars if you are not already using compacts. Compact bars are shallower so the drops are not quite as low as with regular bars meaning you don't have to bend over so far to reach them. Ergonomic bars are another consideration - they don't have a smooth curve to the ends of the drops but instead have a rearward bump that is intended to sit into the palm of our hands. Ergonomic bars are my choice as they give me a better grip and therefore more control, but again they don't suit everyone.

The rim brakes on a road bike should be quite effective at stopping you, but typically they are designed to make locking the wheel less likely - locking a road wheel with a high pressure narrow tyre is a different prospect to locking an MTB wheel so usually it's not something that you'd want to do if you can avoid it. Whether you can actually lock a road wheel at all is down to a number of factors, not least the design of the brakes (e.g. I've always found that with Campagnolo road brakes it is a lot harder to lock the wheel than with my older Shimano ones), but the other factors include "dirty" rims, brake pads not seating correctly against the rim wall, both brake pads not touching the rim simultaneously, brake cable too slack, etc.

Good luck!

monkeyslayer

adapting slowly. a wet and windy 50km mountain spin in 96mins has me delighted today a joy to climb tho i do feel a hell of lot safer and as a result faster descending on my other bike.

gel gloves also working a treat. found a good position with a longer and slightly raised stem (a spare mtb one, shock horror, but it fits... ) drops getting used every so often.

still waiting to slip and slam my face off a wet road

but getting there.