ttusomeone wrote:
ssmith2 wrote:
Subject pretty much says it but I'd like to ride with some friends more often (roads, gravel, various surfaces) but I'm a stronger rider than they are which is totally fine sometimes for recovery rides but sometimes I need to get more value out of my time. So I'm considering slower bikes like maybe a hardtail 29er, fatbike, CX, etc. My thought being that if I have to work harder to keep up with them it kind of "equalizes" it out. I get a good workout and still get to ride with friends. I've never ridden anything but road or tri bikes so I don't know how much harder something like that would be. Anybody have any suggestions or thoughts?
a) Shut up and just ride easy
b) 29+ hardtail
c) Fat bike
d) CX or gravel bike
As others have said it depends on how much slower they are than you. I'd forget the fat bike and concentrate on either a CX bike or MTB. MTB will be the hardest on the road (and you'll run out of gears on any slight downhill if they are pushing the pace), but gives you the most flexibility to enjoy riding off road. If you don't think you'll ever hit a MTB trail, then I'd say go with a CX bike. You can swap tires around to get various levels of resistance, and it becomes a good rain/bad weather bike also. I have both a mtb and a CX bike (plus a road bike). If I had to have only two bikes, it would be a road and MTB (because I enjoy riding MTB trails semi-regularly and so does my wife). If it wasn't for that, my two bike choice would be CX and road.
Yeah, some of them are much slower than me and others just a little. That's a hard variable but your point is well taken.
So, if I were to go MTB, I'm thinking hardtail 29'er and maybe even 29+. Of course that is swappable like you said tire-wise and can make a big difference in resistance. I'm guessing that for the scope of this conversation there would be no difference in 27.5, 27.5+, 29, 29+ for the most part?
I think I just need to go look at - and ride! - some of the different options and see how the effort feels.