I will say from a personal standpoint it’s more true. I have some good multi use paths near me that are long so I can ease outdoors safely. During the week, using Zwift is just a far more efficient use of my time that going outdoors. And I do more and more gravel riding. No traffic and just overall more enjoyable. It can be dirty and muddy but it’s fun. When I ride on the road I am picky about the routes I use.

Applause

One discussion I have found really interesting is that many road cyclists are interested in mountain biking but are afraid as its "too dangerous". What are their expectations or thoughts that it will be? You get to pick the trails, level of difficult, race or just ride, etc. Whereas on the road you are open to vehicular traffic.

I have a cyclocross bike I use for gravel and cross along with the buzzy fancy aero roadie for road race and time trial.

Yes, mtb and gravel are equally as hard in different ways.

However, there are aspects to advanced road group riding and racing that requires some pretty advanced “suffering” to just be part of the herd. Even then, you still may get dropped.

You can do badly in a gravel or mtb race or group ride, sure. But there is no “getting dropped”.

I think the dog eat dog war on wheels is a bit much for many folks. They can’t swallow putting in that much work for a failure as bad as going back to the car solo after getting shelled.

Road riding and racing really isn’t for everyone. Like Tiger Woods era in golf, I think Lance piqued a temporary fascination that is now ebbing.

Gravel and mtb, and other riding really can be more “inclusive”. All the way from beginner to racer.

They can be equally tough, but just much more accessible to people.

I have no desire to do cycle cross, which is weird because it combines my two hobbies, riding and Spartan race. Now that I think of it, I should look into this a little more.

As for Zwift. I got a trainer and TrainerRoad 13 weeks ago and have ridden 4x a week and 40 hours without going outside.

In the past year, in my little country area, we have had two cyclists killed, and dozens hit. There is a local Facebook community for our city and there are always people posting how much they hate cyclists and want them banbed from the roads.

TR just made it too easy to just jump on the bike any time I want, and get a great workout. I did 4.5 hours Sat morning and 11 hours total on it just last week.

I gave a lot of friends and Tri group peeps that do outdoor group rides throughout the year and I participate in exactly Zero of them. I only come out for events and races

I'd be fine with that, but what I really can't shake is the feeling that I'm always one race away from having something really bad happen to me. Granted, I had something horrific happen to me in my fifth race, but I was younger and more foolish back then. The amount argy-bargy in a bike race can get pretty insane, even at a cat-3 level. Really, no thank you. I do my ITTs and get on with it. Also, there's the issue of all the really hard intervals one has to do in order to be decent. I don't know about others, but those were seriously draining to the point that I end up with a very unproductive day if I do them in the morning



well, one does tend to crash more often on the MTB, although the consequences a lot less severe. Personally, I think it's a cognitive dissonance. The really bad things that can happen in MTB can be mitigated/eliminated, whereas the really bad things while riding on the road can't be. Don't want to crash into a tree? Then slow down on your MTB. Don't want to run off of a cliff, slow down. There's nothing that one could do if there's a distracted/drunk driver on the road. That said, I did crash thrice in the first two months of riding my MTB.

The rest of the time, I'm knocking out hours on Zwift. Temperature controlled means that I won't need to suffer through the humid summer



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P.S. i thought adding Horner (as in Ashley, not #15) to the thread title does a dis-service to this thread