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
Interesting. I had no idea that even existed. But for same price I could buy a whole different bike. Of course, you can say that about a lot of tri-related stuff I have… lol
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
I ride my commuter with baskets, rear rack, panniers, and 42mm tires. It is pretty typical that my NP for a couple hour ride is between 265-290 while most of the other guys are about 160-175. This ride is a casual ride for about 30 mins, usually about 90 mins hard, and 30 mins easy again. It can be a real challenge if a bunch of guys get dropped because once we get going it is basically a complete rivet sufferfest for me with lots of time above threshold and there is very little margin for error. I actually recover on the hills. While the tank weight hurts, the decreased aero penalty and RR penalty work to my advantage on the hills.
My advice, would be to put some slower rubber on the bike first. Slower rubber can really slow things down and because we aren’t talking about aero, and because group ride paces are faster than you would ride, the RR becomes a very big handicap.
I love mine, and it’s quite versatile. After you ride with your friends you can put in some intervals etc. on it no problem. I live in an area with a lot of dirt roads so it’s opened up a lot of new roads to ride on which keeps things interesting.
How much slower than you are they? A 29er with slow rubber and tubes will add A LOT of rolling resistance and aero drag but you could still run out of gears on the road.
A CX bike provides a lot of options for tires. I use different tires for different groups of friends. It takes a bit of time to figure out which tires to use.
I would suggest starting with marginally slower tires first until you get the balance right. It helps if they look like normal tires too. I’ve felt like a knob using 45mm knobbies while holding back the group.
You can also play with tire pressure, especially when you get wider tires with enough volume in them. If you’re running really low pressure and you have trouble keeping up, you can quickly adjust on the fly.
Also CX bikes can just be a whole ton of fun on their own!
Try pulling a kid (or 2) in a bike trailer - that’ll slow ya right down!
No kids? Maybe you can borrow one from one of your slower friends.
Depending on the speed disparity, slow tires may be enough.
You could do some intervals before or after the group ride.
Fatbike is the nucular option - well, not as much as the kid in a trailer tho.
Heavy and slow rolling, and you can run even lower pressure on the road if it’s not quite slow enough.
Or, just enjoy the ride w friends for what it is, and get your workout done another time.
Put some Gatorskins on your bike, that’ll slow you down lol
I used to ride with some friends that were very good technically but not as good at climbing as me, so I built up a Santa Cruz Bullit with a double crown Marzocchi bomber and all the dh goodies. It weighed 40 lbs and was a beast to haul up a 1000 foot climb, but damn was it fun to descend on.
I have some brand new Gatorskins so maybe I’ll mount those up and see how that works. I’m leaning towards a CX bike because then I could use that on some gravel/dirt roads around me that the road bike can’t handle. Plus, I assume that with a CX bike that I could mount up one of my PMs (Quarq and P2M) to it and get power readings if I wanted to. Assuming BB compatibility of course.
I have been mainly riding gravel all summer and my wife has ridden her 10 year old QR Kilo maybe 3x this year. We went out for a ride last night and I could barely keep up with her.
My gravel bike has probably has 10 lbs on her kilo. I ride 35x700 tires and she has 23x700 tires. Either I need to HTFU big time or there is a big difference in the bikes.
I ride a 1987 Specialized Allez (steel) with 28mm (the biggest that’ll fit) Armadillo tires. There is nothing fast about it and it’s an absolute pig on even the smallest hills. Also - it’s the cheapest bike I’ve ever bought, easiest bike to work on that I own, and probably the bike I get the most comments about.
I’ve got a second wheelset with 38mm generic mixed terrain tires that I toss on my cx bike (carbon Crux) and it’s a great equalizer too.
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.
