I was up in the North Georgia mountains over the weekend. Had some great hiking and biking with wifey. We road past many awesome looking dirt roads, most of them NFS roads.
How many of you ride on dirt roads w/ your road bikes. Do you switch out wheels or rubber? I ride Aksium w/ 23cm gatorskins as my standard training setupon on my road bike. Wifey is on Ksyriums w/ gators… Would we need to make any changes, like a 25 or 27 or even a beafier rim?
Some of those roads just look epic. and I want in!!
Go for it. I’ve ended up on some dirt roads with my road bike and it’s fun. A little lower tire pressure can make it more comfortable and better grip but if you pick a good line you should be fine. Just avoid the wet. There is no traction with road tires on wet surfaces. Also: WATCH YOUR SIDE WALL. If there is a bunch of rocks make sure you ride over them or avoid them. They will even slice your gatorskin sidewall open. Bring a tire boot!
I have but I didn’t intend to. I was out exploring new territory during a stay away from home; thought I knew the map. When I came upon the dirt road it was too late to turn and double all the way back around, so I went for it. It is fun, but I really didn’t like it on 23s (or my TT bike for that matter). It’s not only the puncture resistance (I was on vittorias) that concerned me, but the risk of slipping out on the loose dirt seemed fairly high. If I was planning to ride such roads I would look into wider/thicker tires exactly as you are, just to be safe, or if I had a CX bike at my disposal I would just use that. But hey, try it. I’ve taken the road bike off road on smooth singletrack before…no harm done
I ride a fair amount of dirt roads on 25 conti gran prix. As long as the road is not too rock strewn, these work fine. As the road gets sandier or steeper descents, wider tires are a plus. If your road bike clears a 28, I’d go with these. You’ll have better handling on the downhills.
If the road is well maintained, you can get by on 23 gatorskins. The darn things are pretty invincible. You just want to make sure your handling skills are up for it.
I love dirt roads. And I love road bikes. But I don’t like getting my fillings knocked out from the washboard, and I don’t like shredding tires one after another. So problem solved, I built up this (yes, those are 700C wheels, albeit with 2" tires, and a road drive train). Works great.
I ride a ton of dirt very comfortably with Hed C2 ardennes rims and 25c conti 4 season tires. that set-up will do the job on most any dirt road you want to cover.
I figured it would be okay. The Euros ride on worse during RACES… And last year in the US Cycling Challenge they went on a mountain pass that was pretty gnarly dirt.
Too bad I live in Florida and only get to the mountains a few times of year. The “dirt” road around here are sand, even mountain bikers can’t keep forward momentum unless we have just had a rain!
Ride those FS roads in north Ga all the time and they are epic! Then again, I’m a mtn biker and we use them for the climbs and link to single track. There are many climbs that are 4-6 miles and a few 9-11 milers up there. Drop me a line and I’ll show ya around sometime!
I ride the forest roads out here in CO all the time. It can be done with a road bike, but I’ve found once the gravel turns more into small rocks, I start splitting sidewalls. Also can get a little sketchy on road tires if it rains. I usually ride my cx bike with a cheap pair of Kenda Kwiks. I just use a cheap pair of aksiums and have never had any problems bombing down the descents.
You can push a road bike much farther than people think off the pavement. I regularly ride on dirt and gravel roads on my bike and have never had any problems. In the fall, I put some slightly wider tires and MTB pedals on my Cervelo R3 and go a bit further into some light trail and CX type riding. I really should get a cross-bike, but for me this works.
We have a shit-ton of logging roads up here in the PNW, both USFS and BLM… some of the mainlines are paved, but most are not and some of the pavement is so bad they’re actually worse than hardpack gravel/dirt. Cross bikes are the natural answer, but rather than go out and buy yet another bike, I converted one of my older roadies to a Frankenbike with a Cross-ish 34x48 front double and an 11-28 cassette w/ a MTB RD for super-steep climbing, an old RS Ruby front road shock, and 25f/28r rubber on 36h light touring rims (fattest that would clear; otherwise I’d go w/ 32s on 29er rims now).
You can go for days with little or no traffic, and there are plenty of climbs good for 2000’+ of gain over a few miles, with a few even bigger… close to the ballpark of some of the big TdF climbs (although lower total elevation than the big passes in the Alps). Biggest downside is if you run into trouble (either physical or mechanical) you could easily be stranded for hours/days before anyone happened by, plus some of the folks who you might encounter out there you’d just as soon avoid anyway.
Yes. Seriously, yes. There are dirt roads that parallel Wolfpen (both sides), woody’s, Unicoi, and all sorts of other cool dirt climbs up there. And they are all awesome. Hard as coffin nails though.
an old RS Ruby front road shock, and 25f/28r rubber on 36h light touring rims (fattest that would clear; otherwise I’d go w/ 32s on 29er rims
That’s pretty cool that you still have a rs road shock. How does it work on this bike for you? If you can, post a pic of the bike, it would be interesting to see.
What tires are those?
I’m awaiting the arrival of a Salsa Fargo and am looking for some tires for the road, that will work of some fireroads with a bit of sand and rocks.
