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Expert Answers
Hitting the Road for a Change
Rick's Question.
I have spent the last three years mountain biking. I now have the urge to try road cycling. Should I take the plunge or stay in the mountains?
Ethan Gelber's Answer.
I should be honest about where I am coming from before I answer: I have only been on a real mountain bike trail once in my life, and only been on a real suspension mountain bike once (and it wasn't when I was on the single track). By contrast, I have been touring for almost 20 years. So, it is hard and perhaps unfair for me to offer an"expert" opinion that contrasts the two sports.
However, I can say that there are differences between the two sports, most of them pretty obvious, and that the joys of road riding are as legion as those prompting whoops and hollers up in the mountains.
First off, there is something magical about settling into a smooth and speedy groove and maintaining it for miles and miles and miles over open road. You develop a different set of pedaling skills, less technical perhaps, but of enormous cycling utility. There something to be said for the pack mentality built during group rides, learning about sharing the front of the pack, reaching speeds and covering distances that you never thought possible. There is something unspeakably rewarding about the last mile of a two-hour climb into the mists of a mountain pass. There is that sense of under-my-own-steam purpose that comes from hitting the road, panniers in tow, and feeling the tick of each of two (or nine) hundred miles that most people miss from the back seat of a car and just appreciate from the mountain bike trail vista pullouts.
Sure, there are similar waves of emotion and feelings of accomplishment in mountain biking. And, if you are as devoted as it sounds like you are, you should certainly not give up the backcountry runs. But I could not feel more strongly that filling out the quiver of bike experience arrows requires road time . . . road time that you will love.
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