Cycling UK Forum

I ride on roads so I must have a road bike. I ride the same bike off road so I must have an off-road bike. Sometimes the path is gravelly so I must have a gravel bike. It doesn't have an electric motor so it's not an electric bike, and it doesn't fold so it's not a folding bike.

Why drop bars if you are not racing. Why group rides if you are not training for a race? The UCI definition has destroyed progress in the design and popularity of bicycles as transport

I find myself in disagreement with some of your points.

Drop bars off multiple comfortable hand positions for different conditions and in some ways offer versatility beyond what is needed for racing, other bars also offer alternatives (butterfly, flat, north road, whatever takes your fancy) and they are simply that, alternatives, and often very personal so I do not think drop bars should be confined to 'racing' bikes only.

Group rides can be both very sociable, and efficient, and people can train for 'non race' events as well as for personal improvement, they are certainly not only for race training. Group riding does come with responsibility to other memebers of the group though so behaviour and bike equipment choice is relevant.

I think it has much more to do with people aspiring to, and being lead by the image of racing bicycles rather than practicalities, but the UCI have no hold on practical bicycles and I think blaming them for the public's continued aspiration to racing models is unfair. So it's down to a combination of manufacturers and shops selling an image that is incompatible with reality, and customers not willing to compromise on that image, many highly practical bicycles are available, and it's not the UCI that stops people buying them, nor has the UCI hindered their development, it might be fair to say the UCI has stifled development in racing, but that's a different kettle of fish entirely and comes with it's own arguments as to whether they should or not.

It's been said time and time again, but practical, fully equipped bicycles in the UK are a hard sell, and its mostly an image and aspiration thing, the non seasoned cyclist buying a bike for leisure and sport is lead by the image of sporty bikes and the lure of 'performance' and so the manufacturers and shops cater to that. You only have to look across the channel to see a shift towards more practical bikes, and more markedly so in Germany and the Netherlands, it's always amusing when a European customer enters a UK bike shop and is perplexed as to why none of the bikes have racks, guards and lights by default.

Having said all that I think the cycle to work scheme and general (slight) increase in utility and transport cycling in recent years is prompting a gradual shift in some areas. There are a lot of general purpose bikes appearing now which are getting closer and closer to ideal, but they're still a hard sell to someone who doesn't already cycle a lot.

My wife recently bought a new commuter, we went to the LBS for her to have a look and test some models out, she's a seasoned cyclist and knew what she wanted as he previous commuter had some shortcomings that she wanted to address, namely lack of clearance for tyres >25c, no mudguard clearances and rim brakes which she was fed up of feeding pads and rims to after all-weather commuting for several years. But as soon as she said road commuter she was pushed towards some lightweight carbon and aluminium models from Spesh and Trek in both flat and drop bar guises, she said she would need to add racks and guards and while it would have been possible to add them they were not ideally suited. She did try them but was not taken with any of them and eventually settled on a Specialized Source, which I'm actually pretty impressed with as a general purpose commuter. Alu frame which is sensibly light but well built, decently long wheelbase with longish stays for pannier room and stability, sensibly robust 8speed transmission with a mid-compact triple, hydraulic discs and 35c tyres. It even came equipped with guards and racks of adequate quality (although they'll probably be replaced in a couple of years) all for < £500. It has flat bars, but would work equally well with drops, it will only ever be used on roads and paths, it's not an 'off road bike' but she still doesn't call it her 'road bike' as that's what her lightweight drop bar bike is even though that won't be raced.

Anyway, to answer OP, it depends on the perception of the person as much as anything, I consider 'road bike' to be a contraction of 'road racing bike' and as such it means a racing or primarily performance oriented bike to me, but I can see how it would just as easily mean 'not an MTB' to anyone who grew up through the BMX and MTB booms.

cc1085 wrote: ...The UCI definition has destroyed progress in the design and popularity of bicycles as transport.....

Brucey wrote:...No, let the UCI do what they want; it is meant to be an athletic contest, not a battle of technology (like motor racing is)...

amediasatex wrote:...the UCI have no hold on practical bicycles and I think blaming them for the public's continued aspiration to racing models is unfair...

The way I see it, just like a lot of useful technology has been developed for use in F1 cars and later adapted for use in road cars, the same could have happened with bicycle racing. Developments like the Lotus bike in the '80s, which actually made use of the potential of carbon fibre instead of just mimicking metal frames, gave us a taste of the sort of innovation we could have had. However the UCI is so conservative that they won't allow any innovation at all. If that was because they wanted to prevent anyone having a technological advantage, then they would standardize the equipment, like Keirin racing.

Ordinary bicycle manufacturers lack either the incentive or the capital to invest in expensive R&D that will only be used on cheap low-margin bikes. At least MTB racing has lead to some interesting new tech.

But on topic; if a bicycle has been designed specifically for use on the road, then I would call it a road bike.

Road bike, a bike to be ridden on road, might be adequate to ride on some gravel tracks etc, easy off road routes.. might be less suitable for serious off road tracks. Can be used as low end, entry race bike, or have bits added that will turn it into a winter training, commute bike or lightweight tourer.

Touring bike, a bike designed to carry luggage etc., could be a lightweight(ish) 'road bike' or more specifically designed for the job with more relaxed angles for comfort. Can be used on and off road.

MTB, originally designed for off road trails but also got branded as ATB, all terrain, so can be used on and off road, but is best used for more extreme off road trails.

Personally I have had touring bikes where i have done some extensive off road riding with... if it is too bad for the touring bike then it is a no brainer I get off and walk. Road bikes that I used when I started racing, that then got down graded to winter training bike / commute bike and have been used for weekend hostel trips etc., that may have also included some off road tracks, when my serious touring bike was off the road. Indeed my current Dolan has done a 3 week trip to Spain.

All in the eye of beholder.

cc1085 wrote:Road bike definition these days seem to mean actual race bikes rather than a bike that is used on the road. Why drop bars if you are not racing.

Because they are comfortable. I've never ridden in a race (unless you count a couple of club 10s), but I've been riding bikes with drops for more 30 years.

cc1085 wrote:Why group rides if you are not training for a race?

Because I like to ride with my friends. I especially like to ride with my friends to a cafe on a nice day and have some cakes and tea and a natter.

cc1085 wrote:The UCI definition has destroyed progress in the design and popularity of bicycles as transport. Laid back or Recumbent bicycles are far more comfortable and safer. Hydraulic disc brakes are the best and most reliable available. Modern "road" bikes are really only suited to racing within the rules of the UCI and are completely impractical elsewhere.

UCI rules have about as much to do with transport cycles as Formula 1 rules have to do with our family car. Stuff designed for racing is often adapted for everyday use, but most people aren't going to go out and buy a Pinarello Dogma F8. I've never spent that much money on anything less than a house.

While UCI rules may somewhat influence what types of bicycle are popular, I think there are several other reasons that more people don't ride recumbents. They are considerably more expensive. Most people who want to start cycling, begin with budgets well below the cost of a used recumbent, let alone a new one.

Many people don't even know what a recumbent is or where to get one. We know & and accept them because they are just another face of cycling. But most people just starting, may only have ever seen one or two on the roads.

Riding a bike is already a fringe element activity. Most people don't want to be seen as outsiders or weird. For someone who is already going against social norms, riding a recumbent may be a step too far, especially given how expensive they are.

MikeF wrote:I ride on roads so I must have a road bike. I ride the same bike off road so I must have an off-road bike. Sometimes the path is gravelly so I must have a gravel bike. It doesn't have an electric motor so it's not an electric bike, and it doesn't fold so it's not a folding bike.

As your sig says "it takes a genius to spot the obvious"

reohn2 wrote:

MikeF wrote:I ride on roads so I must have a road bike. I ride the same bike off road so I must have an off-road bike. Sometimes the path is gravelly so I must have a gravel bike. It doesn't have an electric motor so it's not an electric bike, and it doesn't fold so it's not a folding bike.

As your sig says "it takes a genius to spot the obvious"

tatanab wrote:Until about 25 years ago when marketeers got their newspeak dictionaries out, a road bike was what was ridden in road races and maybe time trials - nothing else. These days it primarily means "something totally unsuited for your commuting purposes but we are going to sell it to you anyway". Look at the niche market "names" dreamt up such as "comfort road bike" (i.e. it has a longer headtube so you can sit more upright) and "aero road bike" (i.e not quite a timetrial bike). The marketeers did the same when they invented the name "hybrid" to mean what we always thought of as a general purpose touring bike with flat bars and have now expanded that meaning to stretch from a pseudo MTB with smooth tyres all the way to a carbon "road bike" that happens to have flat bars.

A normal 1970s light touring bike as used by the CTC will serve for all of the uses. These days it is possibly called an Audax bike. It was easy when I were a lad - road bike for racing on roads, track bike for track racing, club bike/light tourer for general use, and hack for a commuter/pub bike. I think the names have long ceased to mean anything.

Do you know tantab if I was able to express myself without seeming sarcastic or insulting, I'd have said the same ay you're saying. What matters is the we would all use the same term for the same meaning, and as you say that common terminology - that understanding - no longer exists.

Excellent reply Brucey and I know it doesn't really matter what the UCI does but the narrow definition of a bicyle( diamond frame etc) and banning all other forms from competition has I believe unduly influenced the sales and development of the bicycle esp here in Ireland and also in the UK. If, for example, recumbent bicycles had been included in that definition, I wonder what we term the "road bike" of today might look like.
Thom.

tatanab wrote:Until about 25 years ago when marketeers got their newspeak dictionaries out, a road bike was what was ridden in road races and maybe time trials - nothing else. These days it primarily means "something totally unsuited for your commuting purposes but we are going to sell it to you anyway". Look at the niche market "names" dreamt up such as "comfort road bike" (i.e. it has a longer headtube so you can sit more upright) and "aero road bike" (i.e not quite a timetrial bike). The marketeers did the same when they invented the name "hybrid" to mean what we always thought of as a general purpose touring bike with flat bars and have now expanded that meaning to stretch from a pseudo MTB with smooth tyres all the way to a carbon "road bike" that happens to have flat bars.

A normal 1970s light touring bike as used by the CTC will serve for all of the uses. These days it is possibly called an Audax bike. It was easy when I were a lad - road bike for racing on roads, track bike for track racing, club bike/light tourer for general use, and hack for a commuter/pub bike. I think the names have long ceased to mean anything.

I generally agree with what you say, but not quite. I started riding 43 years ago, at first I only had one bike but soon got another. My "road racing" bike was used for all summer riding apart from commuting - club rides, training rides, road racing, time trials. My other bike had wide tyres and the ability to fit mudguards. This was used for commuting and winter club rides, also what we used to call "rough stuff". It's actually probably more like my touring bike as it had 27 X 1.25in tyres which are equivalent to about 32mm, and had centre pull brakes.

A modern audax bike has narrow tyres and side pull brakes, more akin to an old road racer but with the ability to fit guards and a rack.

If I were to have just one bike, then it would be an audax type bike - quick enough for group rides, but able to carry a but of luggage for the commute

Vorpal wrote:

cc1085 wrote:Road bike definition these days seem to mean actual race bikes rather than a bike that is used on the road. Why drop bars if you are not racing.

Because they are comfortable. I've never ridden in a race (unless you count a couple of club 10s), but I've been riding bikes with drops for more 30 years.

I used to ride drops exclusively, citing reasons like that. But in hindsight I think I was rationalising a lot. When I was a pre-teen I wanted a drop-bar racer because it was a "proper bike", and when I first got one (for some values of "racer"...) I struggled a bit with the drops and the riding position but stuck with it because I was 13 and having a Proper Bike meant a great deal. In time I got used to them, but having taken to touring on a 'bent and found everything (particularly my wrists and neck) much more comfortable I gave up on a touring drop-bar, and now for my upwrongs I much prefer flats, even at the expense of catching a bit more wind.

This is not to say drop-bars aren't comfortable, or wrong for non-racing, just that a lot of the love for them comes from having persevered with them along with some degree of rose-tints rather them being quite as great as they're widely taken to be. The lack of drop bars on Dutch cruisers is, I think, a pretty good argument that we like sporty associations as much as practical answers.

Vorpal wrote:While UCI rules may somewhat influence what types of bicycle are popular, I think there are several other reasons that more people don't ride recumbents. They are considerably more expensive. Most people who want to start cycling, begin with budgets well below the cost of a used recumbent, let alone a new one.

Many people don't even know what a recumbent is or where to get one. We know & and accept them because they are just another face of cycling. But most people just starting, may only have ever seen one or two on the roads.

Riding a bike is already a fringe element activity. Most people don't want to be seen as outsiders or weird. For someone who is already going against social norms, riding a recumbent may be a step too far, especially given how expensive they are.

The expense and normality (or otherwise) of 'bents is very much a Catch 22. They're expensive and weird because they aren't mass market, and they're not mass market because they're expensive and weird.

"We know and accept them" is pretty clearly not true of a great many cyclists to anyone who rides one much. The number of people who just won't even try one out, having listed numerous ill-judged preconceptions why they're just wrong, is quite considerable.




Riding a recumbent is actually a bigger step for a lot of established cyclists than it would be for a newcomer, especially a newcomer who wants to get from A to B, as opposed to being the Next Bradley Wiggins. They don't have a very conservative bunch of people on Proper Bikes shaking their heads and muttering under their breath to worry about.

Pete.

pjclinch wrote:

Vorpal wrote:

cc1085 wrote:Road bike definition these days seem to mean actual race bikes rather than a bike that is used on the road. Why drop bars if you are not racing.

Because they are comfortable. I've never ridden in a race (unless you count a couple of club 10s), but I've been riding bikes with drops for more 30 years.

I used to ride drops exclusively, citing reasons like that. But in hindsight I think I was rationalising a lot. When I was a pre-teen I wanted a drop-bar racer because it was a "proper bike", and when I first got one (for some values of "racer"...) I struggled a bit with the drops and the riding position but stuck with it because I was 13 and having a Proper Bike meant a great deal. In time I got used to them, but having taken to touring on a 'bent and found everything (particularly my wrists and neck) much more comfortable I gave up on a touring drop-bar, and now for my upwrongs I much prefer flats, even at the expense of catching a bit more wind.

This is not to say drop-bars aren't comfortable, or wrong for non-racing, just that a lot of the love for them comes from having persevered with them along with some degree of rose-tints rather them being quite as great as they're widely taken to be. The lack of drop bars on Dutch cruisers is, I think, a pretty good argument that we like sporty associations as much as practical answers.

I have several bikes, and two of them have drop bars. Two others have flats with bar ends, and one has butterfly bars. I have tried a couple of other types, though I have to admit that I haven't tried any of the ones that curve right back, such as bull horn bars, north roads, Jones H bars, etc.

I rode without drops for a few years; I mostly rode on an MTB based hybrid that I really like, but I went back to drops with the last couple of bikes I bought and I am happier with them.

I've tried recumbents and I like them. I expect that I will eventually have one, but it's not currently high enough on the priority list for me to buy one, even if I could talk Mr. V round.