How Smooth does the road have to be...

Huh?

Are you trying to decide between the two bike styles? If so, can you describe what kind of riding you intend to do, and on what surfaces?

Are you looking to take the bike off of paved roads? If so, are we talking about relatively smooth dirt roads or more like hiking trails?

More specifics, por favor....

neil0502 said:

Huh?

Are you trying to decide between the two bike styles? If so, can you describe what kind of riding you intend to do, and on what surfaces?

Are you looking to take the bike off of paved roads? If so, are we talking about relatively smooth dirt roads or more like hiking trails?

More specifics, por favor....

I'm planning on riding mostly on the asphalt or paved roads, but I don't want to have to worry about my bike breaking from going on a little dirt or some trails... you know when the situation calls for it. Will a road bike handle dirt paths? I'm not planning on doing any off roading, but I don't want to have to be super careful whenever I ride my bike.

hangulmalmotayo said:

I'm planning on riding mostly on the asphalt or paved roads, but I don't want to have to worry about my bike breaking from going on a little dirt or some trails... you know when the situation calls for it. Will a road bike handle dirt paths? I'm not planning on doing any off roading, but I don't want to have to be super careful whenever I ride my bike.

You can ride a road bike off the pavement with reasonable care. Obviously, you don't want to be on a single track doing it. But it doesn't hurt to ride a dirt (or gravel) road. I'd pay a little more attention to the tires/wheels you have on there if you intend to be off-road (semi-slicks rather than racing slicks).

I'd get a road bike

you can always put chunky tyres and/or wider rims on it if you want more off-road control

If you're riding on roads any smoother than these:
http://grahamwatson.com/gw/imagedocs.nsf/updateframesetcall?openform&04parrou
a road bike will be alright.

531Aussie said:

I'd get a road bike

you can always put chunky tyres and/or wider rims on it if you want more off-road control

A lot of current road bikes don't have the frame and fork clearnace to handle tires that are much wider than 25c-27c.

hangulmalmotayo said:

I'm planning on riding mostly on the asphalt or paved roads, but I don't want to have to worry about my bike breaking from going on a little dirt or some trails... you know when the situation calls for it. Will a road bike handle dirt paths? I'm not planning on doing any off roading, but I don't want to have to be super careful whenever I ride my bike.

You answered your own question. Get a cross-bike and you won't have to worry about it.

great pictures Art!

meehs said:

A lot of current road bikes don't have the frame and fork clearnace to handle tires that are much wider than 25c-27c.

Yeah, that's what I meant: a 27!
That's a tractor tyrem, as far as I'm concerned 😄

531Aussie said:

Yeah, that's what I meant: a 27!
That's a tractor tyrem, as far as I'm concerned 😄

Hahaha! Yeah, I guess. I always run wider tires than most (usually 25c on my road bike) because I'm a big guy and the roads that I ride on are quite often in crappy condition. But I suppose to most people a 27c tire (which aren't easy to find by the way) is really fat. I run 38c tires on my cross bike!

Plus if you look at the Paris-Roubaix pics that Art posted, it looks like those guys are running maybe 23c tires? I don't know how they do it! What do I know?

meehs said:

Plus if you look at the Paris-Roubaix pics that Art posted, it looks like those guys are running maybe 23c tires? I don't know how they do it! What do I know?

There are some close ups of the bikes here:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/teamtech04.php?id=tech/2004/features/roubaix
It looks like they have bigger tires. I remember reading somewhere that one of the teams was running 25mm front and 28mm back. 23's would be brutal.🙁

artmichalek said:

If you're riding on roads any smoother than these:
grahamwatson.comupdateframesetcallOpen ↗
a road bike will be alright.

It looks like a road bike would be fine on those roads, but a dirt bike motorcycle with big knobby tires won't cut it, lol 😄

hangulmalmotayo said:

Exactly how smooth should the road be in order to know whether I should get a cyclocross or a road bike?

How long is a rope?

artmichalek said:

There are some close ups of the bikes here:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/teamtech04.php?id=tech/2004/features/roubaix
It looks like they have bigger tires. I remember reading somewhere that one of the teams was running 25mm front and 28mm back. 23's would be brutal.🙁

Yeah, running 23's on those roads probably would be brutal. You can see in those pictures that they do run bigger tires. In fact the Colnago and Cannondale bikes in the pictures have cantilever brakes and increased tire clearance. They basically are really close to being cross-bikes. Probably just with a lower BB.

meehs said:

Yeah, running 23's on those roads probably would be brutal. You can see in those pictures that they do run bigger tires. In fact the Colnago and Cannondale bikes in the pictures have cantilever brakes and increased tire clearance. They basically are really close to being cross-bikes. Probably just with a lower BB.

I don't know about the Colnago, but I think the Cannondale actually is the stock cross frame.