Road MTB's

Im thinking of buying a new bike, I have not done this since I spent my savings on a BMX when I was 16 that turned out to be really bollox and put me off BMX altogether.

The bike will be mainly for urban commuting but also possibly a bit of touring, and I especially relish the idea of disc brakes and full mudguards for winter.

I was eyeing up stuff in the area of disc equipped cross bikes, hybrids like Kona Dew drop, marin & genesis's disc equipped offerings and alfine stuff too like Day one or Pompetamine.

But I have just had an epiphany. All of these options (with 700c wheels) seem to be in the region of £700+ The Kona Dew drop is the cheapest at £400 from CRC which has been massively discounted, but it doesnt even come with a rack or mudguards and is possibly too geeky and hybridy even for me.

The epiphany part is that XC mtb's are much better value. There seems to be an abundance of stuff in the £400 region, some stuff for less and an absolute glut of them second hand. All with better parts - hydro discs, better cranks etc) for much less money.

So now im considering an MTB for road duty, it would also give me a more versatile bike that I can even use for off road. But ive never actually ridden a MTB road setup and dont know how they compare to road/700c bikes.

I was wondering if anyone would care to comment about road mtb setups, how they feel/comparison to 700c for urban commuting and touring etc and if you have pics of your own setups then Id like to see them too.

Unless you plan to put drops onto the MTB (which is not always easy or works well) then a big difference between the two would be riding position and drops or flats/risers.

I find a cross bike the best solution for me and I ride 40/60 road/offroad. Much prefers the drops, the riding position, the slightly lighter weight, the faster wheels/tyres. On the roughest sections of off road I am wanting for an MTB but that is probably on 2% of my time as I live in a very unchallenging part of the country when it comes to off road.

Well to covert a rigid mtb I had I put on some 1.5" slicks and a new crankset with bigger rings on and although it was far better than how it was it isn't a road bike :/, weighed more and still didn't roll as fast. Like you say, alot cheaper though :)

Other things I should have done thinking about it would be to find a way to mount the bars lower compared to the seat (it had an oversized quill stem so was hard work to find :( )

No bike can truly do everything. Cross bike seems the best compromise though. Look at stuff like the genesis croix de fer which isn't too expensive and has disc brakes. Hydro discs are great but most of us won't really need them and at the budget and id rather have cables personally.

Budget end, not budget and

No bike can truly do everything....

This.

You need to work out where your balance lies. My first proper bike for London was a 700c hybrid, with vbrakea and a MTB style build. Before I bought it, I knew I wanted a tough do it all bike that would take the hard knocks of the city. After a bit I realised that I actually just wanted something that felt fast and gave a fairly smooth ride.

If i were you i 'd get a secondhand uncle john or similar. I think I sold mine for £400i-500 with a 105 groupset.

I doubt you need discs. From my mate who mtbs the biggest benifit seems to be not compromising braking in the mud and grime.

Have you tried out a few different styles in shops.

Pre-Brompton, I used a fixed rigid mtb with 1.5" slicks for years as a commuter/load carrier, and then last winter as a low rent ice bike:

I always liked flats with bar-ends.

It's hard work though, compared to rolling along on your average 700c touring tyre. I agree with other people that the best all-rounder would be a cross bike with rack/mudguard bosses for on-road duties, maybe semi-slicks (because swapping out tyres for different disciplines is one of life's major tedium-inducing chores), and either well set up cantis, or maybe mechanical discs to get a little more life out of a set of rims. Might also consider a hub gear, and would definitely use drops, but go compact/as shallow as possible.

I first commuted from St Pancras to SE1 with a hardtail mtb on slicks and for me that bike was perfect for thick traffic which I like to think of as singletrack with moving obstacles. I had a hoot on it. I switched to a road bike and hated it - nervous handling, relatively weak brakes and a prone position. MTB was about 5 mins faster.

^you need time to adapt.

It's all much of a muchness in the centre of town anyway :/

Discs are ok, but if there not good from the factory they'll never be good, voice of experience, 3 sets of pads, new pistons, bleed 4+ times and a 9" disc to get mine almost as good as my mates 2pot 6" brake system.....

High end v's or maybe mechanical discs are far better on budget imo. What about getting a cheaper second hand bike and speccing it up? Bit of a project then to

imo the perfect ride to work bike for me would be to start out with a road bike converted with a mechanical disc front brake from a cyclocross/mtb, 700c wheels, 28c tyres, flat bars and around 16 gears, but we all know compromise is far more fun - single speed and one brake or a full on road bike setup quite aggressively is what I actually commute on :D

Sound like you want a Salsa Fargo 29ers.

Disc brake are fine, it's just selected brakes like the Juicy are hard to maintenance.

There's a lots of touring bicycle out there that are basically MTB with tourer geo, such as lower BB, longer chainstay, stiffer rear triangle, all that bell and whistle;

MTB naturally work really well off road, but there are some 26" wheels tourer that work equally well with confident, though you won't want to 'bomb' down the hill on one.

Also, what about a Surly Long Haul Trucker? 26" wheel one of course.

Sound like you want a Salsa Fargo 29ers.

Disc brake are fine, it's just selected brakes like the Juicy are hard to maintenance.

Was going to come on here to recommend this. I ride my fully rigid 29er as my daily bike, and it's fantastic fun. I just keep the 2.3 inch mud tyres on it which means no worrying about potholes or anything like that, just pump the pressures up a little bit and off you go. Obviously it'll still be a bit slower than a road bike, but i'd much rather ride my MTB around London than my road bike.

Get Schwalbe Big Apple.

Disc brake are fine, it's just selected brakes like the Juicy are hard to maintenance.

Any experience with Hayes nine?

Nope, only with Avid, Shimano, Hope and Formula brakes (as far as I remember).

My DMR came with Hayes 9s several years ago. I haven't touched the back brake other than to change the pads and it works pretty well, though it's not exactly subtle. However I spent hours/£s trying to get the front brake to work from day one and had endless problems, eventually giving up and just running a back brake for a while. As you said if it doesn't work when you first get it, it's probably never going to work.

Going back to the OP, you could build up a pretty nice do-it-all for £400ish. I picked up an early 70s holdsworth f&f for £95 from hilary stone via this forum amd managed to pick up enough other bits from ebay/bike jumbles etc to be able to run this either fixed or 12 speed (inc mudguards and saddle bag!) for about £300, plus another £50ish on tools which I presume I'll be using again. Also only took four weeks from start to finish, tho' I realise that this might seem a long wait at this time of the year!

I stopped reading after you said several years ago.

There's your problem.

Sound like you want a Salsa Fargo 29ers.

Disc brake are fine, it's just selected brakes like the Juicy are hard to maintenance.

Has that been cut and shut?

I dunno, but you should get one, as apparently a cyclo-x bike is way too flimsy and twitchy to cope with the rigours of an urban commute. And don't even think about using a road bike on the road. That's just mental.

I've seen your ilk commuting in London on full suspension MTBs.

Pompetamine/Croix de Fer (are there more like these? Cheaper ones?) are probably what you're looking for. They're more expensive than a cheap low end mtb but will last longer due to better quality parts. Hub gears are also nice on a commuter. You can choose from either cross tyres, touring tyres or skinny road tyres, whichever you choose will greatly impact the ride quality and speed. Riding position will be much better suited to your needs. Don't get one of the bikes scoble suggested, they are basically mtb's bodged into something they're not and will never be as good, but do cost as much or more than a pompetamine. Whatever you do, don't get a 29er, that doesn't even make friggin sense.

I got a boardman CX bike earlier in the year, really enjoy the balance of speed, comfort and off road ability. It's a lot quicker on the road than my MTB.

I've seen your ilk commuting in London on full suspension MTBs.

It's an urban jungle out there.