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How can I become a professional downhill mountain bike racer?

Mountain bike V Racer bike?

  • I already have a pretty light XC mountain bike and was wondering if changing the front cranks to 48/34/24 and slim slick road tires (my other parts are already ultra light parts, including the rims), would make a great of difference in catching up with the roadies? My issue is between buying a road bike or changing parts so that i can just switch between two sets of tyres to trail or road. Buying a roadie would be a definitive answer, but that would mean spending alot more and taking up space in my already tight garage. Issit worth it, or changinf parts is enough to feel the speed and distance difference?

  • Answer:

    This is a hard one to answer, you first need to determine what type of roadies you would be riding with. I've encountered three roady types 1) the competitive roadies who actually race their bikes, 2) the racer wannabes and 3) the casual group riders. To ride with group 1 you will have to have a road bike to keep up. When riding with group 3 your mountain bike with road tires will do fine. Riding with group 2 is where the fun comes in these riders sprint for short distances and change the pace on a regular basis, but they also quit on any hard extended effort, if you're a mtn bike racer you'll have no problem maintaining the pace, if not you'll need a road bike. The biggest disadvantage a mtn bike has is in the areo dept. when comparing to a road bike. An other issue is how fast you can pedal if you can't turn spin a steady 90 rpm or more you will find it hard to keep up at times. The next issue is the cost of a spare set of rims, add the cost of a set of rims, tires, disks and cassette and you are close to the price of an entry level road bike. Me personally when I ride on the road I use my road bike with the hard core racers, the rest of the time I use my mtn bike with road tires. NOTE: My big gear is 44t I've tried the 48t and it was only worth about 2 mph on the flat, and was not very use-full on the trails so the 48 is hanging on a nail.

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Not a chance. There's still enough difference in weight, aerodynamics and gearing that at best you'd be able to hang on to the back of the slow group. I ride my mtb occasionally when riding with some of my slower triathlete friends to make it even. Still, when there's a tailwind or downslope that lets them use their top gear, I can't spin fast enough to hang on. Besides, going to a 48 would make that bike next to useless except for that one purpose. If you ride that much, isn't it worth having two bikes? Just about every serious rider has at least that many.

silverbullet

I would think you could better spend your money on a entry level road bike. Like someone else said, replacing gearing and buying a new wheelset would make your bike not that suited for offroad, and you would have a bike that is neither road nor mountain oriented, just somewhere in between. Beside gearing, a road bike has larger tires and a different riding position, which helps a lot on speed. If you just wanted to ride sometimes on road, just changing tires for slicks can work pretty good, but if you really want to go with road bikes, it's not enough.

Roberto

You can certainly give it a go. You will have a disadvantage but not an overwhelming one. I did club rides with a guy that road a dual sus. set up for the road. While he couldn't pace the group he was able to stay in the pack no problem and he wasn't the fastest dude out there anyway. If you have an 11 cog in back you should have enough gear to stay with them.

M R

Yeah, you really can't expect to use an MTB on the road and keep up with road bikes... it just isn't viable unless the roadies are slow and you are fast. Weight has less to do with it (I regularly ride a 29 pound road bike on fast rides and still am mid to front of the pack) than the overall design of the bike. The geometry and general construction of an MTB, regardless of weight or gearing puts you at a disadvantage no matter how you try to finesse the bike.

bikeworks

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