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17 Reasons Why a Road Bike Is Better Than an MTB

By Adam Marsal

Quarrels about which kind of bike is better are nothing that we haven’t experienced already. Once you get drawn into that kind of a row, you can simply use the following mighty arguments to make you the king of the road.

1. A whole-day 100-km MTB trip is something a road bike would nail before lunch.

2. While MTB designers struggle to get the overall weight down under 10 kg, you can have a 6 kg road bike without much effort.

3. You don’t need that many gears even for better performance.

4. Conservative frame design means you’re not losing power due to suspension.

5. You can do the wheelies on a road bike, too.

6. When it comes to using a bicycle as a drying rack, the drop bars accommodate much more pieces of your wet cycling clothing.

7. You can spend aeons with a professional bike fitting – an activity the MTB riders will most likely never hear about.

8. Bike cleaning after a rainy ride won’t throw you into a half-day of brush & sponge slavery.

9. With no annoying dirt falling from the treads of the tires, your road bike can be stored in your living room without your family going nuts.

10. If you type “Bicycle as art” into Google Search, the AI algorithms will offer you hundreds of bicycle pictures but (almost) none depicting an MTB.

11. There are legends of bicycle racing that lived 100 years ago. All of them went down in history as road cyclists.

12. The access to most gravel roads is limited or even restricted in several European countries, making the MTBs useless there.

13. Tight turns on the switchback while descending crazy fast brings you a thrill close to what Valentino Rossi experiences in MotoGP.

14. Despite the remarkable weight loss in recent years, mountain bikes are still a piece of a burden when you live in a flat on the seventh floor without an elevator.

15. Even though there are cool MTB races like Red Bull Rampage, Crocodile Trophy or Cape Epic, the greatest cycling challenge has always been the Tour de France. No doubts.

16. Being a successful road cyclist will make you a world-recognised celebrity while the best MTB riders stay famous just among the MTB community.

17. There’s always a chance that riding a road bike will make you look like a hipster. Actually, who said it was an advantage?