janneman72

Yes, I greet people in shops etc. Don't you? You're probably a roadie then and not even a hybrid. Anyways, I though I would start this topic of what happened today at the bike shop but was thinking for a long time about it. Today in the bike shop, while we waited the guy next to me asked me(actually told me), "you must a be roadie?" with a smile. I told him "No, I normally do 99% MTBiking and just seeding races on the road(for the Argus)". His face immediately dropped and he said very sarcastically looking down at me kind of way "So you're doing the road races with your MTB to be seeded? haha". I told him "No, I bought a new road bike 6 months ago"(with 330km to date on it[approx 100km for the Amashova, 100km for the Satellite and 100km for the 94.7]) so the guy just looked disgusted and walked out of the shop???? WTF? I have better conversations than that with the Pick 'n Pay till ladies. Anyways, the bottom line(s) are: - If you're not riding in the Elite, $, A, even VA group and/or never finished a race under the first 1%, you're just a cyclist like everybody else including myself as well as the guy starting in the ZZ group or whatever. - For the Elite, $, A, even VA groups and first 1% guys....respect! - If you're a roadie and still windgat please remember that you will never be the best nor the worst so you're once again just another cyclist. In other words, the next time a MTBiker on a MTB over takes a roadie in a race or on the road...SMILE AND WAVE BOYS, SMILE AND WAVE!!!

Even Andy Schleck thinks the same: Andy Schleck's New Team Revealed( http://bit.ly/etpyhP ) " but we want to have a team that does it with soul." “I think that a lot of—if you will excuse me—bull**** has taken bike racing away from the people: too many scandals, too many political or technical issues that have taken the spotlight off of the beauty of the sport. "

I agree with you. Our local MTB club created by the bike shop owner is awesome and the people are amazing, however the same cycling shop but the roadie club just sucks big time.

I totally agree with you. Sometimes 20km/h is fast as well on a MTB. We normally average on our local MTB roads in gauteng anything between 22-28kmh. We did a course at the coast December, 26km in 4 hours, <7kmh average. Crazy stuff but great fun and we were exhausted afterwards. Roadies needs to understand if you're not Lance and a MTBikers greets you, you may greet them back except if you're afraid of what your other roadies might think about you. Roadies like to ride without saddles I think, or it looks as if they do.

Perhaps it's because sometimes when we ride with the MTBiking club, there's a 4 or 5km stretch where we have to ride on the road and the previous time the local pro-roadies we're going out and we came in after 50 odd kilometers and they couldn't keep up with us, mud tyres and all. So maybe they think they're fast and hardcore where as mountain bikers don't think anything of themselves because they know they can fall the @ss off any given moment so they're more humble. But I agree, it's probably more about the individual. 95% of the time I train doing MTBiking but do the events road on my racing bike and my mountain biking events on my MTB. But I start to prefer MTBiking more and more everyday partly because of the people I've met so far etc vs the roadies thinking they're Lance.

This is just a general question of something that I've noticed. Coming from a roadie background and moving over to MT biking due to the dangerous roads etc I noticed that mountain bikers overall(with the exception) are more social than roadies. Roadies has the tendency to almost never greet you on the road, always has this "looking down to mountain bikers attitude" like if you're not a roadie then you're don't know anything about cycling attitude... However mountain bikers normally care for the environment, rides more responsible (maybe because they fall harder sometimes) and is much easier to have a normal conversation with without any attitude what so ever, they're more relaxed and open. Lots of mountain bikers only training doing mountain biking but kick ass on the road as well and some roadies are also seriously good or better the mountain bikers so the playing field is level, I'm just not sure about the attitude between the 2 sports. I was just wondering if it was only me or if I missed something that happened between cool roadies and social MTBikers. Almost like Mercedes vs BMW or iPhone vs BlackBerry etc. TO have a BlackBerry tells people you're a hardcore business man, to have an iPhone is like saying I'm chill but I also do business. Maybe I'm dreaming and in that case I apologise for this post. Does anyone agree/disagrees with me?

Bontie, I have to agree with fubarza and I think you might have missed the message here. It's not about experience its rather about proper cycling ethics or the lack thereof. I had a similar fall about a year ago, same thing.