XXLHardrock

I live near Vancouver BC and have recently found the BC Randoneours, which seem to be a very active club, providing lots of opportunities for brevet riding.

Now I'm a novice and only have one bike, a 26" rigid hardtail with slicks, but I'm dreaming a bit about trying a 200K ride this summer. Not an ideal bike, but it's huge and the only bike I've ever ridden where I didn't feel like a bear riding a tricycle. 655 mm ETT just aren't all that common. So my question is: is it foolishness to attempt a ride like a 200K on a basic MTB? I realize the motor has a lot to do with the end result, but a person has to have something to work with as well. I'm sure I can do 200K in a day, but not sure about time constraints.


edit: the bike also has Surly Open Bars, but because the seat post is maxed out like a credit card, the bars are well below the seat. So I definitely don't have an upright position on the bike.

delcrossv

Worth a go. Yu have about 13 hours to do a 200k. Folks have done them on worse.

LWaB

As you are comfortable, you'll be fine. The minimum speed isn't super fast

A while back, Paris-Brest-Paris had a category for MTBs. A friend rode PBP11 on his MTB, loaded with panniers. Mind you, he does ride a fair bit. Steven Abraham

unterhausen

Lots of 200k's have been completed on Surly LHT's with 26" tires. That's a drop bar bike though. Upright bars aren't unheard-of on brevets. You should work your way up to, say, 60 miles and see if you think you can go twice as far.

when I caught the guys on MTB's on PBP they didn't look like they were having much fun. Then again, most people I caught on PBP didn't look like they were having much fun. Sometimes it looked like the zombie apocalypse

ThermionicScott 

+1. Among the bikes I wouldn't enjoy using for 200ks or longer would be Charles Terront's 47-lb fixed-gear.

lhbernhardt

Sophie Matter completed the 1230-km Paris-Brest-Paris in 2011 on a heavy commuter bike, complete with flowers. I am one of those guys who just thinks that acquiring bikes for each specific purpose is materialistic nonsense. You can do any ride on any bike, and I think there's a certain cachet that goes with using a bike for a purpose for which it was not intended. Myself, I just use my fixie for everything - PBP 2011, London-Edinburgh-London 2013, up to the top of Haleakala on Maui (and back down again, spinning like a fool), Trona 353 (2013), Hoodoo 500 (2014). In 2015, I am planning on doing a REAL Charly Miller - PBP on a fixie in under 56 hours 40 minutes.

So don't be concerned about the bike. Just ride.

Darth Lefty 

What vintage Hardrock? The model goes back about 25 years and has changed a lot. I think the most important thing is probably whether it is in good enough shape to make it.

Anecdotally, I get about +2 mph going from knobbies to slicks on my Hardrock and another +2 mph going from the MTB to a road bike. Also, the MTB with slicks, because it is faster with smaller tires, is at the wrong point in its gear sequence and so you're always twiddling between the middle and top ring. Neither of these kills the idea, but a road bike would be better.

unterhausen

Was Sophie Matter the woman that was doing interviews with riders on the road? I was having a hard time keeping up

StephenH

I rode my first 200k on my Worksman cruiser. Lots of things will work.
If you want to keep up with a group, you need a bike where you can ride the group speed. Not all clubs have groups riding, tho.
If you need to tote a lot of junk (clothing layers, for example), you need somewhat to haul it. So some places, they all use the big handlebar bags, other places, they don't.
I've seen a number of people ride 200k's on mountain bikes, usually because they were training for Dirty Kanza or something like that.
They do have brevets or perms that are largely or entirely on gravel. Preferred bike there is a gravel bike, rather than a mountain bike.

Here's my Worksman at a control.


One bit of advice I got early on, was if you're marginal on doing the distance in the first place, you want to stack everything in your favor, not against you. So yeah, somebody somewhere can ride 200k on a unicycle with an anvil in their backpack, but there's no reason to try that for your first brevet, either.

hamster

If memory serves me right, we have a member here at BF who completed last year's Tour de Palm Springs (organized century) on a MTB somewhere around the 8 hour mark.

Between slick tires and saddle-bar drop, you should have the disadvantages of a MTB partly negated. You would still have a weight penalty (possibly substantial) and maybe some aero penalty because you aren't using true drop bars. But finishing within the time limit is realistic. You may not be welcome in pacelines and the shape of your bars may not be very comfortable for 12 hours on the bike.

Start riding longer distances and see how it goes in terms of speed and comfort.

unterhausen

one of the eastern PA randonneurs uses strange bikes to ride 200k's. This includes his Bianchi three speed (ya, the bell shaped like Rollo was hilarious), his wife's 3 speed (in a dress, it was Halloween), and his fat bike (I think he was attacked by a bird or something)

XXLHardrock

Its a 2006, Disk brakes, aluminum frame, ~ 30 pounds, 17-100 gear inches and in really good shape with a very nice set of wheels to handle my Clyde carcass. It has a Big Apples on it now and I think I'll install some narrower Kojaks if/ when I do this.

DXchulo

Agreed. My commuter bike is an old rigid MTB that I converted to drop bars. It's a little slower than the road bike, but it's good enough to get the job done. I've taken it on some long rides during the winter when the wider tires and fenders are worth the time penalty.