prj71

Specialized Sirrus X and Trex FX stopped by to say hi.

He's not wrong.

Eric F 

In terms of being somewhere in the middle-ground between road bikes and MTBs, definitely. One tends to be ridden by normal folks. The other tends to be ridden by weirdo bike freaks.

Rolla

I acknowledge that exceptions exist, especially at the higher end of the category, but I maintain that most garden-variety hybrid bikes wouldn't be particularly well-suited for an actual gravel course or its conditions.

This isn't what I started the thread about, so forgive me if I don't further engage in the "hybrid-is-a-gravel-bike" digression. Might be a good topic for another thread, though.

Kapusta

Oh, that’s been done a couple/few/countless times already.

Rolla

Like that's ever stopped anyone...

LarrySellerz

People love to hate on the hybrid but they're best in slot for commuters and college students etc

Lombard

The "love to hate" seems to be because hybrids are often considered beginner bikes synonymous with "non-serious" riders. A hybrid was my first adult bike when I got back into cycling as an adult. 20+ years later, it's gathering dust.

livedarklions

Love to hate is just snobbishness, I'm not willing to make excuses for it.

I think the issue is this absurd false hierarchy of "seriousness" that causes people to make gross generalizations about a category of bike they're largely unfamiliar with so they can maintain their sense that their own riding is better somehow. When I ride in an urban setting, I see a lot more people on some form of hybrid or another than I do people on road bikes and the people riding them appear to be utilizing them as "seriously" as most of the drop bar riders I see.

Herzlos

I suspect that if you asked a random person to draw or describe a bike, they'd produce something like a hybrid.

But yeah, to the "serious" cyclist a hybrid is the worst of all options, but to the average person who doesn't have a garage full of different bike options, it's just a bike and gets them about.

prj71

Hybrid bike is a bike with a battery on it.

livedarklions

In my experience, a decent fitness bike is actually a lot more fun than "just a bike"--it's actually probably a better fit for fast urban riding than a drop bar bike

A lot of what goes on in these discussions is a comparison between high-end road bikes and bottom to middle of the line hybrids, ignoring that there's a hell of a lot of low end road bikes out there as well. Switching to a drop bar doesn't magically make one "serious" and riding a flat bar on the road doesn't mean you're not "serious".

Lombard

Bingo!!

prj71

[QUOTE=livedarklions;22725260Switching to a drop bar doesn't magically make one "serious" and riding a flat bar on the road doesn't mean you're not "serious".[/QUOTE]

Anecdotally the serious people I know ride drop bar bikes. The occasional riders I know that may put 100-200 miles a year on a bike are occasional and not very serious about biking at all.

Rolla

What constitutes a "serious" rider is entirely subjective, and has almost nothing to do with the bike they ride.

Eric F 

IMO...Being a "serious" rider has very little to do with the shape of the handlebars. There are certainly trends, but the sport is full of examples that don't fit in the most common boxes.

Trakhak

"Serious" riders: if they're not paid to ride, they're on "serious" toys (unless they commute or otherwise use their bikes for transportation, errands, etc.). I'm an ex-amateur racer, and I have quite a collection of serious toys, including bikes, guitars, etc.

Lombard

You do mean road riders, correct? I know some serious mountain bikers and they don't have drop bars.

rsbob 

Was just thinking that pro riders might think anyone below their level are not ‘serious’. But then Cat 1 riders might think anyone below Cat 1 isn’t serious and on and on and finally it gets down to us, recreational enthusiast, many of which look down on anyone not in their ranks. It’s all relative.

livedarklions

I put about 6500 miles on a couple of hybrids a few years ago, but I'm sure your anecdote sampling methods are good enough for us to tell how the mileage of drop bar riders stack up against hybrid riders.

Commuting is serious biking in my mind, and a lot of commuters use hybrids.

I know some 100-200 mile/yr bicyclists who have some pretty expensive bikes, btw.

livedarklions

Except for the people who actually compete, where we stack up on a imaginary tier system is one of the silliest questions ever.

livedarklions

Right. And it's not just a "sport"!

When you get down to it, there's how many billion cyclists in the world? Most likely, our personal knowledge about how other people ride on what equipment is barely going to scratch the surface. There's a lot of people in the world who ride on extremely cheap bicycles as a matter of making a living, what the hell is more serious than that?

rje58_too

EXACTLY! Because only YOU and the other club riders or whatever clique YOU belong to ride REAL bicycles!

Nothing quite like validating stereotypes and cliches', is there?

You can ban me now, because my primary rides are a 2019 Trek FX2 and a 2011 Fuji Absolute. My 10,000 miles on them mean NOTHING, because I'm obviously NOT a REAL cyclist! I'm sure some of you "real cyclists" ride that far in much less time than it took me.

Eric F 

I'm genuinely curious...What makes a "fitness" bike different from other hybrids? Looking at the upper end of the Trek FX series - which they market as "fitness" bikes - the theme seems to be "road bike speed, but more comfortable". Basically, a flat bar road bike, rather than the multi-surface capabilities often associated with other hybrid varieties. Is this fairly accurate?

livedarklions

I rode about 10,000 miles on a FX3 over three years (increasingly using other bikes by the end of the 3 years), and that's definitely the way I used it. It was a surprisingly fast bike, I regularly frustrated the hell out of some Cat 6 drop bar types. It was pretty fast on the level, but like I said above, it climbed better than any road bike I've ever had.

Eric F 

Sure. A majority of bike users around the world probably do it out of necessity, rather than "sport". Discussions on this site tend to be more centered around the people who are riding by choice, as a hobby, for competition, or other recreational purposes. My use of the term "serious" is in relation to riders who are passionate about riding bikes, and being "serious" is not defined by what kind of bike they ride, or even how much it cost. That said, people who buy high-dollar bikes probably tend to be more passionate about it. However, there are always exceptions. I would bet a medium amount of someone else's money that people posting regularly on this forum are at least moderately passionate about riding bikes.