Road - Recreational

Road Bikes
What exactly is a road bike, you wonder?

Well a road bike is a drop bar bicycle that is intended primarily for pavement use. Road bikes have a long historical lineage as racing machines, but not all the road bikes you find in Bicycle South are racing bikes. Real racing bicycles are the exception, not the rule these days. Read on to find out why. Road bikes come in three general flavors with a couple of activity specific subsets added on just to keep you guessing. We categorize most road bikes as follows:

Recreational Road Bikes
Comfortable, upright, wide range gearing, and often employing a triple (three chainrings) in the front. Recreational road bikes are perfect for any kind of riding, except serious racing and loaded touring. You generally would not to use this kind of bike for road racing because the longer wheel base, which contributes to the kind of stability that lets you grab that water bottle while riding, also reduces both maneuverability and speed of acceleration. For most of us riding with friends, commuting, on century or other kinds of charity rides, a stable bicycle that behaves while reaching for a water bottle is a good thing. Since Georgia is so hilly, wide range gearing is a nice feature too. And since very few of us are Jan Ulrich (professional racer!), it's nice not be bent over like a pretzel. Still, most recreational road bikes balk and handle particularly badly when loaded for serious cyclo camping, referred to as bicycle touring. That requires a whole different kind of bicycle, keep reading! Anyway, recreational road bikes are available in a wide range of prices and component levels, from starter bikes, to models with rarefied carbon fiber and titanium frames and high end components.

Sport Road Bikes
While often not geared quite as low as a recreational road bike, a sport road bike still isn't a true race bike. Again, a little longer wheelbase then your true criterium style race geometry, but a shorter wheelbase than a recreational road bike. The riding position can vary from upright to aggressive. Good bikes for long, fast group rides, most amateur level triathlons, credit card touring, and even some citizens racing. Usually you find higher end components and nicer materials in this class of bicycle and few entry level models.
Real Race, Road, Time Trial or Criterium Style Bikes
You could think of a bicycle like this as a piece of serious athletic equipment. Usually bikes like this are geared very high, are very light, have aggressive riding positions, short wheel bases and are very expensive. There is a fair amount of variation here, because a time trial race bike where a single rider or team of riders is racing the clock, is different from the kind of bicycle used in 100 miles road races. Still, these are serious bicycles, for serious riders. We cater to riders like this too, but they usually know what they want when they come in.
What Else Is There?
Well, lots actually. Fixed gear city bikes have a lot in common with track bikes. These are fast, aggressive, simple bicycles, where the rear wheel does not coast. You pedal all the time. If you want to stop on a track bike, you have to slow your pedaling down, which is why most fixed geared bikes used to only be found on an enclosed track. Fixed gear bikes for the street are popular as well now, but many of them have brakes and slightly lower gearing for practical riding.

Cyclocross is a popular winter sport, originating as a winter training and fun activity for road racers. You can compare it to mountain biking on a drop bar road bike, where one carries the bicycle over obstacles, as opposed to riding or hopping over the obstacles! Of course the bicycles are specialized with long wheelbases, high bottom brackets and clearance for mud and wide tires. Generally mud is involved.

Touring bicycles were very popular in the 1970s through early 1980s. A touring bicycle is basically the vehicle that the rider carries everything on that they might possibly need for self supported camping and riding, from one day to any length of time. Touring bicycles are geared very low for hauling large loads of necessities up mountains, have exceptionally long wheelbases to contribute to stability when descending the same mountains fully loaded, are upright and comfortable. Think of an RV. Sadly, less folks do self supported touring these days, and not every bicycle manufacturer offers a variety of machines designed for self supported travel.

Which One Is Right?
Again, think about your application, and remember, people graduate all the time. We've seen people go from a basic recreational road bike to a triathlon bike and also pick up a sport road bike for group rides in less than a year. Some people just get the bug and that's it! Come in and try a few, talk to a sales person and get some