Is Mountain Biking Harder Than Road Cycling? GMBN Vs. GCN
Is mountain biking harder than road cycling? We used a powermeter to find out.
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Let’s get it out the way; we think that all cycling is great. But, we reckon that some disciplines (mountain biking) might be a little bit more difficult than others (cough, road). So, there’s only one way to decide it… We got our friends over at the Global Cycling Network (check them out here: http://gcn.eu/SubscribeToGCN) involved and compared our efforts over a one hour ride.
What do you reckon is harder? Let us know down in the comments.
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totally useless to compare these two. MTB require more technical knowledge,
while road cycling more consistent power.
The question was “Is mountain biking harder than road cycling?”. You
answered the question “Is mountain biking more intense than road cycling?”
Cyclocross, Road, MTB is my hardness order. I find road training makes me
much stronger on MTB
should have done a crit race for the road test, keeping a 350+ wattage for
over an hour as well as fast tight corners at upwards to 50-55k an hour and
jumping up to 1100 watts out of them, as well as bursting up to 700-800
watts to close gaps and check attacks, all while riding inches away from
dozens of other riders.
MTB resembles more to interval exersice , thought Cycling is more aerobic
,they are both hard and easy in very diferent ways.
what a stupid video…
I love both! When I want an adrenalin rush I hit the single tracks, when I
want to feel the speed and work on endurance I get on the skinnies.
I believe they are equal. I ride both . But it’s like comparing apples &
oranges . They work me out differently . My roadbike works my legs harder
and my mtb works my arms & upper body more. Most cyclist here in Western
Arkansas ride both . Road in spring & summer and MTB in fall and winter.
Witch ever I ride here it’s a climb in every direction. I still say they
are so different that it’s not accurate to compare them. Like a sport car
and 4 wheel drive truck very different . Sure by their nature a rider can
ride twice or more the miles on a roadbike in the same amount of time but
feel equally exhausted afterwards.
Conclusion: road is about 50% harder.
If you don’t consider the technicality of mountain, the road cyclist would
basically be 25 to 50% faster than the mountain biker.
Sorry mtb, you are fun, but not hard enough
I’ve just came back from a 23km of technical trail ride here in Singapore.
Yesterday I did 111km on my road bike with considerable elevations. There
is nothing to argue, the mountain biking makes the road riding seems like a
walk in the park. Try both disciplines and judge for yourself.
Clearly the correct answer should have been cyclocross. 60 minutes of high
intensity off the bike on the bike racing. Its probably why some of the
best cx riders also are quite capable at both road and mtb.
Thiis stupid – this is discussing cardiovascular difficulty – please
clarify that. You could throw Lance Armstrong on Josh Bryceland’s V10 and
tell him to go down a UCI WC DH run and he would biff immediately (well…
maybe not… but you know what I am saying).
I think both are hard, both are good for you and both are better then most
other sports.. for me though.. Road riding is just so freaking boring.. so
it gets done very little vs MTB. Where i do about 60miles a week. It makes
up for the hard slogs and thick muddy hill climbs by having jumps and
technical and bits the just make you smile or laugh.. never have that with
road.. just boring.. sorry
I really love your videos, but there’s one statement in this one I disagree
with. You list the MTB goals, as “fitter, faster, easier” and then state
“The truth is, it’s never going to get easier” but isn’t that exactly what
ebikes are about? Going faster, and having an easier time getting there?
I’d be interested to see what you think of bikes like the Scott E-Genius
710 compared to your usual Genius experience.
Bla,bla,bla…take a road bike and climb the Dolomiti!!!!! You’ll see
what’s harder.
do a mountainbikers on the road edition!
I was a huge mountain biker for years and we have some really technical
trails in my town where I would ride about 10-12 hours per week. When I
started road biking, it took me months until I could carry a decent pace,
even over the same amount of time I would ride my MTB, without bonking.
Asking which is “harder” without defining the term is kind of trivial. MTB
is more difficult in some aspects but it really depends on the terrain.
Another thing that roadies deal with on a daily basis that you usually
don’t on wooded trails is headwinds. Those can really break you down and
are inevitable. On my MTB, I had a lot more descents and high-speed
coasting that would carry me into short ascents fast enough that I could
get up most of them with a 30-second burst. On my road bike, I often have
to face a headwind equal or greater to my speed for over an hour or ride up
2km hills from a flat entry, which I never had to deal with on my MTB.
For me, it is much more difficult to sustain a good effort over a couple of
hours on fairly flat roads on my road bike than it is for me to smash hilly
trails on my MTB and I’m in much better shape now than when I mainly rode
XC. Road cycling also increased my endurance by several hours. Ultimately,
this test wasn’t very scientific and was pretty inconclusive.
I don’t buy it! And it seems like you guys don’t know much about power and
even less about math! If you really want to know which power meter recorded
the most output power for one hour, you’ve got to total the area under the
plot line. It looks to me like Dan probably output the most power for one
hour.
And this points to the lack of definition. How do you define “harder”? Do
you mean: “Who hits the highest peak power at any instant?” Then Neal
“wins”—but it’s an extremely questionable victory. If you mean “Who
outputs the most total power for an hour?” then Dan probably wins (but it’s
difficult to tell from the disparate graphs without more metrics).
Then there is the obvious problem that a power meter is not sufficient to
answer the question “Is mountain biking harder than road cycling?”. There
are “difficulties” to mountain biking that are NOT measured by a power
meter. Here, an HRM (heart rate monitor) may help in a general way and Neal
alludes to his having been higher—but no data was provided to support
this claim. And it would be invalid anyway because you’re comparing the HRM
of two different people. Dan’s cardiovascular system could be way more
efficient and actually have a lower HRM when outputting the same exertion
as Neat at a higher HRM. Obviously, (as others have pointed out) you need
to do these kinds of comparisons with each participant riding both courses.
And the participants need fairly equal skill on both.
I could go on … but I’m sure you get the point. This was a really,
really, really BAD comparison and did NOT answer the question. And the fact
that you guys think that the mountain bike course “won” on the basis of the
information provided in this video is laughable. Mountain biking may,
indeed, be more difficult than road cycling—but you’re not going to prove
it this way. And the data you’ve provided thus far may actually support
road cycling as the more difficult.
Complete load of nonsense.
Dan smashed that effort! 313 watts average is like an FTP effort almost for
him now I bet :P
MTB is harder in my ass. Road Cycling is by far much awfully harder,
physically and mentally.
Great idea for a video, just think it could’ve been taken a bit further. I
can’t vouch for mountain biking, but serious road riding is absolutely
brutal. Even on the flats, to maintain an average speed of around 40kph
(slow by TDF standards) for about 200km requires massive amounts of
strength, stamina and willpower. Put big hills into the mix and it gets
even worse. Perhaps we’re comparing apples with oranges.
I loved the comedy showing you two being roadies ! Pity you didn’t show
more of that sequence.
As of the data of the MTB, wouldn’t be the “normalized power” much more
meaningful as it considers all those spikes and sprints?
fantastic, would have love the see the hr graphs overlayed over the power
ones.