Information on Hybrid Bikes

Fitness or hybrid bikes combine elements of a standard city bicycle with a mountain bike and are most often seen in cities, since their 33-40 mm wide tyres don’t respond well to muddy or sandy ground. Most people who do want to go off-road with these bikes have a separate set of tires which they change depending on how they will use the bike.

In this sense, the hybrid works exactly how you would expect a combination of two bicycles to work; it is a good choice if you can only afford one bike that you want to use in a variety of ways. It might not excel at anything in particular but if you are willing to put a little work in, you can enjoy a lot of success with it wherever you go.

But let’s face it, the tires of a hybrid bike are selected according to its overall design and not necessarily because of their functional value. For this reason, these bikes don’t reach speeds much greater than that of a trekking bike. However, the real advantage of fitness bicycles is their especially sleek and stable build, which often leads to them being mistaken for racing bikes.

Cannondale and Trek are two well known manufacturers of hybrid bicycles and it’s easy to spot a well made one because the handlebars and gears are usually taken from a mountain bike. Similarly the hybrid often features a high bottom bracket. For mountain bikes, this is great because it means that uneven terrain can be handled with relative ease, however for fitness bikes it is fairly inefficient because they were not built to be rode in this way and have the wrong sort of tires to go off-road.

From city bikes, the hybrid bike has incorporated the frame, the gear ratio (the proportion of gear teeth to chain rings and bevels), the rotor disk and the calliper brakes. It does not, however, include a mudguard or any space to stow a rucksack.

Perhaps the greatest disadvantage of the hybrid bike is that it is often tricky to get on and off, which can be particularly awkward in heavy traffic or busy pedestrian zones.

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