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My son (age 15) and I have ridden a couple of thousand miles in the past few years--road riding. We like mountain climbs and descents. He was on a comfort bike until a month ago, when he acquired his big brother's road bike--an older Cannondale Saeco with an aluminum frame. The other day, standing on the pedals and sprinting hard at about 25 mph, he lost control, veered right, and hit a concrete storm-sewer inlet at the side of the road. He crunched the front wheel, bent the frame, and dinged himself up pretty good--thankfully no head injury or internal injuries. This whole time I've been riding a mountain bike with 1.6-inch road tires. For at time I also had a road bike (a nice, older Klein Aura V). To me the road bike felt a little twitchy in its handling, and, with safety in view (as well as my wife's peace of mind), I decided to stick with the mountain bike, which felt a little more stable and of course has stronger wheels and wider tires. Now we need to decide what kind of bike to get for my son. I'm not finding a great deal of discussion on the internet about relative safety of road-style bikes vs. mountain bikes for road riding. I'm sure there's a great deal of variety of handling characteristics within each category, depending on wheelbase, frame stiffness and geometry, wheel diameter and weight, etc. Sure would appreciate any helpful discussion of the safety issues here, or pointers to web sites where these things are knowledgeably discussed.

Randy
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    Two "road" bikes can be as dissimilar as a road bike and a mountain bike. Try looking at touring bikes or hybrids: they're sturdy, fast, and easy to handle. If you're staying on paved road or gravel trails it is the way to go. – WTHarper Sep 21 '13 at 16:19
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    There's some, in the answer to Explaining the effects of frame geometries. – ChrisW Sep 21 '13 at 16:34
  • Yes, a helpful discussion there. The concept of "trail" was new to me and will help me find the tradeoff between stability and maneuverability that I'm looking for. – Randy Sep 21 '13 at 17:11
  • I'd like to suggest that you look at the Surly Long Haul Trucker. It is a classic touring bike, overbuilt (so it is very durable), it comes with 26" and 700c wheel options so you size it correctly. The tire clearance is also quite large so you can experiment with different width tires. Overall it is a great value! – WTHarper Sep 22 '13 at 15:39
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    I don't mean this unkindly but it sounds like your son crashed due to carelessness. And its possible to ride any bike carelessly. You might argue that a road bike is more dangerous because of faster speeds but (a) these speeds could equally add to his thrill of cycling, and (b) I'm sure trail descents can be quite dangerous too. I guess I'm saying that personally, I would think hard before using this as a purchase criterion, I'd place more emphasis on the surfaces he sees himself riding. – PeteH Sep 22 '13 at 19:08
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    +1 For @PeterH. Also not to be unkindly how do you know if it was the bike, the wheel, the tire or the rider? I personally have done a hard sprint or two where I -- very momentarily -- looked down at the ground/pedals and had a "control scare". But you are on the right track now that you know about trail. A bike meant for criterium racing will be "twitchy" in this sense. At the other end of the spectrum, something like a Surly LHT can be ridden with no hands easily. – Arbalest Sep 23 '13 at 01:14
  • @WTHarper: Thanks for the tip on the Surly LHT. The descriptions I read sound great; not so sure, though, about a steel frame (we love to climb!) and bar-end shifters. And for the quality of its components, the price seems high enough that I'd pause over much upgrading. Still, I want to give it a closer look. Thanks. – Randy Sep 23 '13 at 23:40
  • @Arbalest, It's interesting that you say you have had control scares when looking down at the ground/pedals. I imagine this is what he was doing. I gather that looking down like this must be a frequent cause of loss of control? I was not aware of that idea. Maybe I've learned instinctively to keep my eyes ahead, without actually realizing it. Is looking down in fact a common cause for loss of control? – Randy Sep 23 '13 at 23:42
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    @PeterH, No need to worry about being unkind. "Carelessness" is probably a bit of an overstatement: his unfamiliarity with this particular bike's handling under such riding conditions is probably the key failure. Yes, he could learn how to handle a twitchy bike better with experience. But he's not aiming to develop into a serious racer. He just wants to enjoy basic road riding (not trail riding; my initial post specified road riding). I've been quite satisfied with my mountain bike for road riding, so if it has a safety advantage in handling, brakes, tires, etc, it deserves consideration here. – Randy Sep 23 '13 at 23:42
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    @Randy - I can't speak for anyone else, but for me an all-out sprint used to mean being out of the saddle and trying to keep the torso horizontal. And with the occasional grunting-pedal-stomp I would drop my head down. I don't have that problem anymore as I would have a heart attack or a muscle spasm immediately. ;-) – Arbalest Sep 24 '13 at 00:05
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    @Randy perhaps "inexperience" would have been a better word. As other people have said, you get levels of twitchiness in road bikes, generally the more racy, the more twitchy. You can guarantee that a pro's $10k ride will feel very different to the $250 ride in your local chain store. I mentioned trails just to illustrate how cycling could be dangerous on any bike, but (personally) if I were to only ride on the road I wouldn't even look at buying a mountain bike. I'd just be coming at this from the perspective of enjoying going at a decent speed, and bikes' efficiencies on tarmac. – PeteH Sep 24 '13 at 10:41
  • My impression (not a mountain biker at all) has been that true mountain bikes tend to have a steeper head angle than typical road bikes, to provide more maneuverability. This will make them "twitchier" and less stable on the highway at high speeds. (The look-alike "mountain bikes" sold in department stores, OTOH, are apt to be really designed more for street riding.) True racing bikes will also be less stable, especially those designed for short courses. A non-racing road bike, on the other hand, SHOULD be designed for stability, with "touring" bikes generally the most stable. – Daniel R Hicks Sep 24 '13 at 11:36
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    There's a class of bikes called "hybrid" which are good for roads (much better than MTBs) but aren't specialized for racing: for example http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/q/2767/1097 – ChrisW Sep 24 '13 at 11:40
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    Two other observations: 1) The bike from his older brother is probably a bit too big for him. 2) The accident very well may have been precipitated by his foot slipping from the pedal or a missed shift (he of course shouldn't shift while standing, but tell that to a 15-year-old) or some other incident that he either doesn't remember or doesn't want to admit. – Daniel R Hicks Sep 24 '13 at 11:41
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    OK, two more observations: 1) That Klein bike of yours had (judging from pictures) a fork with virtually no "rake", making it even twitchier than than the Saeco. 2) 25mph is pretty darned fast. Going that speed you do not just make a sudden turn with any bike, and an inexperienced rider can easily get into trouble. – Daniel R Hicks Sep 24 '13 at 11:48
  • And +1 on the "control scare" thing. Looking down you can easily get disoriented and panic, especially if you run onto some slightly rough pavement without anticipating it. The "looking down" thing seems to be a combo of simply not being aware of the road ahead and vertigo due to the lack of a sense of "horizon" and the "odd" position of the ears' semicircular canals. – Daniel R Hicks Sep 24 '13 at 11:55
  • Just an anecdote: I'm a @ountain biker, including dh racing so I'm more accustomed to mtb geometry and posture. I rarely ride road bikes, but this happened to me on a road bike. Descending a steeply sloped concrete road, braked too much, overheated rims an blowed front tube, an a few secs after the rear one. Despite the blown tires and the slight curve I managed to stabilize and avoid the crash. What saved me was the skinny tires. Had that happened with an mtb I has surely crashed and fallen under the passing cars. – Jahaziel Sep 24 '13 at 18:03
  • @Jahaziel That problem might never have happened on a MTB, which is more likely than a road bike to have disk brakes (not rim brakes). – ChrisW Sep 25 '13 at 09:15
  • @ChisW: agreed on that. But I have had similar problems with rim brakes on mtbs. On my beginning I remained squeezing brakes all the way down, and fortunately did not blown the tubes but caused leaks in the valve stem-tube interface, wich gives a little more time to react. The reason I overheated rims on my road bike incident though was old, hardened brake pads. What I wanted to point out but didn't explicitly enough is tha sudden loss of air is more dramatic on a fat tire. – Jahaziel Sep 25 '13 at 15:03
  • @DanielRHicks Thanks for the comments. My Cannondale F700 MTB (from about 1998) is more stable than the Klein Aura road bike I compared it to a couple of years ago. Just eyeballing it, I'd say that, whatever the head angle, it has more trail than a lot of road bikes. It has very little fork rake, so it can have a steeper head angle and still have plenty of trail. Perhaps that's what you're seeing in the MTBs: with a straight fork, the steeper head angle keeps the trail from becoming excessive. If that seems counterintuitive, just look at diagrams of frame geometry and you can see how it works. – Randy Sep 25 '13 at 22:31
  • @DanielRHicks: Actually, my son is almost exactly the same size as his older brother. The bike is a perfect fit for size. At any rate, at issue in my question is not so much why the accident happened. In choosing a new bike, I'm not just thinking about how to avoid repeating this particular scenario but rather whether one style of bike or the other might in general prove to be safer. My initial post has a focus on handling, since that was much on my mind after this particular accident. But I really intended the question to be broader, including other safety issues like tires and brakes. – Randy Sep 25 '13 at 22:39
  • @Jahaziel: Glad you survived your crash! I don't quite follow the logic, though, about how the wider tires of the MTB would have made your crash worse. My MTB tires are a medium width (1.6") road tire, and if my son were to go to the MTB, he'd have about the same tire on his bike. But regardless, I don't quite get how the wider tire would have made things worse. If there's something for me to learn here, please let me in on it in a bit more detail if you can spare the time. – Randy Sep 25 '13 at 22:42
  • I think I'm satisfied with what I've learned from this discussion and the further research I did as a result of some of the comments--especially regarding frame geometry. Thanks to all who contributed. I'll continue to check back for any more insights that may be offered, but life moves on, and it's time for me to move on with it. :-) – Randy Sep 25 '13 at 22:45
  • @Jahaziel: Oops; meant to say "Glad you didn't crash." Just realized my error. – Randy Sep 26 '13 at 01:17
  • @Randy: my logic is that skinny tires move a lot less when deflated, while fat tires are far more difficult to control when they have too little air. In fact, I rode my bursted tubes road bike 5 km (2mi) across my disorganized city and got to work on time, just had to avoid hard cornering. – Jahaziel Sep 26 '13 at 15:01
  • @Randy: on the other hand, I once had a puncture due to rim tape failure while commuting on an mtb, a slow leak that I hadn't noticed. When II tried to pedal hard through a crossing, the front tire whipped beyond my control and fell to the side, crashing a slowly moving bus's sidewall. Note thoug, that both anecdotes are about commuting, not sporting.tR – Jahaziel Sep 26 '13 at 15:16
  • @Jahaziel: I was aware of how squirrely the larger tires are when flat, but I was thinking the narrow tire would likely result in uncushioned rim-to-road contact that might be equally difficult to control, especially with the front tire and when cornering. If the narrow tire is going to stay between the rim and the road at least a good bit of the time, I can see how it would handle better than a wide one. Thanks. – Randy Sep 27 '13 at 01:15

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I would say it's debatable and depends on the individual's preference. Mountain bikes (MTBs) obviously have more traction due to wider and more grippy tyre designs. However a road bike could hold a turn better due to lack of shoulder on the tyre. Speeds tend to be lower on a mountain bike due to added weight and those grippy tyres. On the other hand these slower speeds could be a disadvantage in road traffic. (for reference I ride both an MTB mainly off road and a hybrid with road tyres for paved trails and roads)

I would recommend looking at better/further safety equipment (knee pads, elbow pads, gloves etc) and/or training rather than a new bike. For one, It's cheaper, but it will also install confidence.

Another option is to try with a rented mountain bike to see which your son prefers.

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Mark W
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  • As I've indicated elsewhere, I'm envisioning a MTB with road tires, not knobbies. I've actually ordered a bike from Nashbar (the FB-1): it has a pretty relaxed frame geometry. I hit it on a 2-day discount that made it too good a deal to pass up, as it also had a lot of other valued features (good gearing range, pedals with a flat side and a clip side, etc.). If he's not satisfied, then we'll also look for something a little more aggressive on Craigslist, and, as you suggest, we can spend some time in comparison. Any loss in resale of the rejected bike is just the cost of the decision process. – Randy Sep 25 '13 at 22:50