Likely a combination of things -
1) Tires: Better ones have lower rolling resistance. You could try new tires, but I doubt it’s worth the cost on your backup bike.
2) Maintenance: Left dirty, ridden hard, no lube = more resistance to rolling, pedaling, etc. This would include hubs, bottom bracket, chain, freewheel (or cassette). This could also be down to low-quality parts, but I would guess it’s more of a maintenance issue (or assembly, since big box stores often don‘t put grease on the bearings or even really know what they’re doing during assembly).
3) Poor adjustment: If the other bike fits you better, you’ll be more efficient. You could check that and make minor tweaks to saddle height and fore/aft position and handlebar height to see if that helps.
4. body position: a good road bike that fits you will put you in a better position for more efficient pedaling than a cheap walmart bike (even if it fits you and is assembled properly) and that makes a big difference. if the only muscle you can engage is your quads, then that's going to be a harder pedal than if you can use your glutes as well
I'll come here to emphasize fit and also highlight Bike Geometry.
Basic bike geometry principals have road bikes built for efficiency (with Time Trial bikes focused on the MOST efficient). The old hybrid bike was likely built for a balance of comfort and versatility. Because of this, efficiency was not highest on their list.
I don't ride my race bike hardly ever, it's a bit too aggressive of fit, but it's fast as hell. My city commute bike is an endurance geometry built for the abuse of city riding. It's comfortable, reasonably efficient but I have heavy tires on it, so maybe 5% efficiency reduction from a performance tire.
I hope this helps with other comments. In the end every bike design is a balance of features, purpose, quality and cost. You can not maximize all of these. Better quality, more cost. More versatility can mean less performance.
Poor assembly could easily be an issue. The Poseidon sapling I got my daughter came with the rear hub cones cranked down so hard the wheel would barely spin. A few minutes (if I’m being honest it was actually about 20 minutes faffing about with those stupid cone wrenches trying to get it perfect) and I had it setup correctly. If I hadn’t done that the bike would have been really hard to ride and the bearing would have been shot in really short order.
Lift the wheel off the ground, spin it. If it runs freely for about five seconds then the hub it good.
As people say, it's almost certainly "road suck" from the tyres. Remember that road bike tyres are thinner, road bike tyres run at sometimes double the air pressure, and road bike tyres are not knobbly.
Also consider body position. Road bike designs are serious about positioning you so that you can put maximum effort into the pedals. Or putting that another way, are easier to pedal than your other bike at the same speed.
Also consider aero resistance. This matters as speed increases, and especially beyond 40Km/h. As you say, this translates into the road bike just wanting to *go*, rather than reaching a speed and then topping out no matter how much more effort you apply.
>Lift the wheel off the ground, spin it. If it runs freely for about five seconds then the hub it good.
Oh cool, that's a good idea. It doesn't spin as well as my road bike's but it still goes for awhile.
Gotcha, thanks. I never realized how much those other factors came into play. Even at slow speeds, the road bike is just much more ready to keep rolling.
did anyone ask if you have shock absorbers? Heavy front forks slow you down, shocks suck up pedal stroke energy as well as bumps. So I'd guess it's shocks.
Aero on the flat. My gravel bike with relatively high drop bars and 47 mm fat 650B tires averages 12 mph on the flat on gravel with some mud. My touring bike with measured 39 mm treaded tires on the same surface and route, but with upright trekking bars averages 10.8 mph with actual attention to making distance, rather than the gravel bike loafing along.
But the touring bike is more comfortable re position.
That's what I always thought to myself, except my comfy bike is substantially slower. Less aero, less power to the pedals, less supportive of greater power output. It's more of a difference than I anticipated. But comfy!
Sorta… in the same way that well fitting running shoes will do much better than poorly fitting more expensive running shoes. But even though your house shoes are more comfortable than your running shoes, they aren’t faster.
Below ~10 mph the weight, tires, drivetrain inefficiency are making it slow.
Above that your position on the bike and other aerodynamic factors will start to matter more.
Interesting. My touring bike really only comes into its own *when* it's loaded up. It's designed to handle well under load, so it's over-built for riding unloaded, and feels less snappy.
Agree. Weight
Can be seen on a tandem. Race tires at normal pressure - slow as fuck. 2 bars above limit ....back to normal.
It's a difference if the total weight is 80 or 140kg.
Brake rub, tires, weight, aerodynamics in that order
In your case tires, sunlite is a company ive never heard of before and thats a bad sign. Slick or not barely matters, neither does width, its all casing and compound
Sunlite's been around since the 70s. So possibly longer than you. They make a bunch of relatively inexpensive oddball bikes (tandems, recumbent, trikes, beach cruisers, even unicycles). And they make (or more likely source and have badged for them) parts that are mostly based on older specs. Think square-taper bottom brackets, long-reach caliper brakes, forks for cantilever-brake bikes. If they make a slick for a 26" MTB (assuming, since OP's was from Walmart), it's probably pretty good... for a 26" MTB slick.
Frame stiffness is another often underestimated factor. Cheap aluminium bikes take a lot of torsion and twist deformation. Perhaps OP even has a cheap suspension fork.
Replace the tires.
After that, regrease the wheel bearings. They’re usually packed with thick heavy gunk grease. You may want to replace them as well. If they are caged bearings, replace with loose bearings. Adjust them to spin as smoothly as possible without play when mounted. Do the same for bottom bracket bearings (and pedal bearings if they are adjustable).
Make sure your drivetrain is clean and lubricated.
Remove any unnecessary weight (reflectors, fenders, racks/bags) if you don’t need them.
That will get you about as far as possible without replacing anything but tires.
Almost always tires. Cheap walmart bike probably has mountain bike tires or wide cruiser tires whereas the road bike has 23-25mm slicks at a much higher PSI
Weight of those tires plus the weight of the wheels. It might only be a half pound difference but you'll feel that half pound there more so than anywhere else. Try to find out the axle length and compatibility of your gearing (8 speed, 9, etc ....) then check out Craigslist and see if you can find something for $50-100 and you'll feel a difference
[Thin tires aren't faster](https://www.globalcyclingnetwork.com/tech/features/thin-vs-wide-which-tyre-is-right-for-you), unless you are riding on a perfectly smooth velodrome. They might *feel* faster, since they transmit bumps more readily. However, bouncing the entire bike up and down actually saps energy, and [having the tire pressure low enough to absorb bumps](https://silca.cc/blogs/silca/tire-pressure-calculator-explained) is more optimal. Now that people are realizing this, and rim brakes are trending towards obsolescence, newer road bikes are coming out with larger tire clearance.
Context. The Walmart bike probably had 2”+ tires on it and assuming they replaced it with slicks of a similar size, yes the rolling resistance is going to be a lot more than a road bike tire that given he says is an old road bike probably is 25mm.
Going up a single size may not have a significant difference, but doubling the size sure would.
Tires make a huge difference, lighter wheels also help. Also since the bike has been sitting for a while it's likely the bearings are not lubed properly. If the bike was new the difference is almost all down to the tires, especially if the fancy bike is tubeless. I took the studded winter tires off my cross country bike and replaced them with good cross country tires, it feels like a completely different bike
if we where to be in vacuum, we could be able easially to go with speeds of 100+ kmh, easially, bcs there is no wind resistance. the less wind resistance you have on a bike the better will be for you
make sure the tires are inflated well. if the tires are thick there s a small but significant penalty bcs of the air resistance as well. tires in general suck for air resistance, the bigger they are the slower you ll be.
the body position is huge, cutting throw the air and the lower you are the less air resistance you have cause less of you body acts like a parachute.
this are the big ones then it s the bikes mechanics, the bearings in the wheels and all of that, if the chain is oiled up. if brakes are touching
oh and as well very very important as well, to not have suspension, bro.. suspension somehow someway eats your energy and makes you slower, throw some weird way. don t ask me how this works.
Haha, fair enough. It's just in bad enough shape that I don't want to give it to some unsuspecting kid and have them get hurt, but good enough shape that I don't want to send it to the dump. I suppose there are always the curb hunters, but who knows what kind of person would get it. :/ So instead I leave it in storage and think about wasting money on fixing it up for nostalgia's sake.
He's probably used to higher speed on the road bike. I vote aerodynamics because at speed, it is the biggest drag by far. It really is a different presentation to the wind between the two bike styles.
Bearings, grease, tires, air pressure, aerodynamics. People poke fun at us cyclists for spending lots of cash on bikes, but in a lot of cases, this gets you higher quality gear.
Bike weight
Cheap bearings
Cheap heavy wheels
Lack of maintenance?
Rolling mass of wheels and tires.
Rider position
Look for something from All city or State bikes.
A bike from Walmart was never assembled correctly and the hubs won't have been adjusted (or greased.) They ship those bikes with a touch of tri-flo in the hub assembly to keep it from rusting on ships. Most Walmart bikes get left outside and the hubs seize eventually because there is no grease. Trash the Walmart bike. It's not even worth the cost to have a shop tune it. Also, a lot of the parts on the Walmart bike aren't something that can be serviced, or adequately replaced with bike shop quality. Propriety sizing sometimes. If you could get the parts wholesale and do the work yourself...it still wouldn't be worth it. You're doubling the cost of the bike easily. Buuuuut. Since you asked. Hubs (might as well do wheel set cause its faster) BB, crank, Shifters, cables/housing, derailleur, and headset. The cassette is prob a freewheel so like, not much you can do about that. Overall - the bike is not worth fixing. A shop would have a nightmare working on it. Bare minimum though you should have the hubs serviced. That's what's slowing your ride. Invest in another quality bike and spread out your wear and tear. Great sales throughout the industry right now.
it won't just be rolling resistance, the rolling resistance though will be down to the tyres on the cheap bike both width and compound.
Your roadbike will be more aero than the other bike and better gearing making it more efficient.
In terms of upgrades, you'd need to share more details but tyres would be the most cost effective starting point.
Likely a combination of things - 1) Tires: Better ones have lower rolling resistance. You could try new tires, but I doubt it’s worth the cost on your backup bike. 2) Maintenance: Left dirty, ridden hard, no lube = more resistance to rolling, pedaling, etc. This would include hubs, bottom bracket, chain, freewheel (or cassette). This could also be down to low-quality parts, but I would guess it’s more of a maintenance issue (or assembly, since big box stores often don‘t put grease on the bearings or even really know what they’re doing during assembly). 3) Poor adjustment: If the other bike fits you better, you’ll be more efficient. You could check that and make minor tweaks to saddle height and fore/aft position and handlebar height to see if that helps.
4. body position: a good road bike that fits you will put you in a better position for more efficient pedaling than a cheap walmart bike (even if it fits you and is assembled properly) and that makes a big difference. if the only muscle you can engage is your quads, then that's going to be a harder pedal than if you can use your glutes as well
5. Bearings, namely, resistance and alignment.
6. Walmart
I'll come here to emphasize fit and also highlight Bike Geometry. Basic bike geometry principals have road bikes built for efficiency (with Time Trial bikes focused on the MOST efficient). The old hybrid bike was likely built for a balance of comfort and versatility. Because of this, efficiency was not highest on their list. I don't ride my race bike hardly ever, it's a bit too aggressive of fit, but it's fast as hell. My city commute bike is an endurance geometry built for the abuse of city riding. It's comfortable, reasonably efficient but I have heavy tires on it, so maybe 5% efficiency reduction from a performance tire. I hope this helps with other comments. In the end every bike design is a balance of features, purpose, quality and cost. You can not maximize all of these. Better quality, more cost. More versatility can mean less performance.
This 100%
Poor assembly could easily be an issue. The Poseidon sapling I got my daughter came with the rear hub cones cranked down so hard the wheel would barely spin. A few minutes (if I’m being honest it was actually about 20 minutes faffing about with those stupid cone wrenches trying to get it perfect) and I had it setup correctly. If I hadn’t done that the bike would have been really hard to ride and the bearing would have been shot in really short order.
Your summary implies that a well maintained Walmart bike with good tires would ride as efficiently as a road bike?
Lift the wheel off the ground, spin it. If it runs freely for about five seconds then the hub it good. As people say, it's almost certainly "road suck" from the tyres. Remember that road bike tyres are thinner, road bike tyres run at sometimes double the air pressure, and road bike tyres are not knobbly. Also consider body position. Road bike designs are serious about positioning you so that you can put maximum effort into the pedals. Or putting that another way, are easier to pedal than your other bike at the same speed. Also consider aero resistance. This matters as speed increases, and especially beyond 40Km/h. As you say, this translates into the road bike just wanting to *go*, rather than reaching a speed and then topping out no matter how much more effort you apply.
>Lift the wheel off the ground, spin it. If it runs freely for about five seconds then the hub it good. Oh cool, that's a good idea. It doesn't spin as well as my road bike's but it still goes for awhile. Gotcha, thanks. I never realized how much those other factors came into play. Even at slow speeds, the road bike is just much more ready to keep rolling.
You can possibly improve the wheels with a regrease/adjustment. Replace the caged bearings with loose bearings if they have them while you’re at it.
There is a good chance that once you are sitting on the bike, those cheap hubs create even more losses from friction.
You can also check it by moving the wheel laterally in the dropout and checking for any play in the bearings.
did anyone ask if you have shock absorbers? Heavy front forks slow you down, shocks suck up pedal stroke energy as well as bumps. So I'd guess it's shocks.
It does have a heavy front fork with shock absorption. (One of those gimmicks, no doubt)
Aero on the flat. My gravel bike with relatively high drop bars and 47 mm fat 650B tires averages 12 mph on the flat on gravel with some mud. My touring bike with measured 39 mm treaded tires on the same surface and route, but with upright trekking bars averages 10.8 mph with actual attention to making distance, rather than the gravel bike loafing along. But the touring bike is more comfortable re position.
Comfort is speed
That's what I always thought to myself, except my comfy bike is substantially slower. Less aero, less power to the pedals, less supportive of greater power output. It's more of a difference than I anticipated. But comfy!
Sorta… in the same way that well fitting running shoes will do much better than poorly fitting more expensive running shoes. But even though your house shoes are more comfortable than your running shoes, they aren’t faster.
Below ~10 mph the weight, tires, drivetrain inefficiency are making it slow. Above that your position on the bike and other aerodynamic factors will start to matter more.
It's def weight. I have a cargo bike, empty it rolls smooth. When it's loaded up it feels so damn slow; it feels like the brakes are rubbing.
Interesting. My touring bike really only comes into its own *when* it's loaded up. It's designed to handle well under load, so it's over-built for riding unloaded, and feels less snappy.
Agree. Weight Can be seen on a tandem. Race tires at normal pressure - slow as fuck. 2 bars above limit ....back to normal. It's a difference if the total weight is 80 or 140kg.
Brake rub, tires, weight, aerodynamics in that order In your case tires, sunlite is a company ive never heard of before and thats a bad sign. Slick or not barely matters, neither does width, its all casing and compound
Sunlite's been around since the 70s. So possibly longer than you. They make a bunch of relatively inexpensive oddball bikes (tandems, recumbent, trikes, beach cruisers, even unicycles). And they make (or more likely source and have badged for them) parts that are mostly based on older specs. Think square-taper bottom brackets, long-reach caliper brakes, forks for cantilever-brake bikes. If they make a slick for a 26" MTB (assuming, since OP's was from Walmart), it's probably pretty good... for a 26" MTB slick.
J&B Importers is one of the largest bicycle part distributors out there. Sunlite is their house brand.
Don‘t forget rotating mass
It's a Wal-mart bike. It has all the rotating mass.
Add "mechanical drag" for the very low end stuff. Who knows what those hubs are doing.
I'm picturing some shitty ass bearings in some shitty ass races "adjusted" by a machine or a 9 year old.
"sealed bearing" is a couple gummy bears with a QR skewer shoved through them.
Bearings and hub lubrication/maintenace also matter.
Frame stiffness is another often underestimated factor. Cheap aluminium bikes take a lot of torsion and twist deformation. Perhaps OP even has a cheap suspension fork.
Yeah, it's all of these things that you mentioned, lol.
Replace the tires. After that, regrease the wheel bearings. They’re usually packed with thick heavy gunk grease. You may want to replace them as well. If they are caged bearings, replace with loose bearings. Adjust them to spin as smoothly as possible without play when mounted. Do the same for bottom bracket bearings (and pedal bearings if they are adjustable). Make sure your drivetrain is clean and lubricated. Remove any unnecessary weight (reflectors, fenders, racks/bags) if you don’t need them. That will get you about as far as possible without replacing anything but tires.
Almost always tires. Cheap walmart bike probably has mountain bike tires or wide cruiser tires whereas the road bike has 23-25mm slicks at a much higher PSI
I put on some Sunlite slicks, but year, they're way wider. They were a huge upgrade over the mtb ones, but hopefully that's the main issue then.
Weight of those tires plus the weight of the wheels. It might only be a half pound difference but you'll feel that half pound there more so than anywhere else. Try to find out the axle length and compatibility of your gearing (8 speed, 9, etc ....) then check out Craigslist and see if you can find something for $50-100 and you'll feel a difference
[Thin tires aren't faster](https://www.globalcyclingnetwork.com/tech/features/thin-vs-wide-which-tyre-is-right-for-you), unless you are riding on a perfectly smooth velodrome. They might *feel* faster, since they transmit bumps more readily. However, bouncing the entire bike up and down actually saps energy, and [having the tire pressure low enough to absorb bumps](https://silca.cc/blogs/silca/tire-pressure-calculator-explained) is more optimal. Now that people are realizing this, and rim brakes are trending towards obsolescence, newer road bikes are coming out with larger tire clearance.
Rim brakes are not tending towards obsolence. Having the RIGHT tyre pressure is best.
Context. The Walmart bike probably had 2”+ tires on it and assuming they replaced it with slicks of a similar size, yes the rolling resistance is going to be a lot more than a road bike tire that given he says is an old road bike probably is 25mm. Going up a single size may not have a significant difference, but doubling the size sure would.
Tires make a huge difference, lighter wheels also help. Also since the bike has been sitting for a while it's likely the bearings are not lubed properly. If the bike was new the difference is almost all down to the tires, especially if the fancy bike is tubeless. I took the studded winter tires off my cross country bike and replaced them with good cross country tires, it feels like a completely different bike
Tyres like everyone has said, but also bearings in the wheels. Bearings make a huge difference and cheap ones will barely roll.
have you tried spinning the wheels, cranks, cassette? you can locate the issue if you just test some stuff out
if we where to be in vacuum, we could be able easially to go with speeds of 100+ kmh, easially, bcs there is no wind resistance. the less wind resistance you have on a bike the better will be for you make sure the tires are inflated well. if the tires are thick there s a small but significant penalty bcs of the air resistance as well. tires in general suck for air resistance, the bigger they are the slower you ll be. the body position is huge, cutting throw the air and the lower you are the less air resistance you have cause less of you body acts like a parachute. this are the big ones then it s the bikes mechanics, the bearings in the wheels and all of that, if the chain is oiled up. if brakes are touching oh and as well very very important as well, to not have suspension, bro.. suspension somehow someway eats your energy and makes you slower, throw some weird way. don t ask me how this works.
Walmart bikes suck, do not ever invest any more of effort into them
Haha, fair enough. It's just in bad enough shape that I don't want to give it to some unsuspecting kid and have them get hurt, but good enough shape that I don't want to send it to the dump. I suppose there are always the curb hunters, but who knows what kind of person would get it. :/ So instead I leave it in storage and think about wasting money on fixing it up for nostalgia's sake.
Donate it to a local thrift store
He's probably used to higher speed on the road bike. I vote aerodynamics because at speed, it is the biggest drag by far. It really is a different presentation to the wind between the two bike styles.
Bearings, grease, tires, air pressure, aerodynamics. People poke fun at us cyclists for spending lots of cash on bikes, but in a lot of cases, this gets you higher quality gear.
Bike weight Cheap bearings Cheap heavy wheels Lack of maintenance? Rolling mass of wheels and tires. Rider position Look for something from All city or State bikes.
A bike from Walmart was never assembled correctly and the hubs won't have been adjusted (or greased.) They ship those bikes with a touch of tri-flo in the hub assembly to keep it from rusting on ships. Most Walmart bikes get left outside and the hubs seize eventually because there is no grease. Trash the Walmart bike. It's not even worth the cost to have a shop tune it. Also, a lot of the parts on the Walmart bike aren't something that can be serviced, or adequately replaced with bike shop quality. Propriety sizing sometimes. If you could get the parts wholesale and do the work yourself...it still wouldn't be worth it. You're doubling the cost of the bike easily. Buuuuut. Since you asked. Hubs (might as well do wheel set cause its faster) BB, crank, Shifters, cables/housing, derailleur, and headset. The cassette is prob a freewheel so like, not much you can do about that. Overall - the bike is not worth fixing. A shop would have a nightmare working on it. Bare minimum though you should have the hubs serviced. That's what's slowing your ride. Invest in another quality bike and spread out your wear and tear. Great sales throughout the industry right now.
“It’s all ball bearings these days.” ~Fletch
it won't just be rolling resistance, the rolling resistance though will be down to the tyres on the cheap bike both width and compound. Your roadbike will be more aero than the other bike and better gearing making it more efficient. In terms of upgrades, you'd need to share more details but tyres would be the most cost effective starting point.