[scottbooth]

IMHO...

If you are planning to ride on the road I would get a good (used or new) road bike, get used to riding it on the road, and try not to be scared about riding over patches of dirt. Road bikes still work there, they just get a little dicey with regard to turning and stopping. Kind of like driving a Porsche and hitting some wet road or ice, you just need to be careful about dealing with available traction. On less-than-ideal surfaces, standard track driving rules apply: pay attention, do your braking in a straight line, turn when you have slowed down, etc. I have never dumped my road bike due to road conditions. I have ridden it on dirt roads and in sand. I do not recommend the sand.

I have both a road bike and a mountain bike, and have ridden hybrids when I have rented them on vacation. Hybrids get the job done but have nowhere near the handling precision, and outright speed, of a road bike. Nor the trail handling ability of a mountain bike. They are all about compromise.

After you have ridden a real road bike, getting on a hybrid or a mountain bike feels a lot like stepping out of a sports car (Porsche, BMW, etc.) and into a good SUV or station wagon. Yes you can still get there, and it may handle the turns with some degree of competence, but the feel is not the same, and that is a big part of enjoying the ride.

I have owned two road bikes in my life. The first was a Miyata (always fun to have to describe to friends that it was not a Mazda roadster) that I paid $500 for brand new in 1988. I rode it until 2003, when the frame cracked due either to the fact that it could no longer cope with my blistering strength, or possibly just years and years of fatigue in what was a pretty cheap frame to begin with.

I went way upscale and replaced it with a Trek Madone (Lance's bike from the last year's tour) because while I may never be able to afford a high end Porsche race car (still hoping though), I can at least stretch to pay for a semi high end race bike. And amortizing 16 years into the future, it did not seem like a bad deal.

The Madone is a classic example of being partway up the sharp bend of the price/performance curve. Yes it is better than my old bike, but nowhere near justifying the price. If you are more reasonable than I, you can get a good road bike for $800 brand new, cheaper used. My riding buddy has one of these, I tried it once and it is almost all there compared to my bike. He thought his bike was "twitchy" until he rode mine. It is part of the genre, and the more-expensive, lighter ones are more that way. But you get used to it, and the payoff is in efficiency and speed.

Or, if you are wanting to hit the trails, go with a real mountain bike. They feel nearly worthless on the road, but trails are a lot of fun.

Given my appreciation for good handling on the road or on the trail, I have a hard time justifying a hybrid for anyone except the most casual rider who aims to stay casual. If that is you, go for a hybrid and be happy. It is far better to ride than to not ride. But if you want to ride fast, on the road or on a trail, get a bike that is set up for what you want to do.

Off soapbox...

Scott