Help a newbie who’s ‘changing codes’!

One other thought, with a
One other thought, with a road bike steering is almost leaning, weight on the bars will turn the wheel, rather than turning the bars. Quiet flat-ish roads and practice riding one handed, you’ll get the hang of it. Then there is the joy of learning to switch from hoods to drops. I agree with JonSP, I can ride with no hands for much longer on my road bike now than my mountain bike, though the MTB feels more stable initially. Lastly get your LBS to check the headset is greased properly at the first service. I had mine serviced recently and it helped a lot.

I’ve noticed a couple of
I’ve noticed a couple of times recently that I’ve nearly lost the front wheel on my MTB when using it to commute to work when nipping through traffic. I think because when I’m on my road bike I shift gears less due to using unindexed gears on the down tube, so when on the MTB I can thumb shift and keep both hands on the bars and my head up. This means though I’m in a higher gear when I go to stamp down and accelerate away, I’m kicking up the front wheel a little bit, fine and barely noticeablein a straight line but a bit of a “whoah there!” moment when turning slightly with (invariably) a Germanic Crushing Death Machine breathing down your neck.

MTB and Road riding are very
MTB and Road riding are very different so twitchiness when riding a Roadie is expected. I made the switch to Road about 6 years back, and I remember my first foray down a hill (geez, where do my hands go? Is being hunched over like that normal? Where are my brakes? Woah, that sure was hairy) LOL… So yeah, do not worry about what you are experiencing, it’s perfectly normal.

Some advice would be to set your bars a little higher (same level as your seat at best). And gradually lower the bars as you get more comfortable with the position. You will get the hang of it after a couple of rides. So hang in there. I would not change the tire width, as it really isnt going to make it less ‘skitchy’.

I ride both MTB and Road now and actually find it weird getting back on the MTB. So the main issue is probably a case of getting used to what you are used to doing. No worries! 🙂

I still get that feeling if I
I still get that feeling if I haven’t been on the road bike for a while. Earlier this year after a week mtb’ing round Menorca, first time back on the road bike felt quite wobbly. But you do get used to it.

And actually it’s more stable than you think. My road bike is probably easier to ride hands-off than the mtb – which does seem to confirm that a lot of the ‘skittish’ feeling (good word BTW) is down to the narrow handlebars.

I changed from a tourer to a
I changed from a tourer to a race bike a couple of years ago and it took me a while to get used to the feel of the shorter wheel base – particularly going downhill I felt as if I was on the edge of control which sounds similar to your ‘skittish’. The shop the sold me the bike told me to take it easy over the first few rides because it would feel so different. Two years on and the road bike now feels normal and it strange when I’m back on the tourer.

One thing that helped, I think, was using rollers in the winter which improved my balanced particularly with pressure on the handlebars – as smaller wheelbase and handlebar width mean small movements effect the bike more. However, as Darthshearer said, give yourself time to get used to the difference and hopefully it will soon feel fine.