Any advantages/disadvantages for either. 29er will likely to be heavier but what else?

29er – grippier, slower, comfier

cx – slidier, faster, not comfy – s’pecially on frozen ground!

depends on where you will be riding it

29er will be more suited to off-road tracks and likely to be more comfortable due to the larger volume tyres, likely to have better brakes as well so will be more controlled on descents

CX will be faster on the cycle paths, roads, canal paths etc

drops, cantis, skinny, nichier

riser, disc, fat, nichist

There’s also a grey area in between. Most 29ers can be converted into passable ‘cross bikes.

DaveK by Singular Cycles

Sam Pere-cross by Singular Cycles, on Flickr

One’s a mountain bike, the other’s a ‘cross bike

You can fit Schwalbe Big Apple Lites to a 29er. If you’re not wanting to go everywhere at 30mph, they’re wonderfully comfortable and fast rolling.

A Singular Gryphon would be perfect for this.

ahhheemmm…….MONSTERCROSS.
Can’o’worms that is and many interptetations lie there in.Cx with big tyres and discs or 29er with drops and skinny tyres.
See singular gryphon,salsa fargo/vaya,singular peregrin etc

Now this is my kind of thread – I’ve recently de-roaded my Pompino and turned it into a weird cross/old skool mtb machine. Pics to follow.

A 29er is the more flexible option because, as Sam says, you can run them in CX guise whereas you won’t get a fat 29er tyre in a CX frame.

I’ve got 2.35″ Big Apples in my Fargo at the moment and am loving it, i’ve also run it with 2″ XC tyres and 700x42c road tyres. It was fun with all of them.

I’ve just finished building up a Karate Monkey with drop bars and V brakes. It rides quite unlike any cross bike I’ve ever tried although I’ve yet to give it a good trashing. I think it will be the ideal bike for on and off road exploring although it is a bit ponderous on tarmac with 29er tyres fitted.

It is still a work in progress (no pics yet) but I can confirm it is damn ugly. In a good way obviously…

I briefly thought about a 29er inbred for CX duty (has the advantage of disc brake mounts, pannier racks and slot dropout for occasional singlespeeding). I then saw some people claiming 30lbs for their 29er Inbreds with carbon forks, so I reckon it’ll be too heavy for a decent CX bike. Since I didn’t intend to run it with 29er MTB tyres on, I think I’ll stick to the original plan of a cross bike with discs and pannier mounts.

i have both and i find that the narrow tyres on the CX bounce around on roots/ rocks a lot more making them quite a challenge.

for the local type of bridleway/ road mix riding the CX is definately faster overall, because of the speed on the smooth stuff. the 29er definately less of a challenge and comfier.

wouldn’t say one is more fun than the other.

thomthumb – Member

i have both and i find that the narrow tyres on the CX bounce around on roots/ rocks a lot more making them quite a challenge.

for the local type of bridleway/ road mix riding the CX is definately faster overall, because of the speed on the smooth stuff. the 29er definately less of a challenge and comfier.

wouldn’t say one is more fun than the other.

spot on TT

The CX feels so cheeky though, going from road to offroad 😉

Wors, I think you need one of each 😉

Toying with the idea of getting a xacd chinese ti frame made.Same geometry as my cx race bike but disc compatible with clearance for 45c tyres and to fit a 26″ rigid mtb fork (cx forks are a bit scary through rocky stuff-I replaced mine after the 3 peaks!).Undecided as to run gears or not tho.
BestWorst of all worlds!!!!

As promised.

I was using it on the road today, yesterday I rode some singletrack and it was a really nice ride. Having bigger wheels certainly makes a difference when rolling over rocks, logs ect.

I think I might get some wider tyres, they’re currently 35s, don’t get me wrong though – they were great off road – so fast and agile. I think you can get Smart Sams in 40, so that might be a good compromise.

Initially I was using drop, but really couldn’t get on with them, the brakes were crap and my wrists ached in pretty much continuously. Lower rise bars may be in order however as it is quite upright.

Anyway, I’m really pleased with it.