Cotic X, local bargain from a local guy. Looking forward to getting out on it! Had a brief go on a Kona Jake and enjoyed the madness of it all.

This has front disc rear canti. Good tubeless ready front wheel, cheapo rear. 2×9 compact.

What will I want to change on it? Keen to set up tubeless as I pinched the Kona twice in about 10 miles! Also would like 1×9 or 10 with an oval n/w. What sort of 1x gearing do you lot run on cxers? I have 36×11-42 on my big tyre bikes and a road bike for road duties so no need for too long a bottom gear.

I’m a big fan of 1x on my mtb but definitely staying 2x on my CX, big tech hill climbs + road descents means I want as many gears as possible.
Tubeless was far harder on my cx but that could be crap tyres and rims, definitely worth it though, pinch flats all over the place.

and I became a statistic on black Friday and bought hydro discs. massive step up even from cable trp spyres, consider it one day. transformed my rides.

You’re limited a bit with the maximum cassette size the typical roadie/cx rear mech would work with.

I can’t remember exactly but I’ve a feeling even 9 speed MTB rears mechs don’t play nicely with 9 speed road shifters/stis (assuming its Shimano setup).

Rebuild rear wheel (or a new shiney one) set up for tubeless might be first move if you’re keen on tubeless. But might be worth deciding of going for rear disks is what you want as could be worth building up with disk specific hub too, for later upgraditis.

I can’t remember exactly but I’ve a feeling even 9 speed MTB rears mechs don’t play nicely with 9 speed road shifters/stis (assuming its Shimano setup).

They’re fine.

I can’t remember exactly but I’ve a feeling even 9 speed MTB rears mechs don’t play nicely with 9 speed road shifters/stis (assuming its Shimano setup).

Wrong!

They play very nicely, shimano road 9 and 10 speed shifters will happily talk to shimano MTB 9 speed mechs, it’s 10 speed MTB (Dynasis) that is incompatible…

Running 1×9 with an old SLX mech, tiagra shifter and 11-32 cassette at present and it’s great, 34t ring at present, which has been OK, perhaps a little spinny on flats/roads so I have a 38 ready to fit.

If you can, I’d look at 10 speed simply because it would give the option for slighty wider range cassettes, if you are going 1Xn…

I am still on the lookout for a decent (ideally cheap) tubeless tyre myself…

My cx has a few gearing options, currently I’m 1×10 with a 40t up front and a 11-40 up back on a short 105 mech using the excellent Lindarets road link. Cheap widget that allows for big cassettes.

I’m running 1×10 too with 38t up front and 11-32 out back on a 5701 105 rear mech, works nicely.

1×10 on my Kona Jake with 38T N/W up front, 11-36 cassette, XT 9speed mech and Tiagra 10spd shifter. It’s perfect for my riding. Climbs fantastically and only spins out on big descents. It it looks way better than it did with the big silver Tiagra 34/50 crankset too.

1×10 with 38 up front and 11-36 on the rear with a Zee clutch though I’m currently running flat bars with a regular shifter. Going to swap back to drops soon though so upgrading the brake levers/shifter to some Gevenalle GX (when they finally get them back in stock!)

Cheers for the advice, just picked it up yesterday.

So a 10 speed road shifter, 9 speed MTB mech and 10 speed MTB cassette will all work together?

Yep

PSA Planet X have 20% of CX bikes today, may have to spend my pennies…

Yeah XLS for about 700, also Boardman for 500..

Cheers for the advice, just picked it up yesterday.

So a 10 speed road shifter, 9 speed MTB mech and 10 speed MTB cassette will all work together?

Perfectly. Had to adjust the low screw on the mech quite a bit to cover the whole cassette but that’s it. I’ll never go back now.

Looks quite nice

Got out on it today, absolutely loved it. Found it’s limits on the local singletrack and found my limits on a rocky bridleway. I’m sold on this CX business!

So I’m thinking of flogging the roadbike to fund some upgrades, wheels being the first thing as I want tubeless and a disc on the rear. A bit of research suggests Stans Iron Cross as decent wide tubeless rims, anything else I should be looking at? And how many spokes would be normal for a CXer?