I have built my HT for road riding/commuting (skinny tyres, bar ends etc) but after reading the forum wandered how much difference in riding would there be between my HT and a cyclo cross bike.
Any experiences? What benefits would there be on a CC bike compared to my HT?
Any advice appreciated, wandering if i should start saving or not 🙂
Not ridden CX's but used a flat bared bike for some commuting
bloddy hated it! Gears were too low and not being able to drop down hurt while trying to carry speed compared to a road bike.
Have a mate who has put tri bars on his which would do a similar job. Just make sure it's geared high enough for the riding.
I commute on a rigid singlespeed mtb but also ride a cx. The differences are more down to the heavy tyres, wheels and single gear than the bike.
I wouldn't say it was a worthy swap.
If you do want to improve the hardtail then you might be best off looking at gearing. A road casette on the back to give narower gaps between gears and maybe bigger rings on the front although 44:11 or 44:12 would probably be enough for me on a commute as there are very few sprints involved.
Best modification I made to mine was fitting a lower rise stem, removing spacers and cutting down the bars. Gave a much lower position which is nice on the road. Didn't go too low though as I wear a bag and need prefer comfort.
My mountain bike is a full rigid with XC bars and quite fast and light as mountain bikes go.
My crosser is a heavyish, stiff ali bogus CX bike (Spesh Tricross Disc) but it is waaaay faster up hills and on the flat than the mountain bike. It's only on steep downhills where the mountain bike wins and even mine is bad down steep rocky stuff compared with the same frame built up with burly forks and wide bars - I know because I borrowed one for the day and couldn't believe how much forks and bars could affect the feel and ability of a bike on downhill stuff.
On tarmac the crosser is roughly 1 mph slower on average than my carbon roadie with 23mm tyres.
So go for a crosser if you want speed on anything but steep downhills.
Thanks for the input, have been looking into gearing.
Can i fit a Road compact chainset to my HT? Will it work with both bikes having different gemoetries etc?
It's the skinny tyres that, imo, are the worst bit. Small slicks on a 26-inch wheel really rduce the overall size of the wheel and does something strange to the handling.
My commuter is an Inbred with 700c wheels. Rides really well. Can pootle along comfortably at 17mph with the 34/14 s/s set up.
I know what you mean 🙂
+1 globalti
my 'crosser' (i use the term loosely) is a charge filter hi, so definitely not a light bike by any stretch of the imagination.
its fitted with full length guards too.
my hardtail is an orange P7, its several pounds lighter than the charge, but even with slicks on its no match on the road.
my conclusion is that frame geometry is the deciding factor here, the P7 is designed for offroaduse and not with slicks, the charge is better on road because its been designed with road geometry.
horses for courses innit.
why not change ch.rings?
could fit some bar ends inwards,as well as bar ends in the normal place.
looks horrible,but works quite well.
try big apples,liteskin ones.or marathon racers if they make them about 2" width.
I commute on a Pompino as I have a small amount of off-road to cover as well as some smooth tarmac. It's a great bike, very stable, carries loads well and the bigger wheel rolls better than a converted mtb ever did.
Whether you NEED one I'm not to say, but mine is great though 🙂
I the past I've commuted on FS and HT MB's with 26" wheels with 1" slicks and 700c wheels. The 26x1 wheels always felt under geared (even in 44-11)the 700c wheels were better but changing the wheels got boring (especially if the discs rubbed). I've had my Orbea CX bike for nearly three years now and I can just pick it up pinch the tyres and go, deciding weather to choose the on-road or off-road route to work on the way.
Only thing I would say though if you get a CX bike make sure it has disc brakes.