After a bit of thinking it’s time for me to get a better bike than my Inbred for commuting, road riding and general winter duties and I’ve decided on a CX bike.

The Genesis Vapour has taken my fancy but the disc version is £1200 compared to the canti version being discounted to £700 on several websites. Are discs really worth me spending another £500?

Technically my budget is £0 so this is why the saving is so tempting.

I can obviously forget about the Vapour and move on. I can even hold on for a few months until the sales…

Damn I’m indecisive

What are you breaking with on the Inbred?

I had same dilemma last year. Discs are totally worth having though. I plumped for the Stevens Vapor Disc. If your budget can stretch the I haven’t heard a bad word about the Boardman cx.

Or how about the Croix de fer? or its little brother the cdf

or a bit more on budget.

Hope that helps.

My Inbred is my winter SS MTB so has discs.

Like I said, I don’t really have a budget, it’ll be interest free credit of some kind so I’m happy to pay for what I need. Up to £1200 seems to be the going rate for a disc equipped CX.

Having never owned anything other than a MTB I was just wandering how important discs were for the road.

I had a 2 minute ride on a Giant TCX2 with canti brakes and it was fine but that was with no added weight and in dry conditions. I like the idea of a fast bike so I’m not sure the steel bikes are for me.

I built a CX bike up a couple of months ago with discs after having a go on a mates canti cross bike. It scared me to death when I had to stop. The problem I found was, going from a mountain bike with great hydraulic brakes to a cross bike without disc brakes, I just couldn’t get my head around the poor braking and the crap leverage you get from riding on the hoods but I suppose it was better on the drops. I now have a Kinesis which I use for everything, Oh! and it has good disc brakes. I would say it is worth paying the extra for a cross bike with discs.
You could always get a road specific bike with far better rim brakes than a crosser if that’s what your only going to do with it.

Good luck.

I can’t recommend dirt drops high enough for the braking reason mention above. Set em up well and their are ace. I got Pink midges on mine!

I’d say save up for the discs, or buy second hand to be able to afford them…
I’m getting into riding my (kind of) alfine cross bike off road – it’s a hooligan until the going gets really rough, then the terrain wins…!
The discs (Shimano R505 discs) are great on it.

DrP

I’d like discs. But, I ended up getting rid of the cantis on my crosser and fitting cheapo Tektro BMX Vs and that’s made a huge difference. Even with OEM pads they beat most canti setups. Mud clearance is marginally worse though, but it’s pretty trivial (they look like they should be much worse but really most of the bits where there’s less clearance are still wider than the frame clearance)

(oh, and if you want a short lever action, like I do, you need to adjust the barrel after fitting/removing wheels)

The performance increase of discs over cantis/mini v’s is huge. For me its entirely changed terrain I can now use the CX bike on. I can now go down steep, wet trails and actually stop!

I don’t reckon my discs are any better in terms of power than my previous setup with mtb v-brakes and travel adaptors. They do have a little more ‘feel’ though it’s not enough that it really makes me better on the bike and I’ve always ridden quite mtb type trails on it.

They do sound a lot nicer and don’t chew up my rims though.

Ive recently got a Boardman CX with discs, but as yet I havent extensively used it off road in crappy conditions.

Having to do an emergency stop on road, the rear completely locked up and I nearly went over the bars. But to be honest on road they offer nothing more to conventional breaks.

Off road again its almost too easy to lock them up front or rear.

I guess the advantage comes in muddy stuff…

Breaking=braking
Breaks=brakes

<sigh>

For comparison, I reckon my BB7’s are almost as powerful as my SLX mtb brakes.

I was underwhelmed with them to begin with, but after a bit of fettling I’ve got them spot on. Trick is to minimise the cable length between the brake arm and cable stop on the caliper.

I like the idea of a fast bike so I’m not sure the steel bikes are for me.

Although 2nd hand 2012 Croix De Fers in white for around £600 do look very tempting…