Excellent definition of “a good laugh” there samuri. We should start a STW glossary..

I can’t imagine the X being that much better than your Kona. It wasn’t designed as and out and out race bike, hence the slightly heavy frame. Weight is everything in CX, more so than MTB racing IMO.

However what you’d get is a lovely frame that allows for upgrading to disk brakes later on, has space for mud guards for winter training/commuting, and is made of steel by someone who posts on this forum.

If you want a steel CX frame then yes go for it, if you want a faster version of what you’ve got then probably no.

I ran a 38 ring with an 11-27 cassette last year and it worked well. This year I’ve gone 12-27 10speed with a 42 front ring, slightly bigger gearing but really nice spacing ratios.

oh my word!

These guys and girls are pro athletes, the discipline is somewhat by the by. Tracy Mosely was competitive at the Dalby XC and Peaty raced extremely well in XC class back in the day.

Just like most top XC riders have a few skills when pointing downwards.

I went up a size with theMW80 as I thought they came óut a little on the small side

Boy do South Downs pictures make me feel homesick!

Are you staying in the big Victorian pile at the top of the hill. Just at the start of the downs, great views. Downside – access can be problematic!

😀 funny

That is the first thing I think about when seeing those design. There is something just not “right” about the positioning of the rear shock

A few riders rode MTB rear mechs and cassettes at the Giro this year so they could keep their front rings the same size, seemed to work OK.

Before the advent of 2*10 a fair few MTB racers used road mech too.

A friend in my club has a Canyon Lux MR with XX and SID’s, it somes in very light and rides extremely well. I’d think with a slightly lesser groupset that’ll cover most bases for XC riding/racing.

I had a gold Kona Explosif from the mid nineties that I loved. I tricked it out with Cook Bros, Syncros, and Bullseye equipment. Great memories probably add to the emotional attachment I now have for it.

I’ve just gone from 105 to DuraAce 7800 on my cross bike, (1*10), and it really is a beautiful system, go for it.

I use 3T bars and stems on both my mountain and cyclocross bikes, great products, IMO

Look at Poison bikes, some interesting things here[/url]

OK so 90km is around the distance I race on my MTB, so anywhere between 3:30 to 4:30 hours of exercise time. Obviously racing on the road is a lot quicker but the fundamentals should be roughly the same.

I’d eat more the day before, making sure I had a high carb pasta based dish the night before.

For an 11:00 start I’d want to finish breakfast 3 hours before hand, and again this would be larger, but not stupidly so, than normal. Coffee, juice, large muesli bowl, 3 pieces of toast.

I’d drink a weak sports drink mixture on the drive to the race and consume a power bar or similar 30 minutes before the start.

As I said sports drink in the bottle/camelback and a gel every 45 minutes during the race.

Just some background that may help. As said play around with a routine during the weeks leading up to the next race and see what works for you.

And here are the much waited for Look Keo/Polar ones:

Clicky

I use a gel every 45 minutes when racing, although it’s rare that I’d drink quite as much as a bottle an hour.

That’ll be an interesting conversation!

Very interesting.

I assume all those lights have external battery packs?

See this post here

Loving my 9.9. Had a 2009 but it snapped, Trek replaced it in a week and even paid for it to be built up by the dealer. Excellent service.

Interesting, will look at the Diablo.

How do Hope lights stack up?

Loose fitting merino wool, something from IceBreaker or the like.

Interesting comments, thanks guys.

Off to the Lezyne site now, not much help needed in buying their stuff as it’s generally excellent,

nice bike 8)

Wise choice oldgit

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I made a mistake in one of my posts.

I thought I had a Schwalbe CX PRO on my rear wheel, however it turns out that it is in fact a Michelin Jet. (New wheels/new bike)

Sorry for the confusion and please replace said CX Pro with Michelin Jet in my posts above.

OCCP from shopforcross, same frame as the Poison bikes. Light weight for the price

Dolan look nice, consider their cross frame if you want racks, clearance, etc, etc

Yeah some great typo’s, but hey its aerospace not rocket science!

That CaptinFlashHeart is brilliant

I’m sure Gilbert was doing something similar at the end of some of this years Classics to save his calf’s for the final sprint, seemed to work for him.

Excellent thread.

I too got myself tested at the start of the year, and then based my running knowledge with Joe Friels book to create a plan. Sessions were based on the heart rate zones found out during the testing.

It worked and I’m pleased with the results.

The next step is to test again but this time buy a PowerTap wheel and use power based zones instead of heart rate to guide me, along with some custom training plans.

However the biggest gain I got was joining a club and getting my arse kicked twice a week. Technique training, especially for XC has been a revelation!

I’m Running American Classic’s currently, very nice rims, better graphics this season, stunning freewheel, excellent price-to-weight ratio.

Guessing a little cheaper than your list up there, but worth a look.

Anybody else well up slightly watching Cav win the first 2010 TdF stage in that youtube film linked to above?

Thanks for posting that link, excellent watch.

Not much, saw this one at Condor in the beginning of 2010 but I think it was a 2008 bike:

Thought the blue was nice on those.

Just missing some pink highlights on the new one for that Rapha team look 😀

Nice Condor, is that their Italia frame?

I find CX racing and XC racing quite similar, as mentioned its about keeping the momentum going and working as hard as you can at the start to get position and then trying to stay at that level for the remaining part of the race.

Technique is all important, good bike handlers are obvious, bad ones even more so.

CX Magazine has an interesting article on prep for the season. $15 for a years digital subscription, not too bad.

Anyway highlights for a week are:
Power via uphill reps 9 * 1 min with low cadence
3 * 12 mins at sub-threshold
Technique, corner accelerations, out of saddle jumps