11-28 with a 38 tooth single ring. Sorted, plently of scope for off road climmbing and it’ll teach you to spin when riding on the road.

Nice one! Been following this thread for a while now.

Is that dropout handmade/custom?

Why aren’t they running rigids?

I bet their forks would be locked out, thus rigid. However being pro’s I guess that they are under contract to ride their sponsors kit.

I’ve run NN’s on the front and RR’s on the back for the last 3 seasons and not had any issues.

They were around 50/60 PSI today, so not super soft, although it was around minus 5, (air temps make a difference?).

My cross bike has a small issue with lateral bottom bracket movement so I thought I’d use the reliable MTB on the roads, oh well stuff happens.

Yeah, rear wheel locked up and I skidded into a large snow bank at the side of the road, seemed quite graceful at the time 😉 Luckily I had just corned through 90 degrees so was nowhere near training speed.

Yeah really lucky, I hadn’t even started thinking about flagging someone down as I was still trying to bodge a fix.

Nothing in road after a quick scan, and the odd thing was that the tube was still inflated!

Will try some smoothing out tonight thanks for the tip.

Ridley, Stevens, Guerciotti are “proper” cross bikes, I’d also say that the carbon offerings from Focus, Canondale, and soon to be Kona would also count

For what purpose? They’re as comparable as a BMX and a recumbent.

If you want drop bars and levers then they need to be cable disks, which means Avid BB5 and BB7, not sure there are any other on the market.

EDIT – Tektro, yes of course

To the point where if you simply but drop handlebars and 1.5″ tyres on a fully rigid 29er you could race on it and it wouldn’t be breaking any rules. But it seems you would be pissing a whole bunch of people off and that’s the bit I still don’t understand – why would they be so upset with this?

oh God we agree 😮

Or become anachronistic

Which means its not at the moment as its run using the rules laid down by the UCI and which are used for the current world championships. If they banned disk brakes for example then it would become an antiquity.

So back to the original question, and also the answers on the first page, yes you could use a 29er from Specialized providing you had drop bars, correct sized wheels and tyres, and it met every other technical rule, which means by then it would no longer be a mountain bike by UCI definition but a cross bike.

Rules define the difference between a cyclo-cross bike and a mountain bike

4.3 Comments on article 1.3.020
For massed-start road races and cyclo-cross, the frame elements (arranged as shown in the diagram below) shall
be tubular without excessive curvature (a straight line along the element’s longitudinal axis must remain inside
the element). The elements shall have a maximum transverse dimension of 8 cm and a minimum transverse
dimension of 2.5 cm (reduced to 1 cm for the seat stays, chain stays and forks). If the seat tube is extended so that
it replaces the seat post, the anchorage point with the top tube is considered for the purposes of the horizontal
template of the “Shape 1” diagram shown in article 1.3.020.

3.2.3 Technical specifications
Except where stated to the contrary, the following technical specifications shall apply to bicycles used
in road, track and cyclo-cross racing.
The specific characteristics of bicycles used in mountain bike, BMX, trials, indoor cycling and paracycling for riders with disabilities are set out in the part regulating the discipline in question.

http://www.uci.ch/includes/asp/getTarget.asp?type=FILE&id=NjU4NTY

22 miles doesn’t really require that much extra fuel if you’re just talking calories.

It does if you’re doing it twice a day 5 days in a row, and still want to be productive at work!

That Ridley’s got bottle cages so it can’t be a true CX bike 😀

When I commute I have a similar distance, I’d eat toast, banana, and coffee before I set off and then a large bowl of muesli at work, fruit for a snack then pasta/high carbs for lunch. A small sandwich and more fruit before I set off and dinner ASAP when I get home. Maybe even more muesli before bed.

Eat little and often rather then simply lots.

Drink water whenever thirsty.

Really starting to like Ribble bikes.

Subtle wheels, non of that deep rim carbon jazz going on there, just some good old fashioned blue bling, nice!

Pat McQuaid – what a cock*’

To be fair that one transcends all cycling forums

Surely it would be watts per KG of body weight at threshold?

A spesh 29er MTB race bike with drop bars. What’s the difference between that and a cyclocross bike.

Tyres need to be less than 35mm, so that would require a change, up to last year disk brakes were banned, and simply adding drop bars to am MTB frame would make for seriously interesting handling.

Not quite sure where the UCI stand on suspension on cross bikes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d have to run rigid forks.

So that’d be a normal 29er, with new wheels and tyres, drop bars, and rigid forks.

Cable brakes in general are better in the mud and wet, (true cross weather), than V’s. In the dry then they are about even.

I’m not sure about the exact brakes on the Croix, but you are buying a little bit of future proofing as the frame and forks have disk mounts, and all signs point to disks becoming standard on cross bikes within 3 to 5 years.

The Boardman bikes are always good value for money.

I’d guess there are quite a few good deals to be had on 2010 models that the moment. Wiggle had the lower end Colnago, and Evans always stock a fair few CX bikes.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/colnago-cross-world-cup-2010/

http://www.evanscycles.com/categories/sale/complete-bikes/cyclo-cross-bikes

That Merida is the same geometry as their canti based race bike this year, so its not one of the new “monster cross” bikes with slightly less racing based angles.

Me? I like it.

I’d expect to see a lot of other manufactures producing disk based frames this year, and then Shimano and SRAM coming out next year with proper STi and disk integration.

Then we just need to wait for the wheel/hub manufactures.

That’s what people said about disks v V’s in the MTB scene. The better the braking the quicker you go, stands true in motorsport as well.

I don’t expect to see a whole bunch of pro’s on BB7’s though.

I got one directly after ordering something that was out of stock.

cool! I like it

Check out K-Edge stuff from wiggle, very nice!
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/k-edge/

I use their chain guard and a simple plastic “dogfang”

I also find myself leaning round corners.

The Hunted is excellent, probably my fav for this time of year.

Local Hero for me tonight as it’s still minus 10 and snowy outside.

You don’t need a H/R monitor as they work on perceived levels of effort which are quite easy to know if you’ve cycled a bit, even more so if you’ve raced

They are excellent training aids, I’m currently doing one Sufferfest session a week out of the 4 turbo sessions I do.

Angles, Local Hero, Downward Spiral, and Fight Club are all very good.

^ not much off the shelf, Mavic Speed City might be an option. But best to get some handbuilt.

640 grams carbon disk forks for 140 Euros
http://shop4cross.de/komponenten/gabeln/gabel-s4c-disc-eylets.html

Good demo here:
http://aswedishcyclist.blogspot.com/2011/01/snowmobile-trail-and-icy-roads.html

yes with studded tyres, works quite well in fact. Wouldn’t want to try it without though, especially if any cars were about

I’m 6,2″ and ride a 56 cross bike and a 19.5 MTB

Good advice above. If you want to run or cycle faster, then simply run or cycle faster in training.

For running try sprints uphill, it’ll make your legs turnover faster to increase their speed and put less pressure on your legs. Short sprints of say 20 to 40 seconds with a full recovery, probably looking at between 6 to 10 depending on fitness/experience.

Agreed that German banks and other euro ones are much more serviced based, (e.g. you pay for everthing), you can however open an account easily, unlike the UK where you need 3 months worth of bills addressed to you, which is somewhat of an inconvenience if you’ve just moved there.

Keep a UK bank account open with a few quid in it just in case. Nowhere is more backwards than the UK when it comes to trying to get a bank account.

see The Inner Ring piece here regarding the 4 tests:
http://inrng.com/?p=739

Their coverage has been excellent and very informative

Cost no objective then a Lefty as mentioned above.

Best weight/price ratio has to be the older Reba Race which come in at around 1600grams and can be had for about 300 quid

Single ring 38t with a 12-25 cassette