I've been thinking about getting a road bike for a while now, so i can get and get some miles in when the trail conditions are poor. Also i've now got an entry for the Fred Whitton event
So, I've never been conviced once the novelty has warn off i'd get much use out of a road bike. However i think i would out of a cyclocross bike. Nobbilies for exploring and having fun off-road, and then just chuck on some slicks for road use.
Any recomendations?
Around a £1000, disc brakes a bonus. Initial thoughts are a Genesis Criox De Fer
Don't ask yourself why after half an hour and sick bag on hand at the finish line?
EDIT - maybe your not planning on racing Sundays?
Mate rides a Cotic X http://www.cotic.co.uk/product/x which looks good - don't think he runs discs (he tells me you shouldn't be braking anyway!) - not sure of costs but seems like a good buy.
I've built up a flat bar Kinesis Crosslight Pro6 (105groupset, with SLX shifters and hydraulic brakes) which I use for commuting and occasionally cut accross fields on (although it has road tyres on it, so it's a bt slippy ).
Singular Peregrine ? Its got a bit of oldy style about it
Just checked, it will talke a disc and with EBB you could run it as a Fixie or singlespeed
Looks quite versatile frame for £180 notes
Croix de fer was on my list when I was looking, as was Kenesis Pro6 disc I think.
But then the Singular Kite framesets went in the sale for £400 and the rest is history...
The Kite is really nice, but you'll have to be content with canti's. You shouldn't be using the brakes anyway, but if you do I can recommend Paul Neo Retro's
You might also struggle to keep the cost under budget...
depends how you spec it, but mine ended up being about £1200 all in
damn thought I had purged my 'must have a skinny tyred stead' thoughts but seeing Ian's on el and back and now looking at cyclocross bikes I feel they are back stronger than ever.
hmmm - will have to go out and investigate further when the snow has cleared
On the subject of Singular Peregrines, I wouldn't having seen / tried a friends. It's more of heavy touring bike with clearances for 2"+ tyres. Hence its slow for a road bike, looks wrong with 32mm cross tyres and the Gryphon is better if you want a monstercross bike.
Singular's kite looks ace but is canti brakes only.
If you just want to try a dropbarred disc-braked cross-tyred bike, 700x32 tyres on road rims will fit in any old 26" MTB frame...
johnnystorm wrote:Mate of mine has the Cube Cross Race £999 so just sneaks in.
I also have a friend with one of those, looks like a nice bit of kit on close inspection, good bike for the money.
In fact, friends who are ex bike industry tell me that the mark up on the more expensive bikes (£1k+) is far less than the £200-£300 bikes. ALso, cube bikes have a very small markup compared to the likes of specialized etc. In fact my cube carbon race mtb, I couldn't buy the parts for it for less than the total bike all in
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