contango 

I've been riding a tricross for a couple of years now. I bought it as a bike for use on the roads that would also cope with some lightish offroad use. I wanted something faster than the MTB but that I could also take on gravel towpaths and across fields etc, but without the full-on flexibility of the MTB.

Over the last two years I've slowly tweaked the tricross to be more of a fast road machine and less of a go-anywhere machine, but so far haven't bought an all-out road bike simply because I like the option to put fatter tyres on the bike and take it off-road if the urge takes me (which it does, once in a while). I've lowered the handlebars, put narrower tyres on it (trading 32mm Marathon Plus for 25mm Durano Plus), and generally fiddled with it to focus on speed and endurance. The overwhelming majority of my riding these days is on roads but sometimes I'll take a shortcut along a gravel path or across a field. There's also the chance that my future will include a move that would make me very thankful for the freedom to put 38mm tyres on it and tank around a lot of gravel tracks and stuff.

The bike is pretty rugged, I've taken it over rough paths and gravel and stuff, loaded with panniers and my 250lb bulk. I broke one spoke and cracked the rear rim when I hit a pothole on a fast descent with panniers. Aside from that it's barely missed a beat in 6000+ miles of riding.