Cyclocross - crosscheck vs doublecross vs tricross vs fango

I am currently looking at these 4 bikes as my do all any input or experiances would be appreciated.

surley crosscheck
soma doublecross
specialized tricross
marinoni fango

I love my SURLY. I've got it built up with rather light parts, so it's very much a race bike. The SOMA seems like a cool bike... seems alot like the SURLY. I'd not a fan of Specialized, so the tricross doesn't do anything for me. People do seem to love em though.

I love my Tricross Comp. It's an '06 with a compact double. Good spec, fits fat tires, full fender and rack mounts. I think too heavy for racing, but I use it for everything else: commuting, road riding, double track, touring. The '07 Comp has a better frame, but they switched to a triple. I love triples, but the setup is 50x39x30. It's like they wanted a standard double with a bailout ring. At least it's 10-spd with 11-27. Now give me that with my compact double, and I'm a happy guy...

I built up a Double Cross for cross/touring/commuting duty a year and a half ago and it is without a doubt my favorite ride. It's a wee bit lighter, longer, and lower than a Cross Check and fits me and my short legs a tad better. The LBS sells a lot of Cross Checks and swears they're a tougher frame.

I also built two wheelsets along with the bike, 36 hole Bontrager Mavericks and 28/32 hole Open Pros, both on Ultegra hubs. The Open Pros are for summer commuting when I'm carrying very little and for cyclocross. Once a week I leave work with a rack and work clothes stashed in panniers and ride the Open Pros with a club on racing bikes. I'm rarely at the front of the pack but the extra work does me good. The Mavericks are set up with Vittoria Randonneur Pros for late fall and early spring commuting and for light touring duty.

The gearing is 48-38-24 in the front and the traditional cyclocross 11-32 in the rear. The 24 tooth inner ring is for riding the odd mountain bike trail and climbing mountain passes with 50 lbs. of gear and it has been used all of twice this year. I've been thinking of putting an 11-28 cassette on the Open Pros to tighten up the gearing a bit when I'm out on the road. It always seems like I'm a half gear too high or too low with the spacing on the mountain cassette.

I have a Marinoni fango that I bought in the early spring of 05 and put 8,000km on it last year. I got a custom frame (63.5) and a carbon fork for 875$ Cdn. and had it built up at my local lbs with an Ultegra 9 group and a set of 36 spoke open pro wheels. Great ride.

Lots of nice touches like chrome chain stay, chain hanger, pump peg, your name on tt. The frame is Columbus Zona.

I've never seen a fango before, but those pics of it look really cool, IMHO.

It's my understanding the Soma DoubleCross and the Surly CrossCheck are virtually identical bikes, except: 1) you can get a complete CrossCheck for $930 msrp; one has to build - or have built - the DoubleCross 2) the Soma is lighter because it uses different steel (I believe it's Reynolds 853) than the CrossCheck. It is my understanding the 4130 chromoly on the CrossCheck requires thicker tubewalls for equivalent strength.

Regarding the Tricross: I actually considered that bike over the CrossCheck. I went with the CrossCheck because: 1) I found a new, complete one online for $730 w/ s/h (this is also why I picked it over the DoubleCross); 2) both the Soma and Surly have steel frames. Steel = better, more compliant ride.

Finally, the Surly has 132.5 mm rear hub spacing. Road bikes are 130 mm, moutain bikes are 135. The spacing on the Surly allows me to run either road or the typically more durable mountain bike hubs.

I guess soma is switching to Tange Prestige not sure I understand the difference

http://www.somafab.com/frames_main.html

Also Marinoni uses "Columbus double-butted Zona steel" sounds cool but I really don't know what that means either???

actually just found this on the soma site

A. In terms of overall tensile strength, here is the order from strongest to weakest of common bike tubing steels:
1. Heat-treated air hardened steel
(853, Foco, OXPlatinum)*
2. Heat-treated CrMo(Tange Prestige HT, Reynolds 725)
3. Cold-drawn air hardened steel
(Reynolds 631)*
4. Cold-drawn CrMo(Reynolds 525, Tange Infinity)
5. High tensile steel(cheap dept. store bikes)

So anybody know where Columbus double-butted Zona steel would fit in this spectrum?

The Crosscheck has horizontal dropouts. I wanted this because I have this nasty fetish where I sometimes convert a perfectly good bike into a fixed gear. However, the horzontal dropouts can be a pain - a bit harder to get the back wheel on and off and they do slip if you stand on the pedals when you haven't tightened that QR down hard engough. Otherwise, I love the Crosscheck.

Zona is an air hardened steel. The idea is that tig welding on the frame does not soften the metal.