tiiger

I'm on the horns of a dilemma.

My commuter is a Surly Steamroller fixed gear. I ride it pretty much every day to work, even in the winter, if the roads are clear. But the trip has one major hill, and I've been thinking I might want to get a geared commuter. (I'm 51 years old, for crying out loud.)

My MTB is a 1989 Ritchey Outback. (Vintage!) I ride it exactly twice a year: at summer outdoor bluegrass fests, where camping and playing music are the main activities. It's nice to have a mountain bike to hit the trails, or head to the lake for a swim, or whatever. The trails could be grass, dirt, mud, gravel or sand, depending on weather. Fat tires are nice, but I wind up hanging the heavy Ritchey from my garage rafters 50 weeks out of the year, and it just gets in the way.

So, I'm thinking of replacing those two bikes with a Surly Cross Check (or similar), which I could run road tires 99% of the time (or winter tires in the winter), but could also fit with fairly fat XC tires (Surly says 42mm) for the fests. Also could be a great tourer, if I chose. Really a great all-arounder, frankly.

But, the main question: How "mountain-bikey" can a cyclocross bike get? Or do I need to keep hauling out the Ritchey?

fietsbob

XC Cross country events are raced on Mountain bikes . NORBA geometry designs.

Cyclo cross CX on the other hand , the competitions include jumping off and picking the bike Up when you come to an Obstacle .
then Jumping back on , hopefully still at a fast Pace to not lose position to Your competitors.

the events are Loop Races of several Laps , in fall and early Winter .. so In-climate weather . .

so You dont Plough thru stuff like you can on a MTB

when the going gets Tough Cyclocrossers put the bike on their shoulder and Run with It.

Spoonrobot 

Depends on the bike and what size wheels you want to run. I'm messing with a Soma double cross disc. With 700c/29er wheels I think the biggest knobby tire I can fit is about 42-44mm measured width. The front fork can take a wider tire but the height is the limiter.

If I move down to 650b/27.5 wheels I can fit a 50-52mm measured width tire in the front and a 45mm measured width tire in the rear.

Moving down to 26" lowers the BB too much and the fit limitation is the same.

However, without a suspension fork or flat bars the bike does not ride like a MTB hardly at all. It has a very expanded capability range but the speed envelope is much lower. If you're familiar with riding a rigid MTB it'll ride pretty close to that but due to the handlebars you can't really throw it around the trail or maintain the same control. At least in my experience.

I'm looking for this myself and have been pretty happy with my Soma mentioned above running 650bx42mm Hetres for most riding. When I do gravel events I switch to 700cx40 knobbies because the races are often a little muddy and my 700c wheels are significantly stronger than my road/light trail focused 650b set.

Andy_K 

How "mountain-bikey" do you need it to be? If you're just schlepping around a campground or cruising on hard-packed trails, even a CX bike is more "mountain-bikey" than you probably need. You're already getting by with no suspension, so chances are a gravel or CX bike would meet your needs pretty well.

If the offroad surfaces you're looking at are especially bumpy, you might want something that will take wider tires. Of course, if you go with really wide clearance it starts to look goofy with skinny tires (not that that matters really).

Basically there is a fairly continuous spectrum of bikes available from pure road bike to pure mountain bikes with hardly any sizable gaps in between.

The Cross Check is closer to a road bike in geometry, but as you noted it will take a pretty wide tire. A couple of other bikes to consider in this space are the Specialized AWOL and the Soma Wolverine.

Seattle Forrest

I think for riding around campgrounds and across grass, dirt, and gravel, a Cross Check or similar will be plenty enough. It's steep rocky and rooty singletrack where I'd expect an MTB to shine and a CX bike to struggle.

tiiger

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, no single track, no trees I need to jump over. The worst part of the trails get sandy, but these are benign trails used for the tractors that pull trams for all the other campers to go to the other parts of the campgrounds. (Not so much lazy as they might be carrying a couple of instruments, and can't really ride a bike. Banjos are heavy!)

So, really, it's pretty basic stuff that sounds like could be handled on a Cross Check or something like it.