atomship47

i'm not cx racer or anything. i just want a cx bike as my winter/weather/bad road bike.

i'm thinking it would be fun to just get a frameset and build up from there.

on kona's site, they have a major major frameset. its made of scandium. does anyone have experience with this frame material? if so, what is your opinion of it?

Ronsonic 

Scandium is basically an aluminum alloy that allows them to use and weld even thinner tubes. Not that much different other than price and a few ounces. (I say that about a lot of bike parts it seems).

Ron

atomship47

so if i'm looking for a cx bike that is going to eliminate as much road buzz as possible, what material(s) are ideal? steel?

MichaelW

High end cx race bikes usually lack threaded eyelets for rack, fenders and even bottle cages. You really need these features in a winter hack bike. Even if you dont use them everyday, they give you the option to take off on a tour, commute with some stuff or use your grocery run for training.

cs1

AL is nice and light. It's also stiff and transmits a lot of road buzz. Steel is heavier. All the steel frames I have do an excellent job of isolating you from road buzz. I'm using Reynolds 531, 753, low end True Temper 4130, Columbus Tenex and whatever version of 4130 Specialized used in 1989. All of them do a better job of smoothing out road vibrations than the AL Trek 1200 frame.

That wasn't a very scientific explanation but it was first hand experience. Hope it helps and good luck

Tim

atomship47

one more question;

i bought my first roadie last february so my fitness level wasn't very "good" for an aggressive geometry. the only bikes that felt comfortable had a relaxed geometry.

now that i've been riding a while, i've removed 2 spacers from my headset and my saddle is about 2.5 - 3" higher than my bars.

i don't know if a traditional geometry will work for me yet. are there many steel cx frames (or road frames w/canti brakes that will handle up to 32mm tires) in a relaxed geometry?

Ronsonic 

That sounds exactly like a cyclocross bike "frame that will handle 32mm tires in a relaxed geometry." You won't have any trouble getting a fit on one.

Ron

j-lie

for the purposes you listed i'd look at the group buy thread if you can handle a singlespeed

if not nashbar has a cyclocross frame thats on sale for somthing like 300 dollars with a carbon fork.

csown

Also check out the XRL cross @ Performance. I picked one of these up during their end of season sale for $225, includes carbon fork and decent graphics. I'm in the same camp wanting a foul weather bike with fender mounts, bottle mounts, but also geometry closer to my road bike (Blue RC4) for training and cross races down the road. I used to ride a full ALU road frame without carbon seatstays and for me a full carbon seatpost and good saddle kills enough of the buzz for fairly long distance rides, which most commutes are not (for me an hour each way).

Perf also has a new bundle which includes stem, bars, bar tape, tubes, and a crappy saddle for 100 bones more.

I'm in the middle of the build right now, so I don't know how it's going to ride but I'm pretty excited about it. The build with Ultegra/105 and AC Hurricane wheels is looking to end up right around $1000-$1100 including shipping for all the bits coming in from eBay, etc. It's ending up kind of expensive, in terms of time too, but it's totally to spec and I'll get a lot of mileage out of this machine.

-Chris