AndyGrow

I'm a road rider living on Kodiak Island, Alaska for the next 18 months. We get upwards of 70" of rain each year - yeah, it's wet here.

I have a '66 Schwinn Paramount and a custom Bringheli road bike. Neither of which will see the rain. I also have a '98 Rocky Mountain ThinAir MTB that's a tank (I'm 6'4", 230#).

The local (read: ONLY) dealer here on Kodiak has a 2010 Specialized TriCross Sport for $1015 before taxes. It fits me, and seems like a good bike.

If you wanted a wet weather / rough (paved) road bike, would you get a CX bike, or go with a road bike?

I'm not looking for racing. Riding in a pack, club rides, training rides, that sort of thing are what I enjoy the most.

I already have a commuter (Kona Smoke). And I won't be doing any touring.

Thoughts?

Thanks!
Andy

meanwhile

Why would you go with a road bike over a crosser as a bad weather bike??? Let alone a rough road bike? Go for the Tricross. Just make sure you put the right tyres on it - probably something like 35mm Duremes, this way you'll get the volume and contact patch (and hence wet grip) you need. Read the canti faq sticky and upgrade that front brake as described.

Otoh, if you insist on running the Tricross with 25mm tyres then you might as well get the road bike.

Reading https://www.bikeradar.com/news/articl...e-myths-29245/ might help - basically, choose the tyres for the conditions you want to ride, and the bike to fit the tyres.

There's also a thread on Duremes in this subforum - 35mm Duremes are seriously fast, excellent on rough roads, and have outstanding wet grip. You could go a step up to Extremes (Duremes with more tread) but they'd be slower and you don't mention riding singletrack.

Good luck!

AndyGrow

Got the Tricross Sport. Love it.

Eclectus

I'd go with a bike that's faster than a brown bear.

fietsbob

Disc Brakes will stop better in foul weather .. metal is better than carbon
in practical terms.

waynesworld

Congrats on the new bike! I would love one, and I think another cyclocross bike is in my future. I bought a 2005 Kona Jake The Snake used, then stupidly (very stupidly) sold it to a college student. He had if for about a year before he got it stolen while locked to a wooden porch. I was so stupid for selling that bike.

BTW, where are the pics of the new bike?

meanwhile

1. Good rims brakes with Kool Stop Pinks stop about equally quickly in the wet and the dry and are lighter.*

2. The carbon/metal issue is a complex one. In practice either will be fine for most people. The Tricross is mostly metal with some CF where it will do the most good.

3. The guy has already bought the bike!

*Talking of which, @Andy: fit Kool Stop Pink brake pads and maybe Marathon Duremes if you're going to ride in the wet. Pads and tyres vary a lot in their wet weather grip. And probably a hand tuned front straddle cable (see the canti faq sticky.) The Tricross is a very successful and very popular bike with a lot of fans; I'm sure you'll be very happy with it.

meanwhile

What sort of bike does the bear have???

math is fun

I heard he just signed a sponsorship deal with Trek. Better watch out

meanwhile

That's not a real bear, Math. Hairiness and extreme muscularity are known side effects of EPO and Human Growth Hormone:



Go, Lance, go!

AndyGrow

Right here!

waynesworld

Very nice looking bike!

martinus

You seem kinda technical, can't belive you got this wrong :

Contact patch stays the same size, with any size tire . ( ... it will, just be a different shape. )

meanwhile

Good point!

The CP stays the same size if you keep the pressure the same. But you can drop the pressure lower in a wider tyre while still matching the rolling resistance of a narrower tyre - if tyre compound, wall thickness and tread are the same. You also reduce energy lost to vertical vibration this - i.e. unsprung mass is reduced. The main point of using a wider tyre IS to use to a lower pressure.

Sawtooth

I am currently running two "rain" bikes. One is a Kona Jake The Snake (my main commuter). I use clip on fenders with this one because most days in Idaho are dry. My other rain/winter bike is a 1982 Peugoet C8 road bike. I prefer to ride the JTS. It is lighter, more responsive, can fit any tire/fender combo I need. I am primarily a big fan of performance oriented bikes so the race oriented Major Jake (my other cx bike) and Jake The Snake frames really make me feel at home while still affording a whole lot of versatility for fenders/big tires/even studs for ice. I have done a couple of centuries with my hardcore roadie buddies while on the MJ and JakeTheSnake and any performance problems I had could not be attributed to the bike.

I also regularly take my cx bikes offroad with my mountain bike buddies and usually outclimb them even if I am running pure 25mm road slicks (note that boise trails are relatively bump free). They do give up quite a bit to the mountain bikes in fast descending situations.

My vote: Go with the CX bike and don't look back. My cx bikes are very close a road bike in performance. There is no question that if I could only have one bike it would be a cx bike.

Barrettscv 

Nice. I think it will become your most used bike.

jamesdak 

I'm trying to figure out pretty much the same thing. Used both one of my road bikes and a mountain bike for wet/winter riding. Thinking a well-equipped CX bike will be the ticket. Ice build up was an issue for me this winter so fenders, disc brakes are a must along with clearance for a studded tire. Really would like a IGH also as I had the rear cassette and derailleur freeze up solid more than once last winter.

Good luck with your hunt.

Watchdog

Well disc brakes have the advantage that they won't wear out the rim. In the dry it would take a really long time, but in the wet with dirt and grit that's like sandpaper to the rim and it will wear quicker. I'm not sure how much he rides, but that might be a factor.

fietsbob

CX bike as a winter / rain bike?

Dude, that is the Racing season , fall and winter..
Kind of like football/soccer, played whether the weather sucks or not.
once the weather improves .. It's Baseball/Cricket season..

Andy_K 

This makes me smile. I got my Kona Jake in 2008 as a "nice" commuter and kept my old bike as my rain bike. Then the next year I discovered CX racing and it became very difficult to justify maintaining a "rain" bike to keep my Jake "nice." The execuse I went was that I had to have a rain bike because I couldn't keep fenders on the CX bike in the fall.

Eclectus

If you can get disc brakes, YES.

I got a Specialized CX last fall. I went with Crux over Tri-Cross only because I was riding cf, and this one felt "good". I then put my wife on one, she wasn't a drop-bar gal, told me, "I don't think I want this, and she took a quick parking-lot test, and a couple saddle adjustments, she just totally disappeared for 20 minutes. When she came back, she said, "I LIKE THIS BIKE."

I rode in California over Christmas, it was a blast. But then, returning to Kansas, I got three puncture flats in 400 miles. Not fun to deal with in Kansas winter. I switched to Schwalbe Duremes, they fended off the same road-debris crap with impunity.