Originally Posted by
pharasz
My research revealed that touring bike makers are selling their touring bikes as CX bikes. They are trying to chase the market and since CX is the popular thing now, they just reconfigured their touring bikes. I bought a Bianchi Volpe, which is a touring bike. But Bianchi's web site markets it as a CX bike, and they show it in a CX configuration. I just ordered it in a touring bike configuration - added fenders and rear rack and put puncture resistant street tires on it.
Not exactly.
The Bianchi Volpe and the Specialized Tricross aren't the same as "standard" tourers (like the Trek 520 or the Cannondale T2). The Jamis Aurora is not marketed as a cross bike but it isn't quite a standard tourer either.
While a few companies are cross marketing their cross bikes as (light) touring capable, it isn't
all of them.
It makes sense for a company to have and market a model that can be used for a wider range of purposes (cross, commuting, light touring) than a road "racing" bike is reasonable for. It's not like the cyclocross market is huge and uses beyond just cyclocross are easy to accomodate with a few braze ons!
The differences between "racing" bikes, sport tourers, cyclocross bikes, touring bikes aren't really huge and sit on a continuous spectrum of behavior.