Originally Posted by
scheibo
probably been asked a million times, but how much slower/different is a cross bike fitted with smooth tires than a road bike?
a runner friend of mine wants to buy my CAAD10 that I use as a rain/spare bike from me, and i'm thinking of buying a cross bike (something like the Santa Cruz Stigmata or the Trek Boone Disc 5) as a replacement, as it would give me more options for riding while hopefully not sacrificing too much. I can give it the same gears and it'll be around the same weight (or less) as the CAAD10, so really its a question of how big a difference the wider tires and altered geometry will make. i wouldn't be racing it in a crit, but id consider riding it in a non-technical road race with crappy roads/races with gravel sections (for norcal riders: i'd mainly be interested in racing this at copperopolis).
In a non-technical crit it's no big deal. Even in big crits I don't think it's a big deal, although I certainly would prefer to be on a more nimble bike. I spent 25 years racing bikes with 70-72 degree head tube angles and when I first rode a 73 deg HTA bike it was a revelation.
At 8:50 or so in the video below there's a guy in green/Fizik shorts on a disk brake bike. I'm pretty sure it's a cross bike although it could have been a gravel/etc bike (Cannondale's offices are in the area).
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