Originally Posted by
hazben1
I have a chance to buy a really nice carbon fiber cyclocross bike at a bargain. I already have a road bike, a hybrid, and a mountain bike. But, I think down the road I may do some bike touring and wondered how well suited is a cyclocross for touring. Anyone use one for touring? Plusses? Minuses?
I run a CX bike when I'm looking to do multi day trips at a kinda fast pace over crappier surfaces. I either run bikepacking gear or just a rear rack (axiom streamliner) and lightly packed (and small) panniers. No problems with carbon frames so far, though I'd suggest running an alloy seat post for mounting the axiom rack.
Gearing *might* be an issue, but IMHO the 46/36 front and 11-28 rear I see a lot of CX bikes come with by default isn't bad at all if you're running light. Right now my bike has 46/36 up front and 11-32 on the rear. I doubt it'll be a problem to put a derailer extender a 40t max casette and a road compact crank for an even wider range if I want to change it again.