Originally Posted by
RJBTrek
Well yes and no. If I don't have a bike that would come close to working for cross, I would be discouraged. I was considering using my Trek 5000 road bike but the brakes only allow a thin slick tires Given that people are all over the course with cross tires, the ones I have would not work. I don't have a MTB bike. Hence my looking for a cross bike (54).
Do it on the cheap, man. Ride something like this bad boy:
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/bik/1259729959.html
Don't like the flat bar look? You could convert it to drop bars, brake levers, and some sort of indexed, non-STI shifting for another $100 or so if you're thrifty.
We've got a guy on our team who took an old steal Schwinn road bike (with better tire clearance), bought a nashbar cross fork and is running a canti up front and regular road brake in back. Seems to me an ok setup as the mud around here is not as bad as people like to fear.