Im thinking about picking one of these up to use for a commuter/all arounder. Do you guys size up or down for a commuter vs a dedicated road race bicycle? I plan on doing some cross with it as well, which is why I may size down, but not sure how advisable that is with a commuter. Also, I know it has 130mm dropouts, which precludes 135mm MTB hubs, and wider than roadie bottom bracket, so typical roadie cranks won't work... What cranks are people using with these? Do you all prefer roadie brake/shifter setups (ala SRAM Rival/Shimano 105) or MTB rapid fire shifters for commuting? I'm for sure going with disc brakes, which is why I'm planning on the cyclocross frame instead of the touring frame.

I built one up this past fall to be the occasional high speed/windy day commuter and potential 'cross bike, but I don't really have enough miles on it to give a solid opinion; plus it's my first drop bar bike, so I don't really have anything reasonable to compare it to (it's a hell of a lot faster than either my cruiser or my mountain bike, but also very different).


(I don't have access to a white garage door, so you'll have to make due with a white oven door as a backdrop )

As for the build, the rear dropouts on mine measured 133mm, so I just spread 'em by a couple of mm and used mountain disc hubs. In my understanding, some of the model years had 130mm dropouts, and some had 135mm (I guess mine was supposed to the latter, and slipped past quality control). I've got a Nashbar CR2 compact double road crank and a 118mm length bottom bracket, and it clears the chainstays, but barely; when I originally installed it as a 34/53 double it had good clearance, but when I changed it to a 42t/chainguard setup I had to space the drive side out a few mm, so now the non-drive side crank only clears the chainstay by a few mm. If you check out the customer reviews on the Nashbar page for this frame there's some useful tips about which cranks work and which don't. Shifters are friction barcons, but I would like to try an 8 speed brifter for the rear, although that would mean that I'd have to switch out the rear caliper for an Avid BB7 road instead of the current BB7 mountain brake, and right cross lever for a short pull lever.

After pricing components I may just buy a Cannondale quick cx4 instead... I have drop bar road bike, so I'm thinking a flat bar commuter/trail bike with 700c wheels and disc brakes may be a good choice here...

You're better off. I bought and configured a Nashbar CycloCross Frameset for commuting and the biggest issue was the frame geometry. The sloping top tube, combined with short chainstays, made for an extremely light front end when loaded with gear in panniers. I even tried moving the paniers around a bit but ran into a heel-strike issue.. Speaking of foot-contact issues, there is a good bit of toe overlap on the smaller frames (I had a SM). Hope this helps.

Small frame wouldn't be an issue for me I'm 6'5"