Does anyone ever just go riding?
 

I live in San Diego, rarely do I see others on cyclocross bikes. I use mine as my regular ride. It is my go anywhere bike. Over the weekend, I went up to Mt Laguna, rode quite a bit of the singletrack there, and some of the road. It seems a good place for really fun cyclocross riding, yet still, rarely see others. So, anyone out there just go riding? It would be a lot of fun for a group ride, trails and road.

I only have cyclocross bikes as well, but I still struggle with tires. I have multiple wheelsets with different tires, but I have to plan my rides. If doing road rides, I have my road wheelset with road tires, for trails. If I could find a tire that would suffice for both, I'd be one happy camper and then the cyclocross bike would truely be a go anywhere bike. For me that is..

I just use one tire. It does cause more wear, but my rides are rarely just road or just trail. I mix and match as necessary, or just how I feel. I might be on a road ride and see a cool trail, or half my ride might be on trail, the other road.

http://www.rei.com/product/709112
These are the tires that I use on my cross bike (Vittoria Randonneur)
I use these in all conditions (have yet to try in mud, though), and they work great.

If you are looking for a group ride, check out the SoCal cross site:
http://www.socalcross.org/
to see if you can hook up with other riders.

I use mine for racing only but part of that is training on the roads. When I train on the roads I put a wheel set with road tires on it. Last race in January the bike gets hung up on a peg till the next year.

My CX is the bike I ride most often. It is disc-equipped to deal with the clay-mud on local farm roads and snow in the winter. I don't race - Just ride to survive. Unless I was going on a very fast group ride, I'd take the CX -- even though I have a road bike and a hardtail MTB in the stable as well.

Which tire do you use? If cross, do you find yourself slower on the road?

What have you tried? The adventure touring people seem very happy with either Marathon Supremes (ultra fast touring slick with some off road capability, especially in the wider sizes - I'd go 40mm) or Extremes (said to be about the fastest treaded tyre you can buy; excellent road handling - ie doesn't suffer tread flexing and "walking" in tight corners.) I've read posts by people who even use the Extremes for MTBing, up until the point they need a tyre with high speed good cornering in mud.

In defence of my current Weird Turquoise Michelins they're great off road and fast and even corner well on tarmac. Just a shame they can't brake there too...

There are very few cross bikes around. I've never been asked so many questions about a bike.

Only tire I've tried for off road and on road is the Specialized Borough CX. I'd say that this works ok off road as long as no climbing is involved, but they are quite slow on the road.

I've heard great things about the Marathon's. Might be worth a shot. If there exists a tire that could do good on both surfaces (nothing extreme offroad) then just going for a ride as the OP originally asks would be very easily possible.

The Borough is *notoriously* slow. It's the cost of the high degree of puncture protection combined with relative cheapness - you get through using thick rubber, which shoves rolling resistance up.

The Supreme should at least as good as the Borough off road and much faster on it. The Extreme should be quite a bit better at both, but not quite as fast as the Supreme on tarmac. And you shouldn't have to give up any puncture protection - the technology is just better than the Borough. They do cost quite a bit more though!

Edited to add:
Schwalbe have just brought out a new sib for the Supreme, the "Dureme". For on/off road I'd go with this over the Supreme if I didn't choose the Extreme.

>There are very few cross bikes around. I've never been asked so many questions about a bike.

Yeah, I've never seen another one off-road. Went on a group mtb ride with 20+ FS mtb, and more than half the other riders found time to sidle up alongside me and ask what the hell I was doing on singletrack on a road bike... The funny bit was when a couple of them would be like "oh, there's some singletrack with berms and stuff coming up...are you going to be ok on that?"

(The not so funny bit was when, on some singletrack with berms and stuff, I failed to clear a fallen log and sprained my wrist...)

My tires, as so far they've always been, are Kenda Kwicks. They came stock with the bike, haven't tried others. They're 30c, and do well enough for me on and off the road. I've never noticed them to be "slow". When I went touring back in August, I kept a good pace on the road. I just don't want to go with slicks, as I never really know how a ride will go until I go. It is the main reason I love riding my cyclocross bike or freedom bike as it seems to really be, simply for the avenues of riding it opens up. I think mostly of Back To The Future - Roads? Where we are going we don't need roads!

Heck yes I do!

I went for a ride this morning that took me into a part of town that features a lot of possible detours. The BMX trails that run through fields between houses are a lot of fun. I can be riding with my (road) riding buddy and suddenly cut off the road at speed and take a high speed shortcut through the BMX trails in time to pop out in front of him several streets over. I even do the jumps! :D

Exactly what I'm talking about. Tomorrow, I plan a ride, unknown mileage (50-70), with at least 20 miles being dirt road or singletrack. These are the rides I go on since I bought a CX bike. I could easily find a group ride with road bikes, maybe one with mountain bikes, but I'd love to find a few others that would go on rides like mine. And you can only really do them efficiently on a CX bike.

My CX bike is ridiculously practical and versatile--I ride it everywhere. It's got 30c Schwalbe CX Comps on it (I've only been able to find the 30c size at thebikebiz.com). They're noticeably slower than slicks, but not really that bad. The versatility is definitely worth it--I take my bike out on singletrack, through alleys, over glass, etc. The semi slick tread is nice because I run my bike fixed a lot and pop skids every once in awhile.

I have my sportier road bike too, but the Rob Roy gets ridden most of the time.

I built up my Jamis Nova for this exact reason. Today I rode a mix of dirt, gravel and road and it was awesome. I'm running Vittoria Rando crosses in 32 which seem pretty good except on steep loose gravel/dirt hills. I need to learn some better technique so I don't spin out in this situation.

Well, todays ride was 66 miles, ran everything from freeway to singletrack. Fun. Even saw a coyote and a roadrunner (got pics of the roadrunner). Oh the places I will go!

I ride a Tricross with Marathon Supreme's. I use it for almost everything. The original Borough CX that came on it wore fast, were slow, and had non existent puncture protection. I flatted more on those tires than any I have ever owned. I hated them as they were guaranteed to be a problem daily. After 5 flats in one day from goat heads, I upgraded to the 35c Marathon Supreme and I'm a happy camper, no flats, roll fast, works on dirt roads and easy trails. Occasionally, I will get the road bike out for a quick spin, when I get back on the Tricross it's like riding a Cadillac, smooth and stable on any road or speed. Great tires, you get what you pay for with these.