Jack of all trades

cooper.michael1

Looking for a jack of all trades bike, almost to replace what i already have with one bike. Looking at cyclocross bikes, the only worry being canti brakes, i remember them not being great, and many people say they are worse than dual pivots which in the wet i think are never brilliant.

However of course you can get disk brakes on cyclocross bikes:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ProductDetail.a ... isc%202008

That focus caught my eye and i really like it. Apart from weight, which im not really bothered about (this is going to be a commute, credit card European touring, and sunday ride to the pub bike) are there any down sides of disk brakes?

Like i say in the wet and on steep decents, id love to have more power than on my normal road bike.

So are cantis as bad as i remember?
Are disks the answer to my prayers?

Cheers, Mike!

Smokin Joe

I've never used cantis, but if discs were widely available on road bikes they would be my choice every time. Worth it for the fact that rim life will be infinate on it's own.

andrewgturnbull

Hi there.

I use my cross bike for wet weather training, winter commuting, pulling my 4 year old on a tag-along and, er cross racing.

They do make pretty good all-rounder bikes, but mudguard fitting can be problematic, and canti brakes are terrible on the road. Don't get me wrong, they are great off road, but with drop levers even the best cantilevers brakes (I use frogglegs) can be a liability.

Feathering the brakes is far harder to judge, and when you go for a handful of brake in a hurry they get very grabby.

Disc brakes sound like a great idea - as long you don't mind the weight penalty and aren't planing to score any points in the National Tropy series...

Cheers, Andy

cooper.michael1

Yeah i read they are banned in cyclocross races, bizarre...holding back technology as ever, bloody UCI!

My riding is fairly varied, but involves commuting, i like to go overseas and light tour and also have a bit of a blast down the lanes around here doing 40miles or so on a sunday.

Ive had my road bike for 4 years and it is pretty limiting, max 25c tyres mean sure on good tarmac it is fine but you cant take a bike like that on tour with you and have fun. There are so many places to explore where 25c road tyre just dont cut it.

I lived in Germany for a year and the cycle paths there are great, but again not designed for road bikes...suddenly you will hit 1km of gravel etc... At the moment i use my slicked up MTB for these journeys.

I really dont want a hybrid, so a disk cross machine maybe the best option...means i can very the tyres depending on what im doing between 25c slicks right upto 35c knobblies. The Focus seems resonable value...

Do cyclocross bikes usually have a slightly more upright geometry than a road racer?

Gary D

Mike,
I don't know if you saw the Orbea Diem Drop Disc review in Cycling Plus recently?
Might be worth a look. Link below

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/ ... c-08-28049

They mention it is heavy - but it is about a pound and a half lighter than my Spesh Tricross! They also say that fitting mudguards might be fiddly - but not impossible.

Incidentally, I have canti's on my Tricross but I swapped the original ones for Suntour ones and fitted Koolstop pads. I can honestly say I have never had any trouble stopping and I am no lightweight. Surprisingly though, I have not ridden a bike with modern dual pivots on so I can't really compare. I would agree that they are not quite as good as the V-brakes on my Hybrid but they are not that far behind.

Hope this helps.

Gary.

andrewgturnbull

cooper.michael1 wrote:

Do cyclocross bikes usually have a slightly more upright geometry than a road racer?

Hi there.

Usually they're pretty similar to road bikes in terms of head tube and seat tube angles, but they generally have higher bottom brackets, shorter top tubes and slightly longer head tubes.

So yes, you do sit a little more upright. The drop from saddle to bars is about 2cm less on my cross bike than on my road bikes. The top tube is 1cm shorter.

Cheers, Andy

Icicle19

Re mudguards on a bike where fitting them is tricky or impossible due to lack of clearance under the fork crown/rear brake bridge, then reach-around guards are an option. See

http://www.rivercitybicycles.com/mod.ph ... page_id=65

http://www.rivercitybicycles.com/mod.ph ... page_id=58

I've done this on a road bike with SKS chromoplastic guards and a variety of brackets/nuts/bolts etc from SJSC, and it works a treat.

JWSurrey

I saw some nice disc-braked Konas in a shop on Friday.
Worth a look. Cool green colour, but a stonking set of steel forks!

I'm not sure how easy it is to get spares for disc-brakes when out touring.

My brother-in-law recently had what we thought was an issue - the wheels had been off the bike for two days, and when we re-assembled it, the brakes (hydraulic, admittedly) were locked-on/rubbing - fortunately they freed up after about 30 seconds of riding/braking.

There was a recent thread about some extreme downhill riding, where someone mentioned that their hydraulic brakes had heated up, then locked-on.
Someone else replied to say that with disc brakes you have to pump them to prevent the pads/system heating up and expanding, locking on.
Not seen many posts on this topic though, so maybe not a very common problem.
(After all, it's poss. to melt standard blocks too).

My "comfortable shoes" bike is a Condor Fratello with handbuilt wheels.
The Heritage is quite a nice touring model, which appears to have V-brakes, but the blurb says cantis.
Neither is really a crosser though; the Frat. will take 25c with mudguards comfortably, but any larger will require the guards to come off - I think 28c may fit at a push (The heritage has more clearance, I think).

maddog 2

I run a Airborne Carpe Diem ti CX frame for my do-it-all (DIA?) bike

They are now Van Nicholas and the geometry is slightly different but that might be something you could look out for s/hand. Lovely, supple frame. Early ones are not disc-ready though.

As for discs, there was a thread about this recently on singletrack. My view is they are the way forward.

Obviously, if you run flat bars+bar ends you can fit whatever brakes you want. Some lightweight Hope/Avid/Magura/Formula hydraulics, Vs, whatever. But that might be an innovation too far.........

ps. locked brakes only tend to occur on long Alpine descents (off road, and some brake systems) - I wouldn't worry about that on a road bike (unless you ride downhill with your brakes on...)

Kirky

I had this exact same dilemma a while ago, I needed a bike to do the following….

- ‘Deep winter’ training bike (i.e. full mudguards).
- Commute bike (racks etc for panniers).
- Be able to carry my daughters seat on the back.
- Something I could take on holiday, with changeable wheels – i.e. fatter tyres for riding with the family and a 2nd pair of wheels with faster tyres for training in the mornings. Saves taking two bikes away with me!!
- Would like to have disks for the extra stopping power (with the little one on the back) and for the more power during the winter with all the crud on the roads.
- Something that would be OK if I wanted to have a go at some cross racing in the future (although if I got into it I would buy another bike).

And just to be a pain in the backside, I wanted to stick to 700c!!

To be honest I looked around for ages and nothing fitted the bill – so now I’m building my own. As part of my business (an online bike shop that I won’t mention cause I don’t want to turn this into a blantant plug!!) I’ve sourced a good 7005 series alloy touring frame that comes with disk mounts etc, and one of my supplier has let me test out a LOVELY pair of carbon forks, with alloy steerer, disk (and canti) mounts, mudguard eyes AND front rack mounts!! The plan is to build it up using low end Campag (9 speed Xenon / Veloce mix, from my old winter bike), drop bars, SRAM ergo specific disk brakes and some handbuilt wheels – again I’m looking at various hub suppliers (most disk hubs are for Shimano, not Campag cassette’s!!). The idea being I’ll build two sets of wheels, one with more of an off-road / cross tyre and the other with a thinner pair of slicks – probably using different rims for them too, the beauty of disks is that there won’t be any problems re-setting the brakes whenever I swap things the wheels over.

Happy to keep you updated on my progress (only started bolting bits together at the weekend and trying to figure out what I still needed to get!!), not sure if I’ll sell it on to the open market in the future as a build option – guess that depends on how it rides, the feedback and whether or not there’s actually much of a market for this type of bike!!

KIRKY

chip42

Hi Mike,I have a Kinesis 4t 'cross frame with Campag Xenon 9 speed Ergos coupled to V-Brakes this gives all the stopping power I need.This frame will take tyres up to about 40mm,I have fitted an ITM Visia 'cross fork which has mudguard eyes as does the frame.Without 'guards and no fancy bits it weighs 19lb.

Andy

Tony Universe

I took a converted MTB on a long tour, I had a disc on the front, and it was fantastic.

Some fellow tourers who clearly weren''t comfortable with anything that's been invented since the mid-50's were suprised at my recklessness. I pointed out that in comparison to any other sort of brake, discs (good discs) are incredbly reliable, and if I needed to rely on any brake on long descents with my considerable weight and 40 extra kilos, it would be these. You can take spare hose, spare pads (although I didn't) and brake fluid would be available pretty much anywhere (assuming you're using hydraulic brakes).

Worst case, if both discs broke, which is incredibly unlikely, you could always stick some canti's/v-brakes on (providing you've got the mounts).

Definitely the way forward.

cooper.michael1

Thanks for everyones input, i think disks are also the way forward for all but competing racers. Modern road bikes just seem to be too geared towards pure on racing, the fact some can hardly fit 25c tyres shows this.

Many of the problems with disks seem to be with hydraulic brakes, which i guess you wont find on any drop bar bike (surely STI levers as they are cannot function with liquid?)...so they are all going to be cable...

Orbea seem to have come up with a good idea...i really like that bike, but it is hard to justify £1500 on a bike, i dont think i'll ever spent £1000+ Im also not a big fan of carbon for a jack of all trades, maybe if sales are good an Alu 105 spec one may be made??

The focus i was looking at comes in at about 23lbs for the 58cm (my size). If i wanted to use it in the summer for just road riding 23c tyres and tubes would have that down to about 20lbs...not super light weight but when you add in the rider weight and 4lbs water/kit etc... it really wont make so much difference.

I saw a Kinesis crosslight the other day, nice finish and very light....british too arnt they?

.....I use a MTB hybid now, was just looking for something a little more lively.

andywgg

I sounds like I'm after almost exactly the same "DIA" 2nd bike - but the Focus doesn't take 'guards or a rack, does it? I'm currently looking at a PlanetX Uncle John with 105 at £799, but I'm not sure I like the sound of the canti brakes - had kind of assumed they'd be better than normal road ones, but it doesn't sound like it!

chrisw12

Kirky, you have the same problems as me, children, bikes for holidays etc.

I also think discs are the way forward. I was so unhappy with my bikes braking performance during wet commutes that I even tried fixed wheel. Someone then introduced me to the dark side of mtb and disc brakes and I now do most of my commutes on a new mtb, realising how bad the dual pivots and v brakes actually are in the wet.

Since my main focus is time trialing, I'm thinking of converting an old mtb so that it as a front disc, flat bars and tri bars. Should be good enough to ride with the children, commute and train on.