Is there much difference between these two cross bikes?

Roundandround

Is there much difference between a Specialized Tricross and a Ridley Crossbow? Am toying with the idea of a cross because I fancy drops (and need to carry a bit), but a full skinny-tyred road bike scares the wits out of me.

The Specialized Tricross is coming in at £699 (special offer, reduced from £750), and it comes with 10% worth of accessories free. I figure that'd cover a good portion of fenders, rack and SPDs. Also, the bike comes with the extra set of brake levers.

The Ridley is £899 (reduced from £999, apparently) and, according to the bike website, there are no freebies.

Would be grateful for any thoughts.

Thanks.

petemadoc

The Ridley is OMG absolutely one of the most gorgeous cross bikes you can buy, Ridley is a Belgian brand, the home of hardcore cyclocross. It comes with a Tiagra groupset which is pretty decent.

The specialized comes with a sora groupset which is just OK, the main problem I can see with sora is that you can't go up a gear when on the drops unless you have the world's longest thumbs. If it's the same one I'm looking at it comes with a triple chainset.

The Ridley is a bike to get the heart racing

The specialized is a bit Meh.

IMO

cougie

Isnt the Tricross a bit hefty ? Not ridden one myself but have seen others commenting ?

Pseudonym

the Crossbow is a pukka CX race bike - the Tricross is more of a crossover/hybrid. Like Cougie says, it's alo a bit hefty for serious cross work, although I'm sure some of them do get raced...

SimonCross

I have a Tricross Sport which I have had for 2 months and have been very pleased with it. However today I went to my local bike shop in the UK and there was a notice saying that Specialized had been informed of a problem with the forks and they advised all owners to stop riding them immediately! No other information available from the shop but the Edinburgh Bike Cooperative and Evans Cycles in the UK have removed them from their websites.