Cyclocross vrs Adventure Vrs Road

Bigphillyb

Hi Guys,

other than tyres whats the real difference?

sorry if this is a bit of a basic question but i am new to this.

cheers
p

tgotb

CX bike - bigger clearances than road bike for knobbly tyres and mud; disc or canti brakes for the same reason. Very slightly different geometry (eg slightly relaxed head angle). Easy to carry (top tube may have flattened base). Cable routing generally via top tube (internal or on top). Pure race-oriented CX bike may have no braze-ons for mudguards or bottle cages (though almost all seem to have bottle cage braze-ons). Race bike likely to have different gearing (eg 46/36 or single chainring).

As far as I can tell, Adventure bike is just CX bike with added bottle cage and marketing bullsh*t...

ai_1

What he said.
A cyclocross bike fitted with slicks can do a very passable job as a road bike. Aside from the brakes and bigger wheel clearances there's not much difference after you fit road tyres. Never heard of an Adventure bike. I suspect TGOTB is correct!

tangled_metal

Adventure road bike is a term Evans use for crossers and tourers. If you look at the touring and adventure road bike sections on their site there's some cross over. Same with the lower end of their CXers section.

Solid road bikes is how I see them. From audax/ sportive bikes to CXers.

Monty Dog

Don't forget to add Gravel Grinder to your list ;-)
For years we called and rode CX bikes, and then some marketing wonks created some new sub-genre in a brainstorm and all of a sudden we were immersed in a sea of bull-$hit!

bendertherobot

http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/gear/artic ... ike-37582/

Some interesting views there.

I think there's probably little difference but the wheelbase thing is probably compelling.

Thing is we've had adventure/gravel bikes for years. The Croix De Fer, for example, was never really a cross bike. It seems to me to be the very definition of the long distance gravel grinder.

tangled_metal

Read that link and followed a few of the links in it. Salsa bikes look really nice bikes. There's a few I would like. One of them is a wide tyred, gravel bike with front suspension. Not sure if it's pedigree is a road bike with suspension or a MTB harcd tail with drop bars. Think it is a road bike dragging its knuckles on the ground and challenging you to just try and break it!! (Note I am slightly exagerrating here it is not really that tough). I've seen the odd CXer mixing it up in the Lakes with MTBers but I'd love to see someone taking that bike up the Lakes fells.

http://salsacycles.com/bikes/fargo/2015_fargo_2_suspension

tgotb

I think there are still some untapped marketing opportunities here:

Mud CX challenge bike - similar to CX bike but with knobblier tyres (PDX, XM etc)
Winter CX challenge bike - file treads
Summer CX challenge bike - file treads and bottle cage
Summer CX adventure - file treads and two bottle cages
Summer CX explorer - file treads, two bottle cages and a Garmin mount
Summer performance explorer - road geometry, narrow tyres, two bottle cages, Garmin mount
etc

Each of the above in different variants across the price rage, from Aluminium frame and Sora, to Carbon frame and Ultegra.

With so many variants, a bike shop would have to carry a huge amount of stock, but I think I have a cunning way round that :-)

mattrixdesign2

What about a CX Fat Bike (a Fat bike with drop bars?) :oops: or why not continue a play on the wheels, how about a flat bar CX 26er :roll: on even a 650b Gravel Road River Crossing Mud Maxmizer

Like above there is nothing in it, other than the geometry on CXs (+ the variants) can change to make for a more race orientated or easier going bike "long distance" on commute type bike or bottom bracket clearance etc.

tangled_metal

Why not just say road bike, MTB, Folder, Kids pedal, kids balance, recumbent, trike/quad and hand bike. All the variants fit into one of those.

You just say road bike suitable for touring or commuting or gravel racing or CX instead of giving it a new genre of bike. They are all road bikes at their heart just made to be better at one terrain/style of riding than the other.

Of course what is a bike called with front suspension, fat tyres, mud clearance, disc brakes and drop handles but has a road style frame/geometry but made tougher?

ai_1

Tangled Metal wrote:

Why not just say road bike, MTB, Folder, Kids pedal, kids balance, recumbent, trike/quad and hand bike. All the variants fit into one of those.

You just say road bike suitable for touring or commuting or gravel racing or CX instead of giving it a new genre of bike. They are all road bikes at their heart just made to be better at one terrain/style of riding than the other.

Of course what is a bike called with front suspension, fat tyres, mud clearance, disc brakes and drop handles but has a road style frame/geometry but made tougher?

Not sure I agree with that.
A road bike is a bike for the road. A CX is very similar physically but the purpose is different, i.e. mostly off-road mud and dirt track racing. On the other hand I would say hybrids/city-bikes/folding bikes, etc are all road bikes but are never really referred to as such. The naming conventions for bikes are all a bit of a mess really (IMO!)
There's a reason why the uninitiated usually refer to road bikes as "racers". It's because in reality they're only a sub-set of the bikes meant for use on the road.

bendertherobot

I think the question will eventually become, is it worth having a good weather bike that you do sportives on 3 times. Or something a little rougher than you can use all the time, on all surfaces and not be any slower on a sportive on.

ai_1

bendertherobot wrote:

I think the question will eventually become, is it worth having a good weather bike that you do sportives on 3 times. Or something a little rougher than you can use all the time, on all surfaces and not be any slower on a sportive on.

If it's one bike for all, or if you're not sure exactly how you'll use it yet, get a CX bike.
If you get more serious about road cycling later and decide to splash out on an expensive pure road bike you can hang onto the CX bike and use it for cyclocross, as a bad weather road bike, for riding canal paths, as a tourer or any number of other uses your pure road bike isn't ideal for....or you can sell it.
I rode a cyclocross-ish bike for 3 years before getting a very nice road bike. The cyclocross bike never held me back when doing duathlons, sportives and weekend rides with my friends (all on road bikes). In fact it was rare that anyone noticed it wasn't a road bike. The slightly beefy fork and cantilever brakes were the only real giveaway.

src1

I see that cx bikes have a higher bottom bracket for improved clearance over rough ground and randomly placed planks of wood. My MTB feels all wrong to me, wrt where the BB is, I.e., it's too high and too far forward. Do CX bikes feel like that at all, or are they just like traditional road bikes in feel?

SNMarine

I have my first CX bike (2nd hand) this winter and raced on it, it works very well with slick tyres as my commuter,
have road bike, v light and brilliant on the road ...

all these variants mean we must keep Rule 12 bike to own is N+1 a secret from the marketing bods

tgotb

SNMarine wrote:

I have my first CX bike (2nd hand) this winter and raced on it, it works very well with slick tyres as my commuter,
have road bike, v light and brilliant on the road ...

all these variants mean we must keep Rule 12 bike to own is N+1 a secret from the marketing bods

The main issue I have with commuting on my race bike (apart from the fact that my races bike are not always rideable on a Monday morning) is that in the Winter I want to commute on a bike with mudguards. Cleaning/maintaining 2 race bikes every weekend is enough of a drag anyway, without having to fit and remove mudguards every week. This was my excuse for invoking the N+1 rule; I now have a commuter based on a CX frame, with identical geometry to the race bikes. In en emergency I could even strip off the rack and mudguards and race it, so it doubles as a spare race bike :-)

bendertherobot

My bigger issue is that my Planet X, with posh wheels, and brand new Hy Rd. And generally very clean. Well, it would make the best CX bike. Better than my Bivio.

Thing is, there's dirt. And mud. And it would be a shame to get my XLS dirty...........