Help me choose....quick

polska1979 · November 2013

Finally got my evans ride to work voucher

£1k plus I get £50 of free accessories

I've decided to get the 2014 caadx sora, bundled in some shoes, pedals, another lock and a cat eye nano shot light for just over the 1k, voucher for the extra £50 is burning a hole.

This has been ordered and is due in next week.....but

I've just had a thought, would the pinnacle arkose 3 not be a better buy, 1k on the bike, then £120 of free accessories on a current offer evans are running on bikes over £999, plus the £50 voucher I get with the c2w

I could still get the shoes, pedals and light, but would have to forget the lock and anything else

What do you reckon.?

I do plan on using this for cx races, winter training etc

StefanP · November 2013

The pinnacle arkose 3 is more a road bike with disc brakes than a cyclocross bike imo, you should still get some free accessories if the 'dale is 2014 though, think it is about £50… FWIW I bought the 'Dale CAADX 105 and love it!

veronese68 · November 2013

They should allow you to test ride both. You may have to put down a £50 deposit so they will get them in, but if they know you have a voucher they may not ask. If they get them in for you to try and you have a voucher you should then be able to ride away on whichever one you choose.
The Pinnacle is a good spec for the money, but I didn't like the feel of it when I tried one. Not tried a Canondale.

polska1979 · November 2013

I think the frame is the key really, The Caadx frame is the same right the way through the range isnt it.

I was chatting to a lady in evans who races cx to quite a high level and she recommended a caadx over a pinnacle due to the weight

wilky27 · November 2013

Get a TT bike and stopping pricking about in the mud!!!

VamP · November 2013

What about the CAADX 105 2013, reduced to £940?

DavidBelcher · November 2013

Not really an aluminium fan myself, but two of my clubmates have Cannondale CX bikes (the 2011 CAAD frameset IIRC) and all the feedback from them seems to be positive, with decent results to mtach.

David

tgotb · November 2013

wilky27 wrote:

Get a TT bike and spend the next 4 months getting fat while you wait for the weather to improve!!!

FTFY

All things being equal, weight makes a big difference in CX because of the amount of time spent accelerating, climbing, flicking the bike over hurdles or running around with it on your shoulder. Aluminium is still a pretty mainstream frame material for CX; the ride quality provided by a steel frame is pretty immaterial in a cross race, and aluminium frames tend to be stiff, which means good power transfer.

ednino · November 2013

CAAD all day long

wilky27 · November 2013

TGOTB wrote:

I'm a 10 year old girl who still wets the bed and uses acronyms. LOL

Jal, stop be soft and just pick one. I'm dying to see you die on your arse in seccy woods.

SNMarine · December 2013

Hey all,
i'm looking at getting a cx.
I'm not too sure of size. Do i need to go smaller than my road frame, wot with all the jumping off and on ???

tgotb · December 2013

Don't worry about the jumping on and off; that all happens over the back wheel, so the frame size isn't a factor.

There's an argument that says you might want a slightly shorter top tube if your road position is fairly stretched out, to make the handling a bit more nimble, but we're not talking much. You might want to set it up with the bars a little bit higher, depending how aggressive your road position is. I normally ride a ~56cm frame on the road. My first cross bike was a 54, and it was far too small.

What are you planning to use the bike for?

SNMarine · December 2013

commuting on the tow path, and if time allows some racing,

tgotb · December 2013

Generalising hugely, I'd think about getting something fairly similar to your road bike (assuming that fits you and your position isn't stretched) but to begin with set it up with the bars an inch higher (depending on current road bike position). If you're racing, you *might* end up wanting to drop the bars back down again, so raise the bars with spacers rather than getting a frame with a very long head tube.

steveurch · December 2013

I ride a 56cm roadie, but was advised to go for a 54cm 'crosser. As it happens, the advice was good in this case because the dimensions of both are almost identical when you stand them side by side. It certainly feels the same, jumping from one to the other. As previous posts, I've flipped the stem on the 'crosser to lift the bars up a bit. :-)

tgotb · December 2013

steveurch wrote:

I ride a 56cm roadie, but was advised to go for a 54cm 'crosser. As it happens, the advice was good in this case because the dimensions of both are almost identical when you stand them side by side. It certainly feels the same, jumping from one to the other. As previous posts, I've flipped the stem on the 'crosser to lift the bars up a bit. :-)

I ride a 56cm road bike and a 57cm cross bike. As with yours, the dimensions are almost identical.

I wonder whether my 57 is the same size as your 54? :?

FransJacques · December 2013

Yes, choose a frame where the TT is identical or approx 1cm shorter than your road bike and you'll be fine.

Don't get too concerned with Head Tube lengths because they appear short, but don't forget CX forks are ~3cm longer than road forks (37 vs 40 cm from dropout to lower bearing) so actually they're quite tall.

Take note of standover heights esp. with Ridleys b/c they're quite tall.

Not all CAADX frames are identical. For some reason the lowest level CAADX bike has a threaded BB vs BB30 for the others. You could tell me it's for cost reasons but the set up and tooling costs to make 2 slightly different but otherwise identical frames seems bizarre to me. That's why I'm a milk man by trade...

kentphil · December 2013

I normally ride a 54 frame, my Caadx is 51cm. The 54 caadx felt too big. Cyclocross bikes do tend to have a shorter top tube and taller head tube which makes the sizing a little different I think.

Help me choose....quick

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