[spoke80]

New to CX but not to mtb. I believe the frame, fork, and headset all come together and I have a few items from my road bike. I am building up a Giant CX which is my first full blown CX frame so i need some adice on building it up.

What I have:
Ultegra Shifter/Brake levers
Dura-ace rear derailluer
Ultegra 170 cranks and rings
Ultegra BB
Cassette 25-12
Chain pc99

What I lack:
Avid disc brakes
Disc Wheels
Front Derailluer
Tires
Stem
Handlebar

 

[SuspectDevice]

Skip the discs! Ditch the front deraileur, chainrings and front shifter as well.

Throw on a 42t chainring, and outer spot ring, an n-gear jumpstop and build yourself some ultegra/ open pro wheels. Stick some 30c Tufo tubular clinchers on there and you are set. Use the wheels off your road bike as training wheels
Disc brakes don't belong on cross bikes!

 

[spoke80]

Skip the discs! Ditch the front deraileur, chainrings and front shifter as well.

Throw on a 42t chainring, and outer spot ring, an n-gear jumpstop and build yourself some ultegra/ open pro wheels. Stick some 30c Tufo tubular clinchers on there and you are set. Use the wheels off your road bike as training wheels
Disc brakes don't belong on cross bikes!

Thanks for your opinion on disc brakes and their relation to cross bikes but I don't have a choice since that is all Giant is doing. You'll like this; my bike last year was a SS 1991 Fat Chance Yo Eddy. What is a n-gear jumpstop?

 

[SuspectDevice]

FWIW the TCX has canti pivots, so you CAN run canti's on it. My favorites for price/performance are just simply avid shorty 4's, but I'm running Spooky Carbon's this year for the super-pimp factor.
The Jumpstop is a similar product to the Deda fang or 3rd eye chainwatcher, but has a more elegant design. It keeps the chain from falling off the inside of the chainring, and your outer bashring keeps the chain on in the other direction.
A single 42 with a 12-27 is much simpler and lighter with a doulbe setup, and you only loose 1 gear on each end vs a 38/46 setup.

 

[spoke80]

Awesome! No discs are you sure? I hope so because that way I can keep my wheels! Damn I really appreciate your advice. I am down with the single front chainring idea. Can you recommend a 42t ring?


What is the link for the Jumpstop? Also, what stem and H-bar would you reccomend?


More, more, more

 

[SuspectDevice]

Try www.cyclocrossworld.com for all of your cx needs. Stu, Emily, and Mark all know cross better than most people know peanut-butter. There will be links from cx world to the ampitheater of pain series, the NC series and the GA series, so be sure to hit the good races come fall.

Stem length and bar width should be similar to what you ride on your road bike, but generally a stem that is 1cm shorter (assuming the tcx fits similarly to your road bike, and your road bike fits, which is often a big assumption) isn't a bad idea to get you a little bit more upright.
You want to set up the bars on a cx bike higher than you would on a road bike so that you can spend more time in the drops. I set up peoples bikes so that their drops are about halfway between where the hoods and drops are on their road bike ( about 3-4cm higher). Run your brake hoods higher, as it further shortens your reach, it's easier to grab them, and it's totally the style to boot.
Some folks also run wider bars on their CX bikes for more leverage, but really any bar width and bend you are comfortable with will be just fine.

My "ideal" cx bike setup is to have a cx frame that has the same length seatube as my road bike, but a head tube that is 4 cm longer, and a TT that is 1.5 cm shorter. The rest of the measurements stay the same as the roadbike, and with a little fiddling you are at a solid cx position.

 

[spoke80]

Again thanks for your advice. I believe there will be 7-8 cx races in KNoxville, 6 in Johnson City, and a ton every where else. I am stoked!

How would you set up the front canti brake on the TCX? Would I have to install something to support the stradle cable? I am wondering this because isn' the TCX a zero stack headset?

 

[SuspectDevice]

Just use a simple 1/18th straddle cable hanger, just make sure it's for a threadless HS. You will be running a few hs spacers anyway, so the IS headtube won't make a difference.

 

[Wumpus]

ngear

 

[SuspectDevice]

Thank for the link Wumpus, i was too lazy to google anything, and I have a stock of jumpstomps that i got from merry sales on closeuout a few years ago, so i don't keep track of them enough...

 

[spoke80]

What do you think of the CyclocrossWorld single ring kit which features the outer and inner guides plus the 42t ring. I like the single rings set up becuase I can see how I would loose a chain setting the bike down after a run up. Also, the single ring set up allows me to ditch the LH sti shifter in favor of a lighter brake lever on the left hand side.

Oh yeah, how much taller should the stem be on a CX bike vs. a road set up.

 

[Nate at RIT]

You should be fine with a decent set of Avid canti's. That's what I run on my Redline, and they work fine, even in the Rochester winter (slush that freezes onto the rim, rims icing over slightly). So they should be fine in the mud. Seems like discs would lock up too easily in the mud of CX races with the smaller tires (compared to MTB tires). The idea is that you're not limited by your brakes stopping power, but by the tires' traction.

 

[SuspectDevice]

What do you think of the CyclocrossWorld single ring kit which features the outer and inner guides plus the 42t ring. I like the single rings set up becuase I can see how I would loose a chain setting the bike down after a run up. Also, the single ring set up allows me to ditch the LH sti shifter in favor of a lighter brake lever on the left hand side.

Oh yeah, how much taller should the stem be on a CX bike vs. a road set up.

The CX world kits are great, they package together the necessary parts, and give you a little bit of a discount to boot. I tend to just make parts for cx bikes i.e. grind the teeth off of a 48t chainring to make a guide for a 42 etc... But if your time is valuable to you buying stuff off the shelf is probally more effective. Whatever stem height gets your bars ~5cm higher than on your road bike is what you want.