I’ve recently looked in to a winter/CX/all-road bike; something I can knock out the winter miles on the road as well as getting off the beaten track. After looking at the available options, I came to the following conclusions based on my requirement for a genuine all rounder.
CX bikes while attractive both in features and price have inherently compromised geometry if you are going to spend a reasonable amount of your time on the road, fast tracks and gravel i.e. faster riding. Clearly if you plan to regularly race, then a CX bike makes more sense. In the context of the original and follow up posts that means Diverge, not Crux in my view.
To me a hybrid of endurance road and cross geometry offers a better balance for a genuine all rounder. On ST compromise is often a dirty word, but I think for these all-road style bikes it’s a virtue.
Mudgaurd/fender mounts were something I was quite interested in until I realised that in most cases they limit you to 30mm or 32mm tires. Fine for pure road riding but one of my key requirements was the ability to run 33mm or wider gravel and cross tires. Mudguards don’t work off road and the whole point of these bikes is to ride mixed terrain on a single ride.
I looked at 4 options with thru axles. I ideally I wanted standard 15/100 and 14/142 thru axles:
Cannondale Slate
Open U.P.
Ridley X-Trail
Specialized Diverge
I discounted the Specialized. It’s a really interesting bike but being limited to Specialized SCS wheels meant it failed the versatility test for me. I understand why Specialized went down this route, but I don’t agree. I was also a little nervous about the 35mm max tire. A lot of interesting new gravel and off-road rubber is 40mm.
The Cannondale is really interesting. The wheel and suspension choice makes it potentially a lot of fun. My wife rides a Synapse and is seriously considering the Slate. At circa. USD 4K I think it’s great value.
The Ridley is a very complete package in my view and is the embodiment of the all-road bike I described earlier. In my view this probably the best alternative to the Diverge because you can run standard wheels and bigger 40mm tires. Great geometry specs are quite decent if you plan to buy a complete bike.
Ultimately I went for the Open U.P. I think the concept is perfect for an all-road bike. Geometry is spot on. It’s fast but also stable. The fact you can run 700c 28mm race rubber, 40mm cross/gravel tires or 650B wheels with 2.1” MTB rubber make it compelling in my view.
In the pictures it’s sporting Challenge Almanzo 33mm open tubulars. I’ve just mounted some Tubeless WTB Nano’s in 40mm. The more I ride the more I value the ability to run bigger tires when venturing off-road. Due to the versatile nature of the bike I've left an additional 15mm of space on the fork steerer. If I try a couple of cross races or spend more time than planned off road I can raise the bars 10mm and run a shorter stem to get a more upright cross position.
