Road bike for cyclocross

Triathlon Forum
1

I would like to give cyclocross a try. I have an old road bike I would like to use.
Does somebody know if I can fit some cyclocross tires on it? I wonder about the brake calipers.

Thanks

2

The problem, like you stated, is going to be getting tires that size to fit in your existing calipers. I run a 32mm cross tire, but I couldn’t imagine getting much more than a 25 or 28mm on with road calipers. I’m not sure what qualifies as a narrow cross tire.

3

Plus you need extra clearance for mud and debris that collects on the tires.

4

I ran my single speed road bike for a few races last season and the first 3 or so this season.

I found I could fit 30 wide tires by deflating them when taking them on and off. I could go bigger in the front, but I was running out of room on the rear horizontal drop outs. I could only run the rear wheel so far back and still use the chain tensioners.

I’m about 185lbs and found that I had traction problems with the skinnier tires, when I got my Cross bike this season besides it having gears, I found that being able to run 35 tires made a huge difference.

I ran Cool Stop dual (wet and dry) brake pads, that seemed to work really good. I broke a break leaver, trashed the frame and fork, had to get my rear wheel rebuilt twice, broke a my rear brake… all in 3 races on my road single speed. You will find that cross is tough on bikes, very hard on the drivetrain.

I think that you will be fine in a drier race, anything with sticky mud and grass might overcome road brakes, if you are running narrow tires, you may find tight and loose turns suck.

You might find that the top tube cabling gets in the way with a road bike too. On my signle speed, I ran the rear brake cable down the outside of the top tube (outside when shouldering the bike) so it was not digging into me.

You’ll have to play around with things, maybe find an understanding local bike shop with a selection of cross tires on hand that they will let you try on the bike to see what fits.

5

Try a “Search Posts” and I’m sure you’ll find lots of responses.

If you have a newer bike, I would be surprise if you got anything bigger than a 700x28 especially if the tire has any kind of cleats/bite. If you are able to find a tire that works for you, I would be concerned about build up if you plan on going through any muck/ice snow. The issue is likely to more of the clearance of the tire to the underside of the brake caliper.

I have used 700x42 tires on my Blue Competition cross/winter bikes.

6

where do you live? If not the pac northwest you can probably get away with it. Fleck runs 32s on his cervelo eyre road bike no problem. The main issue is clearance and how muddy the course will be. go to your lbs and try a narrow tire. I can’t remember the name of the tire fleck uses but i think it woudl be your best bet. For the majority of the cross races in IN, and MI you’d be fine.

Dan
www.aiatriathlon.com

7

Thank you all for your answers.
I live in Clearwater FL, so snow is out of the picture.
There is a local cyclocross race series in January 2007 and I wanted to give it a try without spending too much.
I’ll check with my LBS and see what they have.

Thanks

8

It’s doable. Depends on a few things:

  1. Will your road bike take a wider tire.

  2. You may want to put on a different cog set or crank set

  3. The type of terrain - if it’s really technical, hilly and muddy, you will need a cross bike.

I do what I call soft cross in the fall spring. My old road bike is an old Cervelo Eyre Road. It will take up to a 32mm tire on it( You need to fully release the brakes to put the wheels on/off)) and I put a 12 - 26 cassette on it leaving my 52/39 chain rings on the front. With this set up I can hit most trails, dirt roads, and grass fields. This is the bike that I use in the annual Toronto area, To Hell And Back Ride - a 140K ride made up of about 1/3 road, 1/3 dirt and gravel road and about 1/3 trail. Bike works beautifully for this.