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a) buy a dedicated CX bike
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you don't have to go 1x, you could just get a 46t outer ring
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a) Rival 1, if buying the whole Hydro groupset on it's own is ££, add a carbon fork and you could have purchased a dedicated bike. Maybe wait for Planet-X to drop the XLA Apex 1 back to £899.
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There wasn't a discussion on our club forum about getting cx bikes, 9one contributer pointed out you could getting a decent second hand canti cx bike for £300 from central league facebook so maybe look for an older second hand bike
Howard
fredtc
spinnnout
underuser53929
@ewanmac
Cheers all.
I originally bought my CdF as a "do it all" gravel/tourer/commuter/offroad bike but never felt satisfied with it as a jack of all trades... When I had fat tyres fitted it was sluggish on the road, mudguards and panniers just got in the way off road etc. Then someone suggested I try cross and so I stripped all the touring/commuting bits off and I've loved the summer series so far, but obviously the setup still isn't ideal.
So, should I:
a) buy a dedicated CX bike and return the CdF to touring/commuting duties?
b) convert the CdF into a more cross oriented build (Sram Rival 1x drivetrain, maybe carbon disc forks to save some weight) and rebuild my rusty old steel rat frame back into a regular commuter.
I think I prefer option b because we're currently saving for a house and I think it would be cheaper, and also I get the feeling that cross is a discipline where it's harder to buy speed than it is in TTs and so a £1,000 C2W cross bike is unlikely to make me much faster than the upgraded CdF.
What would you do? How much difference does a fancy carbon bike make in cross? Even with a carbon fork, I imagine the CdF will still weigh a ton.