Best cyclocross bike under £1000 and other CX chat

Buy the boardman, it really is that much fun to ride, it's pretty sexy too.

I'm 90% there, just doing my "due dilligence" to make that 100%.

I don't understand what you mean by nip it shut? The bung looks like a bar end plug...

Apparently the mechanic at my local Halfords is pretty good so will go and see him rather than start messing about with it myself.

There's a CX9 Cannondale from 2010 on eBay 3hs to go, no wheels, no mechs, no seat, no bars.
56cm.

There's a CX9 Cannondale from 2010 on eBay 3hs to go, no wheels, no mechs, no seat, no bars.
56cm.

What would people say this frame, fork, crankset and brakeset are worth: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170628426889&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

.

Merak, large Boardman measures ST CT 56cm - TT 55cm

It is prolly worth £350

beaten by a tenner when my phone battery died currently posting this on my kindle. boo

You likey?

Moda very lite for the money and being discounted at the mo

Yep, few niggles- both inner tubes blew out all their pressure through the valves, which was interesting, and it was supplied with a front wheel that has a side-to-side wiggle, as does the front brake disc.

But- I guess that sort of thing would be caught by a decent bike shop and sorted before you get the bike, getting it boxed from Halfords you don't get that initial fettling by a shop mechanic.

It rides well- I found that I was leaning it over far enough to roll onto the outer-nobbles on the tyre, which makes it squirm in a corner somewhat.

Just off to the shops on it, will report back on further impressions.

Actually just bought a Moda Stretto Carbon Road Bike, what a ride its the best bike i've ever owned and £1700 from Elmy Cycles with a mostly full Force Groupset and £500 wheelset

Yeah, both my tubes blew on first ride, exact same thing, few inches round from the valve on the inside, the tubes burst where what looks like there had been a fault in the rubber, either that or there installation process has a flaw.

I quite like the squirming as you go round a corner, the tyres grip well i'm thinking about swapping them out for randonneur cross for day to day duties and saving them for when I'm planning on riding more deserving terrain...

I had same problem with my back wheel as above, I rang the branch and they swapped the wheel for one from the display bike, which was true.

I'm going to ride mine 2-3 more weeks then ask the local branch with the decent mechanic to do the free 6 week service early... should be sorted then.

enjoy it! its been a journey ha

That it certainly has, I just need to get the brakes dialed in, the front wheel straight, then resist upgrading anything.

EDIT// brakes now dialled in.

Some thoughts on the brakes, in no particular order:

They are tricky to dial in, due to the single sided nature of the design, you have to balance the distance of the pad and therefore the lever pull distance (which is very limited with road drop levers), against the far from flat nature of the discs.

i.e. if you set them up so you get nice early positive bite from the lever, and then build power until you are fully locked up with some space between lever and bars then the disc will rub against the pads terribly.

It's possible to set them up so they don't, but it takes a lot of precise fettling- the front is now perfect, but the rear still has to have slightly too much lever-throw lest the pads rub on the disc.

If the discs were flat/straight, then this would not be an issue as the pads could be set much closer to the disc with no negative connotations.

you need this

Pretty much, took me age to dialed in my disc brake when I replaced mine with hydraulic.

what you describe is pretty common actually, the mechanic at work often spend a bit of time aligning the rotor with that tool flickwg posted above me.

I'll get a de-wobbling tool, it would make things run much better.

Shame to have to need one, innit.

I spent an age aligning my Hope mini's on the 29er. You can loosen the bolts attaching the caliper, squeeze the levers real hard, and retighten them. But thats a bit of a half assed way of doing it.

Its always possible to buy aftermarket discs, if you give up on the supplied ones.

I'll have a good go at making the supplied ones work, then get some better ones.

The issue with reaching that point is that whilst on Wiggle (or wherever) one thinks "I'll just get XXXXX whilst I'm here", and before you know it the only thing on the bike that is original is the chainset.

Well if you're taking the original ones off, you'll want wack some Ti mounting bolts on.

BB7 or BB5 brakes?

Get thee behind me Smallfury

BB5 brakes

Thought so, the BB7s can be adjusted on both sides (but suffered from exactly the same problem you've described).

My new bike came with cross-tops, as well (rather obviously) as the SRAM Apex brake/shifters.

It's quite interesting to use alternate brake levers to activate the brakes- set the caliper up so nothing rubs, pull the cross-top and it's all good.

Then pull the "proper" brake lever, and you get almost no stopping power before the lever hits the bar.

You can get them set up so the main brake lever pulls the correct amount of cable and the caliper does not drag the disc but it's not easy- took about 1.75 coffee's this afternoon.