Another bloody Cross Check

Having admired many CC builds in the past, and being teased by Cupcakes' recent CP thread I decided to bite the bullet and get myself a frame to build up for my first bike tour this summer as well as becoming my 'do it all bike'. (commuter, tourer, winter trainer etc.)

First impressions of the frame are positive, seems very sturdy and i'm sure will last me a long time. The versatility of the frame pretty much sold it for me.

Having very little experience of building bikes I have a load of questions which I hope some of the more experienced builders may help me to answer.

• What groupset? Double/Triple upfront?
  
• Cantis or V brakes? (I've heard cantis can be a bit of a faff but I have no experience of them myself)
  
• Wheels? Something light and strong?
  
  

Any help would be greatly appreciated, i'm really looking forward to getting it build up and start having some fun :)

God, not another one!

Puts thread on ignore

;-)

Lovely dog! I say double front: triple is more faff than practical (in my limited experience, plus I hate over-shifting and constant trimming).

• What groupset? Double/Triple upfront?
  
• Cantis or V brakes? (I've heard cantis can be a bit of a faff but I have no experience of them myself)
  
• Wheels? Something light and strong?
  
  

I went for a super compact/CX double, mini-v's and the stock wheels (which have been perfect to be fair) are dying and will morph into a pair of XT to Archetypes with a pair of Knards sat on them. Thought about pairing up Hope and a dynamo for ultra practicool wheels but I don't really need it/would rather spend money going places.

Looking forward to seeing the finished build :)

I'd be tempted by the new 11 speed 105 with a 28t sprocket and a 34/48 up front. Use the shimano CX canti brakes. Shimano hubs,Tb14 rims or something mavic and bomb proof.

11 speed 11-28t and 34/48 is the winning combo, even on a road bike (would go for 46t instead of 48t).

The new Shimano CX cantis are almost as easy as V-brakes and almost as powerful, took five minutes of fiddling on the workstand to sort it out, if this is the one Howard's talking about;

Thanks for the replies.. I want the bike to be able to tackle anything I throw at it so would not having that third ring upfront be a problem if I happened to be doing alot of climbing? Or would the double be sufficient?

Gearing is personal, a compact crankset is usually enough paired with a 9+ speed wide range cassette (11-28/32).

With 11 speed as Howard mentioned, the jump between each sprocket is normal like a 12-25, but with extra sprocket for climbing gear.

By the way, new 11spd 105 is cheaper than the old 10spd 105.

Yeah - depends on how good your legs are, riding style, terrain.

The wife's CrossCheck is 34/44 up front with 12-32 at the back. It's 10 speed SRAM. Not a problem getting over the Pennines fully loaded.

I don't know what your options are with Eleven Speed Shimano road and those MTBish cassettes though. You'd hope there'd be a new mech that could handle larger sprockets and work with the road leavers.

If you want to consider SRAM you could go with a 10 speed MTB cassette and their MTB derailleurs. Something like 12-36 at the back and 34/48 would get you over anything. Apex / Rival shifters and X7 is a good value combo. The Type 2 derailleurs stop your chain from bouncing around, too.

that dog is cracking me up

+1 for the shimano cantis that edscoble suggests, great pair of brakes.

I use spa cycles handbuilt wheels (deore hubs and sputnik rims) on my FBNPNA, I know others on here have them as well. Very strong and quite heavy.

if you want strong/light 32h Prolite Braccianos are good, sub 1500g the pair and rock solid-good for CX and I've had them on my commuter/tourer for over a year no problems-they got really good reviews when they came out and I picked them up new for about £250 in a sale.

Dogs should be obligatory in every project thread now!

This looks like it should be really nice. like others above, I'd recommend a compact cx double, and those new Shimano cantis, really nice and simple to set up.
A triple is so much more hassle for not that many more gears.

Thanks for all the advice i'll be taking it all into consideration.

Whats the advantage of using the MTB derailleurs over the road ones?

Sorry for all the questions !

MTB derailleurs are designed to work with larger sprockets. They now have gadgetry to stop your chain flapping about when things get lumpy. The cable run on the SRAM MTB derailleurs is far neater than the road cable run, too.

Shimano in their infinite wisdom don't allow you mix / match 11/10 speed MTB derailures with their 11/10 speed road shifters. The 9 speed derailleurs work fine with the 10 speed road shifters though.

TL;DR mix and match with SRAM is easy, with Shimano it's hard.

bar ends?

With a modern Shimano 10/11 MTB mech? Yeah maybe. Would need to be a friction shifter though.

Thanks for clearing that up Howard !

• What groupset? Double/Triple upfront?
  
  
  

A compact double with a 10 or 11 speed cassette gives you plenty of flexibility with fewer wasted gears (the ones you never use because they are duplicated on another, more suitable ring or because they cause cross-chaining). There was a point a few years back where it looked as if Campag and Shimano were abandoning triples (which are much fiddlier to design and more difficult to make reliable) altogether. You still won't find triples for Campy's top-flight groupsets but they did reintroduce them a couple of years back for the entry-to-mid-range ones, for MAMILs who fancy doing some mountain climbing. You almost certainly don't need one.

subscribed.

For my Croix De Fer I went for a 46/34 (105 10 speed) on the front and 12/36 on the back with a 9 speed Deore RD. With barend friction shifters. It is a bit overkill in terms of low gearing but the idea of do-it-all, including touring, made me opt for the spinny solution.

these frames are really nice, looking forward to the final results for all these builds

With a modern Shimano 10/11 MTB mech? Yeah maybe. Would need to be a friction shifter though.

I've got 10spd campag record bar ends on my tourer, r/h can switch between friction and indexed, front is friction only so easy to run a triple with (which I do atm because my pedal has welded itself to the crank...)

I can see the logic for running a compact, but also, having done a bit of touring on both, the 28t ring on the triple gives you that emergency bail-out option which frankly was a god send on some unexpected gradients that would have otherwise seen me weeping silently by the side of the road and comfort eating uncooked couscous.

Then again, I'd packed far too much stuff so should really have just started lighter.

Either way, triple cranks really aren't much of a faff, and by the time you've fucked about buying replacement rings for your compact cranks or wider cassette ranges, can potentially be a bit cheaper.

I'd say compact double with a wide range cassette, for lots of gears; or triple with narrow cassette, also for lots of gears. But you knew that already :-)

I guess the fun bit of these frames is that you shouldn't really be able to go wrong - they're versatile enough to handle a variety of builds.

Also, nice looking dog.

It's annoying there's not much choice of a smaller compact, says 48/32 or even 46/30 that have the same jump as a standard 50/34 but with a smaller bail out ring like a triple without the big ring.

Surely a mtb double fits that category?