I've actually borrowed the dinky bike for a little while to see if it will work for me or not.... it definitely would need some modifications, its really tiny. I put a longer stem and my seatpost/saddle on it this afternoon and took an hour long spin. Most of it was on the road, but I put in a bit of playing around in the grass too. It felt pretty darn zippy, feels like it flies up hills, but that could be the really fast spin from the 155 cranks fooling me too...... wish I had a speedo on there this afternoon.
so there's a bunch of pros and cons..
pro - "adult" sized cross bikes are pretty much all to big for me, at least I could modify this one to fit....
con - tiny wheels could be quite a disadvantage, they are 24"ers - that's even smaller than 650's. I'm not even sure that there's much selection in tires or replacement wheels in this size. pro though.... I'm not sure I could manage a cross dismount/mount with 700c wheels - not sure my feet would clear the wheel. It seems like it would be relatively easy with these little wheels.
con - I cannot get my whole arm through the frame - I certainly can pick it up and carry it, but its a bit akward as my elbow hits the BB
We'll see. I'll probably have my coach look at it to see if I'm crazy or not for considering this.