Quote Originally Posted by aicabsolut View Post
Are you only looking at cross bikes? No road bikes? What kind of riding do you plan to do? FWIW, I hate riding on gravel. I try my best to use my race bike and race tires (with luckily bombproof, non-racer type wheels) as an excuse to avoid gravel and off-roading at all costs. Last weekend, however, I had to follow the group over MILES of hilly gravel roads in WV. Banked, hilly turns were the scariest. I don't know what was going on. Is that how WV prepares for winter? Lots of paved roads had just gotten truckloads of loose gravel dumped on them. Sometimes, the gravel was really thick and hard to plow through. We came to some hard packed dirt for a while the next day with less gravel, and even though there were some washerboard sections and the occasional bad pothole, I really enjoyed the dirt over the thick gravel the day before. My bike handled it just fine, though my hands are recovering a bit from the vibration. Still, the gravel was not any worse than some of the chewed up paved stuff we rolled over in terms of pain factor around the thumbs.

Anyway, if you're going to be doing mostly road riding in the spring with bits of gravel and unpaved roads, a road bike could be just fine. It won't be good for slogging through mud and stuff where you'd want more brake clearance. You can also easily run slightly wider tires on a lot of road bikes if you want some more rough terrain stability. Just adjust your brakes so that you can get the wheels on and off if it's a tight fit.

You may be able to find a lot more options in your price range when you look at general road bikes versus cross.
Well, I was looking at cyclocross bikes because a lot of where I ride around here is some gravel, some crushed limestone, some straight out dirt, and some road. A lot of the time since there really aren't shoulders on these roads, I end up having to ride across some pretty rough terrain just to get off the road and out of the way of drivers. I was told that cyclocross would be good for that because I could put wider tires on and because of the brake clearance thing you mentioned. Because I'm planning on doing some pretty long distances too, (I'm working up to being able to do 100 miles a day) I wanted something comfortable. Again, cyclocross or touring was suggested.
That cannondale was great, felt great, responded great for what i put it through and I think i can talk the guy at the other LBS down a bit more in price which would be good.
I just got frustrated today with their attitude that that bike was the only bike they would even suggest. i asked them about bikes out of my price range that they had and I asked about road bikes in my price range that could be modified a bit and they still pushed the tri cross. They wouldn't even talk to me about it. I explained that I was just trying them out to see what I liked even if I couldn't buy it because of the price so that I would know what to look for. I just got frustrated. I know this is a process. I am really tempted by the cannondale thought. hehe.
Where were you in WV this weekend?
Gray