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Not much faster on a cyclocross than a mountain bike
I've been commuting a 13 mile journey to work for nearly two years now on a mountain bike, and I've just bought a cyclocross thinking it would be significantly faster. I record almost all my commutes and rides but I've not found the cyclocross to be significantly faster than the MTB.
I've not ridden a road bike/cyclocross for over 20 years before getting my new bike and I have had to have a period of adjustment, but still I would expect it to be faster.
I feel as I'm putting in as much effort. There is obviously a difference in the MTB being able to accelerate faster and the cyclocross cruising faster, but considering most of the route is on road, the lack of difference between the two is a bit strange.
What am a doing wrong?
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42 comments
For leaves read ice. Nothing works apart from being very careful.
I'd go with something like the Schwalbe G-One. You can get them non tubeless now.
http://nextdaytyres.co.uk/details.aspx/11600774-29-Schwalbe-G-ONEAllroun...
They seem a great tyre but I like the look of the price of the conti CX speeds seen some for a pair for the same price of the G-Ones.
That argument works in relation to a lot of tyres. But the G-One are a superb tyre and better than the Conti.
I don't think you said how wide the tyres were on your crosser?
You did say there is a steep hill up the North Downs (not Pebble Hill is it?!). I would have a look at your segment times up this hill, I would expect this is where you are getting the most benefit from the cx bike, assuming it is significantly lighter than the mtb. If you have a lot of stop/start traffic, then that will really nullify the higher cruising speed you would expect on the cx bike.
I only have a road bike and an MTB, most of my mates have all three types. When we do off road routes, they sometimes use their cx bikes, and I really find I struggle to keep up with them, unless I have picked the route and gone for an evil amount of muddy hard climbs (!) As far as I am concerned, a cx bike should be faster than an MTB on mainly paved roads. It should also take considerably less effort to ride at the same speed as an MTB.
The examples you posted showed 0.7 mph average speed increase, 5% is not to be sniffed at in an hour.
It'll be either 32 or 35 for small block 8s.
They are the 35c small block 8s and the bike is a Pinnacle Arkose 3.
I can't really see the point of using knobbly tyres and then pumping them up to 90psi.
My commute is 13 miles each way including road, canal towpath and shared use path. I usually go on my audax bike (25mm tyres) because it has mudguards. The road sections are nice, but there is a 3/4 mile or so of canal towpath which is a bit uncomfortable. The cross bike commutes on Schwalbe CX pros at around 50 psi (they are only 30mm wide and there are some buried sets on the towpath so I need more pressure than normal for a cross bike to avoid pinch flats). The cross bike is usually about 2 minutes slower that the audax bike - approx. 49 and 47 mins respectively. I take the cross bike when I have to go back a different route, which adds another about 7 miles of rutted canal towpath and then it really comes into its own.
If the commute is mostly on road then road tyres are suitable. Knobbly tyres at 90psi probably give less grip than slicks tyres because there is less tyre material in contact with the road.
As regards acceleration, 26 inch wheels with 1.95 in tyres would have a larger effective diameter than 700c wheels with 35mm tyres.
The important part to note of this is IF the commute is mainly road. Having just got back now from cycling along a canal path through what looked like frozen snow (though I don't remember it snowing) I think my 90psi knobbly tyres gripped through it far better than slicks. That sort of situation is only going to increase over winter so I'm certainly going to stick with what I've got until Spring. If the OP has a similar commute I suggest he do the same
The route is mostly on road, but there are currently nasty leafy sections and sections of dirt in the parks. Before the dark nights and when the weather was ok, I was taking an alternative route taking in parks and avoiding traffic. This alternative route takes in tracks through wood, open park land and park dirt tracks, so is a true mix terrain route.
I might try a different CX tyre, conti CX speed seem interesting and reasonably priced.
But you would get so much more grip running your knobbly tyres at a lower pressure.
Obviously tyre choice should be appropriate to the surfaces that you will be going along. The OP said his route was urban roads and park tracks, so sounds like it is mostly, perhaps totally, tarmac. I know leaves have been mentioned earlier but these just require a bit of care, in the same way as wet surfaces, not a different tyre. My shared use path section is currently covered in leaves and I ride along there at 20mph in the pitch dark. The canal tow path is actually made easier by leaves as they fill in the surface irregularities and give a more forgiving ride.
Knobbly tyres at 90psi have a lot less grip on wet corners on the road than a road tyre though. In fact they are explicitly banned as dangerous from level 2 road and time trial activities by BC because of the lack of grip.
fair comment I dismissed the headline figure as that was at a very low psi - irrespective may be look at the road tyre numbers rather than touring tyres?
I would agree if the OP was only commuting on the road but it is a mix of road and park paths that they are using so a fair bit of grip will be needed. You do not want to be battling leaf mulch and ice through park paths in the Autumn/Winter with slicks!
I commute in the winter with Kenda Small Block 8s as I use mainly canal paths and park cycle routes and am very glad of the extra grip at this time of year!
Just to throw another thought into the ring. Your MTB could well be quicker as MTBs tend to have gears that are accelerate fast i.e. low ratios. Wheres as the crosser will have higher gearing to cruise. A full blown race bike would have higher gears to cruise even faster.
Example
My mtbs have 22/34/44 and 26/40 on the front, low enough I hope t oget my up hills but absolute buggers to keep rolling at 20mph with spining faster than jet engine.
My road bikes are fitted with 34 or 36/50. They don't go up hills or accelerate faster but are easy to keep rolling at 20mph. I've also tried 39/53 and struggled on hills and felt it took an age to get up to speed but cruised very nicely.
So what maybe happening is that the commute may involve a lot of stop start so the mtb is accelerating faster due to the lower gears but thecrosser cruises. As you have stated in you original post.
Bottom line they are two different beasts designed to do different things. Stop comparing them.
pretty sure kenda small block 8's have their place but not for riding on the road - rolling resistance is the issue - one option with a cx is to run two sets of wheels one for road speed, one for dirt - anything else is a compromise
http://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/mtb-reviews/kenda-small-block-ei...
Actually I don't believe that the review of the Small Block 8 on that site is fair. I, and the original poster of this, run the Kenda's at ~90 psi (which is around the manufacturers recomended) and they were tested at a much lower psi on the site. If you take the 45psi rating and compare it against the touring bike tyre charts at the same psi the Small Block 8s actually come up on the top half of the table so I don't think that rolling resistance is as bad as the site would have you believe.
The rolling risistance of 27 at 45psi according to the site makes it better than:
Continental Top Contact II @ 28.4
Continental Contact II @ 28.9
Schwalbe Marathon Racer @ 28.9
Continental City Ride II @ 29.8
Schwalbe Marathon Plus @ 28.9
Schwalbe Marathon Mondial Evo @ 38.6
Vredestein Perfect-E @ 32
Vittoria Randonneur @ 38.9
Continental E.Contact @ 39.4
I'm currently maxed out regarding money, but hopefully in the new year I'll get some new wheels.
Does seem to be the best solution.
If you mean tyres rather than wheels, don't bother. The Kenda Small Block 8s are fine if not perfect for winter commuting on the road and through parks. I certainly would not want to deal with ice and leaf mulch with a lesser tread. If you read my previous post on this thread in response to antigee you will see that the rolling resistance review of the Small Block 8 is unfair and not relevent to us.
Come the Spring though it may well be worth you getting a pair of Vittoria Voyager Hyper to take advantage of a low rolling resistance while still maintaining a little bit of grip for the park section.
A cx with slick Road tyres is as fast as a road bike.
Ditch your cx tyres if you want to and get proper Road tyres. You will be faster again like for like given the same conditions and compared to the mtb.
Hasn't made a huge difference to me going from Maxxis Mud Wrestlers (knobbly 33m stock) to 32mm Gatorskins, maybe 0.5mph off my average on a 5 mile commute. Possibly if I dropped to skinnier slicks it would.
In the past four years I've had 3 commuter bikes; a Triban 3 road bike, a carbon crosser (Dirty Disco) and an alu Merida Cyclocross 500. Both crossers had the same gear ratios (46/36 - 11-28) whereas the Triban was 50/34 11-32 and on 25mm Gatorskins. Out of all those bikes the Triban is consistently the fastest on the commute despite being heavier than the Dirty Disco and less forgiving of the rubbish roads I cycle on.
For both crossers I feel that I'm putting more effort in compared to the Triban. The only place the Dirty Disco was quicker was on climbs, I assume due to overall weight being lower.
I think you'll notice the biggest difference when you're doing long constant efforts rather than stop/start.
This. If you're caught up significantly in town traffic, lights, pedestrians, paths etc, one bike vs another is just noise.
My commute journey is consistently 5 or 6mph slower than what the equivalent clear road journey would be. No bike or spec in the world is going to make anything like that up between all the obstacles. It would take a different rider altogether.
The route and traffic could go a long way to dictating how fast you can go. I used to commute into Manchester on a geared bike but the climbs and endless traffic lights meant I averaged under 14mph. I now commute to an out of town science park through small towns and on country roads with a flatter profile and half the number of traffic lights and can average 17mph on a good day on my single speed bike.
you're doing nothing wrong, a CX bike is a road bike which can take wider tyres. Fit proper road tyres and it will fly.
Just for a little perspective. My absolute best commute into work (18 miles) was an average of 22mph on my Supersix with deep section wheels.
My best attempt on my SuperX with Schwalbe S-One is 21.5 mph.
For the record, my motivation for buying the crosser was for a do it all bike. I wanted to get a bike I could fit with mudguards to make commuting easier, a couple of wet days on the MTB I was back on public transport. If I wanted to reduce my commuting time I would have bought a motorbike. My commuting time on either bike is quicker than the car and nearly twice as fast as public transport.
Another big consideration was that most of my mates have crossers and we have done some events together. I really wanted to try curlywurly bars out again, and do some sportives and maybe some cross races. It’s another skill set riding a cross bike off road and really enjoying it.
I could have made my MTB faster for commuting, slammed the stem (new one on me had to look up that term) and put some slick rubber on. But if anything I want to take my MTB back to being a full on MTB, with shocks and wider rubber.
I started riding road bikes and then riding road bikes off road, when MTBs came along in the late 80s I was hooked and just rode MTBs since then. So I feel at home on the MTB.
It all makes sense to me thinking about it now. I think a large factor is that I’m not used to the road bike position, and feeling at home on your bike will have a big impact on speed. I’ll probably keep to a tyre that is reasonably large as I’m certainly not worrying about the seconds but something that rolls smoother than the current tyre.
Thanks guys
have you tried some new legs as well? I always expect a new bike to make me faster, but I got a couple of KoM's on short, sharp climbs (less than 2 minutes) on my old single speed, and I've still not close to them even on a fancy carbon road bike. Same with my commute, it's 20 miles, and whilst I've done parts of it faster now, I've only done it under an hour once on carbon bike, but numerous times on various older ones
the difference is I enjoy it more now, so much more comfy and maybe easier. Just roll along and make the most of your time riding, don't stress about the split-seconds
definitely have a look at the Schwalbe S-one tyres, they seem to make things easier. If you want to go harder and faster, then that's up to you, but I'd be suprised if you had a massive leap, never happened to me
My summer commute takes just under an hour on the road bike (13 miles). Went on my aged (heavy) hybrid one day, which covers the winter months (different safer route), and it was 5 min slower. Kind of feel that I'm working harder on the hybrid, but that may be physchological. Killed off the thought of replacing the hybrid with a CX bike.
I had the same experience when I thought it'd be fun to ride my MTB for a 10 mile TT and see how it compared. Even with knobbly tyres (albeit inflated to 65PSI) the time wasn't all that much slower than my personal best.
It's the kenda small block 8's holding it back. Try some schwalbe s-one tyres or panaracer gravel kings as mentioned and you will fly in comparison.
Just to add, the smooth Gravelkings, not the raised bead ones:http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/panaracer-gravel-king-road-bike-tyre/...
You can often smash pure roadies with these this time of year, who are going hesitant into corners on their super slick 23s... as for the MTB guys trailing behind, stick to the pavement, seriously.
How light is the CX bike? (9kg should fly faster than 13 (average MTB weight) Try riding clipped in and getting something like Panaracer Gravelking 700x32s for rougher UK roads this time of year. Sorry, but no one outside of Nino Schurter tier is beating me down the b-roads and bridleways on a wide tyre 26er.
Maybe you're just wearing a big heavy winter coat adding tons of drag?
Could be a cheap or worn hub issue; seen that holding a lot of bikes back when the rest of the group speeds up.
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