Originally Posted by cmh

I'm looking to get an endurance road bike that I hope to use for CX racing, but for winter (rainy) training, and commuting as well. What I'm looking at is a Felt VR5, which has disc brakes, thru-axles, and what look to be reasonably beefy wheels. How bad will it be to race cross on this bike? Really I'm looking to go this route instead of a CX bike is for the fender eyelets, which I'm assuming I could also use to mount a rack for commuting.

One big question I haven't answered yet is how big of tires can it take, (chainstay length is 417mm, compared with 430mm on thier cross bikes and 407 on the road).

Thoughts on this approach?

Edit: I should mention that I plan to race 4-6 CX races a year, mostly weeknight series.
Thanks.