TenGrainBread 

I'm not a big racing fan but I did notice that there were some notable wins on metal bikes at the cyclocross National Championships this past week in Kentucky.

Taylor K-W won 30-34 masters category on a borrowed carbon bike...after riding a fillet-brazed steel Bilenky all season to line up in front at CX Nats. I think a crash a couple weeks ago damaged the Bilenky.


Dan Chabanov won the same category for men on his team issue Richard Sachs. All steel (including fork) and cantis.


Sammi from Squid Bikes won a collegiate category on their aluminum Squidcross bike. Made by Ventana in CA.

RobbieTunes

Great stuff.

Wraith's Paycheck model is constantly in the top 3 at many local and 2nd tier events, and up there in the nationals.

TenGrainBread 

That makes sense. The Wraiths seem very modern with OS tubing, tapered head tubes, etc...

Andy_K 

A friend of mine has a Squidcross and loves it.

It's not uncommon to see really nice steel bikes at the local CX races. One of my teammates races on one that's about four pounds lighter than my aluminum Jake the Snake. Having builders like Speedvagen/Vanilla and Breadwinner locally definitely ups the number of really nice steel bikes on the course.

merziac

Steel is real baby, and well, tough as steel, nails.....

wesmamyke

I think they still have a little speed advantage in wheel changes over disc/thru axle bikes. When I had a proper cross bike with MAFAC canti brakes you could almost pull the wheel without releasing the brake at all, they tend to sit pretty far away from the rim when setup properly.

CliffordK

I am seeing carbon wheels on a couple of those bikes in the photos.

However, I have to wonder if there is an advantage to have a frame material that one can crash, pick up, and keep riding.

A good carbon wheel might be more resilient to going out of true than aluminum... up to a point.

TenGrainBread 

A difference of 2 seconds or less, my cx pit mechanic friend says. Nice thing about the thru axle is no need to struggle with opening a tight QR lever in the freezing cold.

coolkat

Last year I competed on a 2011 Caadx, rim brakes and alu frame. 20 lbs without trying and fantastic performance. I crashed that bike in the summer and put a big dent in the top tube. Wasn't a very hard crash, and the dent wasn't that big, but it was enough to kill it. Which is why I bought a lowly cross check to replace it (that and it was dirt cheap). Cyclocross is ROUGH. I wanted something cheap and bombproof cause there's no way I'm replacing my frame every year. I like the extra modulation of rim brakes (and I can't afford discs) too

My friend switched from a (carbon) superx to a Squidcross this year and loves it.

RobbieTunes

The canti Trek 520/720 is extremely popular among the budget builders for CX. Can't kill it, and it doesn't kill you.