wsteve464

I lost count of the number of Cutthroats being used on this years Tour Divide.

Tour Divide Rigs 2018 - BIKEPACKING.com

Clem von Jones

Which bike is faster over the rough stuff? A mountain bike with fat knobbies is faster than race and gravel bikes over the cobblestones of Roubaix.

shoota 

Unreal. This has me questioning everything

unterhausen

makes me wonder if a bike like the cutthroat would win since it could use the same tires as the mtb. The interesting comparison would be between the Canyon, a cutthroat with a suspension fork or a cutthroat with a rigid fork. My guess is that the cutthroat with either fork would be fastest.

Hiro11

Taking this a step further, I think a dropbar converted lightweight, low travel FS cross country 29er like the Santa Cruz Blur or Scott Spark with semi-slick 2.1 tires could be an excellent gravel race bike for certain courses. Such a build would be overkill for dirt farm road type stuff but excellent for more adventurous races. I've never seen such a build in person, but it would be cool to see.

I've done gravel races with other guys on flat bar hardtail 29er XC race bike and those things can easily keep up with drop bar gravel race bikes on relatively smooth stuff if the rider is strong.

Clem von Jones

The Cutthroat can take enormous 2.4" tires and I notice most of the people racing in the Tour Divide are using 2.2 or 2.3 tires. Tour Divide Rigs 2018 - BIKEPACKING.com

Many of these tubeless 2.1 and 2.2 mtb tires weigh less than typical gravel bike tires, so I can't see any advantage to narrower tires if you plan to ride tubeless. The ideal gravel bike is just a mtb with road-like geometry IMO. My favorite type of bike is road, but my favorite place to ride is off-pavement.

cali_axela

I rode the DK200 for the first time this year, on a flat bar sscx bike with tubeless 38c G-Ones -- and it was great. No flats, was comfortable all day and felt like I could've kept going. The biggest factor for gravel racing isn't the frame, as long as you're comfortable on it... it's definitely the tires -- always go tubeless, and run as low a pressure as you can without bottoming out on the rough stuff or feeling too squishy.

gus6464

Haha around 50% of the bikes on that list are Salsa with most being Cutthroats. Makes sense why most Salsa's are impossible to find here in SoCal.

sgtrobo

well, i have quite a few bikes, and anytime I am away from my Cutthroat for, say, a month or so, when I go back to it, I almost giggle at how much fun it is to ride

GUber

DK Ramblings......I rode my Cutthroat in the DK50 this year. Hope to do the 100 next year. I used Gravelking SK 43's tubeless 40psi rear - 32 psi front. It did fine. Top 20 finish! Keep in mind that there are much faster riders in the DK200 & DK100 and those courses are gnarlier. I saw a lot of Cutthroats at the DK - several had Lauf forks. Maxxis Pace 2.1 appeared to be a pretty popular tire choice for Cutthroat riders.
For the DK200 - the FAT bike winner (Roy Kranz) finished in the top 100 overall - for the 3rd year in a row!! So a guy on 4" tires was faster than hundreds of riders on smaller tires, A popular saying in Kansas: "Comfort = Speed"
Also - the Flint Hills gravel of the DK is generally much smoother/faster than the gravel in my area, but many low spots were pretty chunky.
The DK50 followed the same route as the 100 & 200 for the first 22 miles or so and I learned to see the rough spots ahead by the dozens of water bottles strewn all over the road!! DK Tip - use good/tight water bottle cages!

shoota 

Welcome to the forum, good first post.

jan nikolajsen 

I had a Santa Cruz Highball (29er XC hardtail) that I put drop bars on and did other improvements to to make it all work. Because it was so fun and suitable for the trails/roads I do it got used a lot. But then I had to sell it satisfy a desire to upgrade my road bike. Alas.

Now that there has been some financial recovery I am definitely looking to replace it. 2018 Cutthroats are all gone, but if I have patience to wait for the '19 model to come out - then that's high on the list. The local dealer told me the frame only 19 Cutthroat will be black - a change indeed from the loud color schemes since inception; and September 'sometime' is the word on release date.

I also saw a comment above from @Hiro11 about taking a modern FS XC bike like the Blur and doing the drop bar conversion. This I am actually quite interested in doing, and I think it will work out really good. Living in Moab, the so-called 'gravel roads' are all moderate to very difficult jeep roads. The less extreme ones like the White Rim and an assortment of others were fine on the Highball, but might be faster AND more comfy on a Blur.

Definitely will post here if I go that route.

Sold this:


To get this:

IMG_2522 by jan nikolajsen, on Flickr

Pendergast

I happened across this while browsing the CX Magazine website a few days ago.

https://www.cxmagazine.com/gravel-bi...018-lost-found

jan nikolajsen 

Thanks for that link @Pendergast! Followed it thru to the Niner FS gravel bike.

Hiro11

The Cuttroat was literally designed for that specific race, so it kind of makes sense.

Facanh

I don't understand something about drop bar MTB conversions. I thought MTBs have much, much longer toptubes than drop bar bikes. Especially now when the trend is slack head angles, super long top tubes, and the shortest stem possible with wide bars.

When you put drop bars on them don't you just end up with a super stretched out position? If I compare the geometry of let's say a Cutthroat and a random XC MTB, the MTB will usually have a toptube that's 4-5cm longer for the same size.

RJM

yep, especially with newer mtbs. IMHO, the best mtbs for drop bar conversions that I've seen have been a couple of years old xc hardtails that are a little too small for the rider...kinda like my small Niner Sir9 that I have.

I honestly don't get drop bar conversions. I've thought about doing them and then the reality hits me that for all that money of switching to brifters, bars, stems, I could just put a set of aero bars on a flat bar and have extra hand positions too....or use the older bar ends from the early '90s.

Facanh

The conversion doesn't make sense to me either but personally I really like drop bars.

I can't do aero bars, my neck can't take it. I've tried bar ends but even on a narrow flat bar they felt too wide and the position felt awkward, uncomfortable. And of course with both of them you have to move your hand to change gears or use the brake.

For me holding the brifters on a drop bar feels the most natural when doing longer stints. On climbs holding the tops puts me into a super relaxed position.

But I imagine I would like something like a Jones bar too.

RJM

I just got a Jones bar delivered to me today...gonna see how that works on the Niner for me. It might come back too much on that bike, but I have others I can use it on too.