RiddleOfSteel

Hi, everyone. First thread in this subforum! Been a Classic & Vintage guy mostly (though not C&V in age) but have used and had a number of more modern frames throughout my bike years here.

I suppose the headwaters of what has become this Tricross started when I got a sweet deal on a pair of new tan wall 700x48mm Soma Supple Vitesse EX tires at least three years ago. I had been using their 33mm (that measured 30mm on a traditional 20mm external rim) SV EX's and really liked the tan wall look, ride quality, weight and price as they were between the folding bead Pasela and Compass/Rene Herse in both price and weight. Trying to find a home for 48's without going full MTB, monstercross, or (hydraulic) disc and a big heavy frame had proven quite fruitless. I could get their 42mm tires (38 to 40mm actually, depending on the rim) into several vintage touring frames, albeit just barely, but no home for the really big 48's. I even looked into hybrids to do drop bar conversions on--and actually bought a 2014 Trek FX 7.3, converted it, and rode it around for a bit. Almost anything was on the table so long as the stack and reach were in range for me, and the frameset weight wasn't too bad. Being 6'5", no XL frame will be a featherweight, but as long as it was lighter than decent steel XL steel frames of mine, that was alright.

During my time in Seattle, I was able to volunteer at a bike non-profit fixing up bikes for people who needed them, which ran on donated bikes and parts plus monetary donations and fundraisers. This allowed me access to many bikes for various mental musings, but for the purposes of this thread, it allowed access to a number of hybrids and non-road bikes to observe tire clearances. Late last year, I spotted a smaller Specialized Tricross with V-brakes and what looked like insane tire clearance. I got out the tape measure and confirmed such astounding clearances, and that bike/model was officially on my radar. Many CX bikes seem to have decent clearances, but none went as crazy as these Tricrosses. I forgot about the Tricross for a bit, life happened, and I found myself in Portland soon after.

The Cannondale Topstone has been an interest of mine for a couple years now, and I've test ridden an aluminum Topstone 1. CAADX disc as well (same front end geo). Great bikes, fun colors (the Topstone 2's "Rainbow Trout" is epic, but the "2" was not sold in the US..), good in and out of saddle manners, with plenty of tire capacity. Vintage Cannondales are great, and that's where the bias to the modern ones comes from. I've done hydraulic disc brakes before, but again, coming from vintage, the ease of rim brakes to set up and deal with, the ecosystem of having and being able to find, build, and swap rim brake wheels, heavily biased my decision to find a rim brake solution to my 'problem'.

Enter this 60cm (their largest) stripped-of-its-paint Tricross. Aside from the removed paint, the only thing not original to it was the DT Swiss P1800 rear wheel. Maybe tires, too. Nice PDW fenders, heavier tires and a longer stem, it was a very smooth and sure-footed bike. A beautifully set up commuter. Alas, the gold was in the tire clearances, so it was time to get to work!

RiddleOfSteel

The first things to do were to get the Soma 48's onto it and swap handlebars and stem to get everything where I like/need it as far as fitment goes. I mounted the Soma tires to some DT Swiss R23 wheels (around 1600g, so pretty light IMO) and set them to 30/34 psi with the option to go lower. Zipp stem and some spare carbon bars. This dropped the weight a bit, but it was still pretty healthy. No way was this going to somehow be lighter than my Trek FX hybrid conversion at 20.4 lbs, but I could try!

Like anything going from 30mm to 45mm tire-wise, steering was affected when using my normal 42cm handlebars. They looked great, but the ride didn't feel great up front.



The tan walls complement the silver and black aesthetic really well. Really sharp looking bike.





Enter the Cowchipper 2!! The on-the-hoods width is 44cm IIRC, with the flare being, well, a whole lot wider.



Serious flare. Love the look!

RiddleOfSteel

I went back and forth on polishing or painting the bike. Either refinishing would be done by me as painting in particular is expensive and I had barely any saddle time with this bike, having bought it at the start of winter. Work, the cold, early and pervasive darkness of winter, and rain kept me from pretty much any bike activity, which I did not like--a far cry from what I had been able to do in the past. Having hand wet-sanded and polished a number of bicycle components recently with good success, I thought this frame could be a good and inexpensive candidate for such an effort. Alas, it was not having it, and I knew better than to throw good time after bad, so I shelved the idea, waiting for better weather and temperature to entertain the idea of painting and literally anything else...

Can you tell where I tried to wet sand and polish it?



I bought some iridescent gloss paint from a new brand called Color Shot (available at Michael's and Walmart). Fun color names--mine was called Pixie Dust--and I went with the sparkly stuff because I just wanted a fun, whimsical finish with which to contrast with my planned Serious McRacer Face road groupset. The original goal was like a pearl or metallic fuchsia, but barring that, sparkles. I mistakenly thought it would be an iridescent white gloss coat, but reading and seeing things can be difficult, and it turns out it was just a clear coat.

Not wanting to waste some rare, warm Oregon early spring days (no rain, what???), I grabbed some matte black hi-temp engine enamel paint for a base coat, and then put down the Pixie Dust afterwards. It turned the black paint green....



Not to be deterred, I thought, surely the 1K clear coat will help things. It kinda did! Mostly it just helped protect things and bump up depth on the metallic/pearly sparkly green paint. I didn't mind one bit!



You can kind of see the black base coat mellowing the green a bit. This is most evident in afternoon sunlight, where the black is more visible, with the metallic green showing more on the edges of the tube.



Once the paint and clear coat were dry, I started assembling the following day. I ended up painting the fork and a Bontrager XXX carbon stem from an '08-era Trek Madone to play the fancy modern matchy-matchy custom frame build game. I was pumped to get this thing built up!!

RiddleOfSteel

I knew the dark green would look epic with tan wall tires as I had built a touring bike in the same aesthetic vein a year or two prior--much too small a frame, but actually the only one that gave me enough room to try these 48's for the first and only time prior to this Tricross, and actually the bike that set me off in the bigger-and-suppler-is-better tire size direction thanks to Seattle's really crummy street quality. Talk about a full circle moment!

So yes, Dura-Ace 9000 was the plan all along. This is my favorite of the modern 11-speed+ groupsets and has been ever since it debuted. A lot of saving money and swooping in on good deals for this one. I had converted the standard short cage rear derailleur to a long cage using a 6800 long (GS) cage inner and outer plate. Works perfectly!



I will take mid-build weighings to get an idea for a bike's final weight. I'm not a weight weenie guy, but it's fun to see how light--in a practical effort and financial outlay sense--a build can be. Granted, the XL frame size, huge tires, a non-road build, non-full-carbon build, alloy bars instead of carbon, and a wider (and more comfortable) Prologo Scratch saddle meant nothing amazing was going to be had, but at below 19 lbs with not much left to put on, had me feeling good.



I'm a kg-and-convert kind of guy with bikes. What are ounces???



Resting for the day but excited and impatient to complete the build!

RiddleOfSteel

Alas, completion!!!

20.8 lbs with pedals and bottle cages!! Not as light as my Trek FX, even as the FX frameset spotted the Tricross frameset a few hundred grams, but still. LOL, This light for something like this that isn't a $2k-5k modern build? Sign me up! I love a good as-sold bike, hence the Topstone consideration, but my first love is building things from the frameset up.

The decals took a bit to arrive thanks to some USPS issues, but all is well. They could have applied better, and we'll see how they hold up, but it's a case of getting what one pays for. These aren't Velocals decals. Still, the decal size and quantity/variety was good and I was able to have some fun and get things where I wanted.

As for a ride report, this thing is a ton of fun. Great out of the saddle hijinks can be had with these huge tires and wider bars. Good steering and road manners. A Compass/Rene Herse tire will, by virtue of its tread pattern, roll more quietly, but these do fine. The rear triangle is stiff, but the big tires help the willingness to rock and roll out of the saddle as well as with the ride quality. Very plush. Very solid braking performance with the TRP brakes and their stock pad compound. I am looking forward to seeing how it does off road over more challenging terrain.







The front fork's tire clearance is insane. 29x3.0 here I come!



TRP CX8.4 mini-Vs perform very well here, but have very little clearance in front...



...though not as bad as in the rear where I had to remove the rubber cone and run a longer rear housing section just to cock the noodle up a few enough degrees get clearance both "at rest" and under brake lever actuation!



Man, I love these cranks. You can see the considerable orange peel in the paint as the out-in-the-open paint job didn't have the clear coat laying down perfectly in a number of places. Sure, I could wet sand it to a better result, but...it's fine. Way better than the dingy-but-well-stripped paint from the previous-previous owner!



Shimano 105 11-32 cassette, 105 chain, and GS cage-converted rear derailleur. All happily working together.





Seems like bikes the last few years do this top tube labeling thing, so I thought that I could join the fun.

tFUnK

Really great build. That color is amazing. Minor bummer on the decal job. This build was especially interesting to follow because of my experience with the frame and with the tires.

I had a Tricross Sport and that was my introduction to (proper) gravel riding. By "proper" I mean I was previously riding road bikes with 23mm tires on the occasional gravel, so the Tricross really changed the game for me with its fat tires and triple cranks (on my Sport model). I ended up doing most of my epic days in the saddle on that bike (including the only time I've completed a Rapha Rising challenge). I've since upgraded but kept the Tricross around a bit more for commuter duty (1x9, flat bar). The reasons I finally decided to part with it were I wanted something lighter (E5 alloy instead of A1 alloy would have been nice), and I did not like the toe overlap I got (it's the worst of anything I've ever ridden).

Interesting that your journey was sparked in part by the tires. I currently run the same tires in the 33mm size, and yes while they are great tires they are skinnier than advertised (even on a modern "wide" rim). But I'm actually thinking in the opposite direction: would a size 28mm measure out closer to 26mm? If so, they may be good supple option for older road frames that have minimal tire clearance.

mstateglfr 

Cool build.

RiddleOfSteel

Thank you and thank you for sharing your experience! I agree, the aluminum frame (and carbon frame) are not as light as they could be, but it seemed everyone improved their aluminum offerings in subsequent generations, thankfully.

I, too, have the Soma SV EX in 33mm and they measure 30mm wide on a traditional/older road rim, and maybe 31mm on a 23mm wide (external) rim--something like a TB14 or Pacenti Brevet. I would imagine that their 28mm offering would run small as well. I'd say expect 25-26mm like you said. Definitely should fit vintage road bikes with tight clearances (many from the later '80s well into the modern '00s era bikes, which often kept things really tight it seems). I have Vittoria Coras G2.0 32mm tires that measure 28mm on older rims. Crazy, but it allows me to get the max tire size out of these frames. Compass/Rene Herse tires can run small, though that seems to be only with their narrower tires and anything not "Extra Light" as those EL casings can really stretch. Compass/RH Chinnook Pass 28mm tires are 25mm exactly on an older rim and IMO would have to be on a Hunt or similarly really wide rim to get to 28mm wide...but I wouldn't like it then.