Comments on: Monster Cross Defined: Part II

By: SKINK

SKINK — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:34:48 +0000

Give me blurry impurity. I know it’s bad comsumerism ,but I want the one bike. A 29er with Edge composite rims gives the real possibility of a road/mountain bike, because of their lightness and durability. Too damn expensive of my bike shop income though.

By: kickball

kickball — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:25:48 +0000

I love the idea of MonsterCross. I ride a LeMond Poprad – steel frame, good clearance for nobbies, and disc brakes. Put on slick tires and it rides the Golden Gate Bridge and into Marin like a champ on the weekends, put on more tread and it commutes during the week like a pro, throw the nobbies on and it tears apart fire roads and trails. It’s my everything bike, an absolute beast, and definitely a monster.

By: jimmythefly

jimmythefly — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:24:26 +0000

True enough. Although, I see it as people wanting more commuter features from drop-bar bikes in general.

It’s the manufacturers who have decided to add these features to their ‘cross bikes(and try to market them as swiss-army-knife machines), rather than increase the tire clearance and provide bosses on their “road” bikes.

By: SinnerSpinner

SinnerSpinner — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:34:12 +0000

Dust- re “touring vs cross”
As “GT” said, touring bikes ARE longer and slacker. However, proper touring geometry features a LOW bottom bracket for loaded stability (lower than road), and absoulutely sucks for many off-road applications. Cyclocross geometry is built around a road bottom bracket height, or just a bit higher.. – horrible for loaded touring, and not ideal for commuting. This is a COMMON point of confusion, as it’s easier to to simply look at tire/frame clearance and evaluate a frame based on this alone. For example: many folks would compare the Surly LHT to the CrossCheck side by side when considering a touring/commuting rig. This is unfortunate as no one would settle for the CrossCheck after spending a week on the LHT. Yet, there are tons of commuter CrossChecks rolling around.
Why does this bother me? The more people demand “commuter features” from their cross bikes, the more watered-down the cross geometry becomes. ie: taller headtubes, slacker angles, rack and fender braze-ons. The opposite is true for touring gemoetry. How hard is it to find a touring bike anymore with actual touring geometry..? (bb drop > 70mm)
Let’s not contribute to the “blurring of the lines” between two completely different uses.

By: John B.

John B. — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:58:13 +0000

This is fun reading. I love monstercrossers. To me, the whole idea evokes the origins of mountain biking when it was about squeezing the fattest, knobbiest tire on to an old bike you’ve had for ages and hitting the trails.

In my mind, there are two elements – the “monster” part and the “cross” part. Fat, aggressive tires, like a monster truck or maybe just a monster, seperate the monstercrosser from normal cyclocross bikes, “all-rounder” type bikes, and balloon tired road bikes. Something reminesent of a cyclocross bike, whether its drop bars or traditional frame geometry, or both, seperates the monstercrosser from rigid mountain bikes. That’s my take.

I think a touring bike could be made into a monstercrosser – that’s essentially what the Fargo is – and I would like to give it a try with my LHT. The LHT should be stout enough for offroad riding and it can fit a fairly fat knobby tire. Maybe it won’t be so good in singletrack, but should be excellent on fireroads and non-technical stuff. But if the LHT isn’t REALLY a monstercrosser by some objective definition, just a touring bike with fat knobby tires, that’d be okay with me too.