The current crux is still well suited in the cross fields. Not quite full CX bike, but still plenty capable.
Second CX race of the season is on tap for tonight. First race of the year was 1 week post covid… wasn’t great, wasn’t awful. Tonight is 3 days post Cheq 40 single speed, we shall see how the legs hold up.
Reg’ed for Trek Cup yesterday.
That’s the front runner if I can find a ‘22 crux! Found one on marketplace, but it’s quite the drive (six hours, maybe make a weekend out of it) for $2,000 which I feel is quite the deal considering I’d be able to sell my Revolt for around $1,500 or so. Glad to hear someone using it and loving it.
I have a 2018 Crux. The newer frames are so nice.
The only thing I don’t like about my Crux is the seat collar.
The 2018 had them in the frame. I don’t know what Specialized were thinking and I’m glad they went back to a normal seat collar.
Yeah I’m finding quite a few 22-25 frames and a lot of pre 22 (old crux proper cx geo) frames. Trying to figure out sizing now. I think i’d be fine on a 52 or 54 to be honest.
Five races into the season and to get where I was hoping to be some how I have to find a way to make up 40 seconds per lap 
.
As of now that looks like trying to cross the Grand Canyon, and this only gets me mid pack in the field.
I feel you on that! 30-40 seconds can feel like an eternity when it can really come down to taking corners and tech sections just a hair smoother. It all adds up.
I took this weekend off to focus on workouts and long endurance rides. I’ll be missing almost a week of training due to a family thing this week, but will try and get a few run/jogs in. No bike riding sadly.
About to get my new to me crux. But I also found Canyon has a slew of Inflites on sale. If I was OK with having just a cx bike and no need for 45mm tire clearance, I’d go for that. Hard to beat the sale price on them right now.
have me going to the Canyon site to check them out. After seeing that bike in person, I don’t think it looks bad.
I agree on corning and tech sections. During this weekend race I took some corners on what I felt was really good, the gap that I was able to put on the rider behind me was big.
My problem is that once I get a few laps in and the body started getting tired from the effort it get hard to continue taking those good lines.
Also my remounting just plain sucks 
. I’m always practicing those.
Anyone here using TR for the CX workout plan? What are your thoughts.
I’m finding that TR is not really recognizing my CX races.
Example, this week I had an Anaerobic workout Tuesday, got a yellow day for Wednesday that day had a training race. I was feeling it, legs had nothing, did the race, then on Thursday TR had scheduled a Vo2 workout no yellow or red day after a Cross race, what?
Now I’ve done these three hard days before but at the end it didn’t feel right and had a feeling that I wouldn’t last the season if I kept it up.
At the end I just did Taku a 30 minute ride. Today I had a race and I can see that that was the right call, body felt way better.
I sorta am, but not really. More or less to look at yellow/red days which seem rare during cx season. I’ll get a yellow day after a 3-4 hour z2 ride though. I basically just try and do one threshold day, one day of starts or 30/30s, and the rest z2.
TR this week has me doing vo2 tomorrow, 30min recovery wednesday, 60 min z2 thurs, off friday, ‘B’ CX race but also a threshold workout scheduled, 90 min z2 sunday. Since I’m off Sat-Mon and I took the last week basically off for traveling, I’ll do 2-3 hours z2 today with some starts at the end, threshold tomorrow, z2 weds, off thurs or light spin, openers friday, race saturday. TBD on the openers though. When I used to race cx every weekend years ago, I for whatever reason took the day off before racing and did well.
Have been doing TR Cx plans for a number of years. This year on a high volume master’s plan, so hard days Tuesday/Saturday, Z2 W/Th/Fr/Sunday
Have a training race (C) on Sunday, still have an anaerobic workout for Saturday
Starting next week for full season, will have weekends alternating 1 race or Saturday/Sunday through mid December. Almost all the races are B, so usually will have a 30 minute opener the day before. Once the full season starts, generally it will just be Tuesday hard days.
TR gives me three hard days a week, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays.
With the training races on Wednesday I found it odd that Thursday was still a hard day, these races where C races. The tired legs where carrying over to Saturday races if I had any.
By switching the workout on Thursday to that short endurance ride, I had a much better race this pass Saturday.
Now that the training series is wrapped up it should all be back to normal now since the weekend races are all B’s and one A.
I’m thinking for next season keep the calendar the same but just Thursday after the training race do an endurance ride instead, maybe even use Train Now to pick it.
Think it’s a problem with cross races in general, the metrics/numbers do not really reflect how taxing they are for the legs. Not sure what TR measure, but TSS, NP, AP are all usually pretty low. Only HR shows the effort, but I don’t think TR takes that into account. IMHO, it’s better to go by feel and do a recovery/easy ride instead of sticking to a plan that doesn’t fully understand what you did.
I’m going to try and ramp up the volume a lil bit through October. I have one gravel race next week that I’ll use for training and rest with be cx on one weekend day leading up to states unless I burn out.
Not training related, but was all set to pick up a ‘23 crux. Person sold it while I was away, which is understandable. But, I found a steal for a ‘19 crux expert with carbon wheels. I might just do this. My other option right now is a ‘22 TCX for about $700 more. Since the crux is so cheap, I might just keep my Revolt around until the right buyer comes around. The few gravel races I’ve done, a 38-40 is fine.
How much is the 2019 Crux you found? The prices for those pre-gravelification Crux frames seem to vary wildly when I have searched around. I have a ‘18 Crockett that has been awesome, but it is marginally too big, and every now and then I think I should try and find a 54 and bite the bullet.
Found one for $1,000 while I was on vacation last week. Dude is just trying to offload his fleet before moving this weekend. Similar ones were going for like $2,000. Some Focus Mares’ going for under $1,500 and the last gen of the Stiggy that was good for CX are hovering around 2-2,500. That’s what I was eyeing up but people were holding strong on pricing. IMO they should be going for a bit less due to the gravelification of the crux, stigmata, etc.
The ‘23 Crux was $2,000 but about 6 hours away. Was going to offer like $1,700 and make a weekend of it.
Pros Closet has that TCX for $1,724
That is a steal at $1000! I saw a ‘19 Crux on FB marketplace today for $2899! Some people are crazy.
By the way, I am also in Colorado, so probably at some of the same races. Valmont this weekend!
Trek cup weekend! heading out tomorrow AM, 1/2/3s for friday, then SS sat and sun.
Hoping my wife can pick up some upgrade points this weekend with some proper field sizes. Unfortunately she woke up with a bit of a bug yesterday. I have had some sinus infection haunting me for the past 10 days. Really need to take some time and recover, but hard to do in the midst of cross season.
I thought it was a scam when I first saw it. But, picked it up last night and the gentleman and his wife are moving to Arizona. Hustled back to Golden and got some laps in at the back2basics course. This thing feels like a rocket ship compared to my Revolt! Even the six year old Tracer Pro tires looked brand new. Rolled pretty decent to be honest. Gotta cut the steerer tube, slam the stem, and find something a bit longer.
Reg’d last night for Valmont. Looks like another hot and dusty race day!
The only utility of TR for CX is for openers the day prior in my opinion. The only way to train for CX is doing efforts in a field with uneven ground, corners, varied tyre choices, terrain etc. None of these aspects are covered by sitting in you garage on a trainer. Just the way it is. An example, 30/30’s…when in a CX race do you actually hit the gas for 30 seconds uninterrupted, without a corner, undulations etc…never. Specificity rules.
Congrats. That’s a deal!
Next season I am going to wider tires I think. I’ve always run 33s because ‘its what you do’, but 35s or 38s seem like they would be so much nicer on the rough courses. My old body needs some cushioning!