In 2017 I bought a giant tcx slr2 cycle cross bike. I used it for everything and put on 17000 km in 2 years. I used it for road, gravel, touring and commuting. I put 38mm Tires on it for gravel and touring and 30 for everything else. I think I could have gone a fair bit wider. Loved the bike and just sold it.
I used it for 2 different gravel 5 hour plus races with no problem.
Used it to ride with our local road club and changed front sprocket from 46-36 to 50-34.
Used it to ride 1600 km in around a week or so with some 11 hour 300 km days.
Loved almost everything.
Problems. Twitchy. High center of gravity. Upright position. Not really comfortable for endurance rides.
Mine had 105 with spyre mechanical disc breaks.
That worked great.
As I never did a cyclecross race I replaced it with a specialized diverge comp e5 with 105. I’ll never do cyclecross but i love gravel. Also the bike is almost a duplicate of my new carbon roubaix.
Yep, running out of gears descending has been the only “issue” I have using my 1x cross/gravel bike as my roadie.
Only time it’s really been a problem though is on group rides where i’ll get dropped on the longer descents.
It’s all good though, I know the routes and just make sure I’m at the front before the decending starts and then TT my way back to the group after the road levels out.
All in all I like the 1x setup for everything I do on this bike. I run a 42 up front with a 11-40 cassette and I find that gearing works just fine for me for both cross and longer gravel rides.
Also run an XT di2 rear derailleur so it shifts great on or off the road and is easy to adjust when I swap from one wheel set to another.
Yeah. I’m super stoked on my Mares CX 1. I might try and swap cranks for something lighter and I aesthetically speaking, Rival 1 crank is just I don’t know. Haven’t even been on it yet and I cannot wait! Color is super sick too. Looks like a decent amount of clearance up front and in the back. Might use it for a gravel race if I get the gearing taken care of.
I just bought the Trek Crocket and love it. I use it for commuting during the week but got an extra wheel set for fun on the weekends. I currently have 37 gravel tires in but plan on putting CX tires for cross season.