Hello all,

So I do a lot of road riding but lately have gone to a couple of cross races as it looks like a blast. At first I was worried about making an ass out of myself but figured after the first 10 minutes everyone is so spread out noone would know if I was first or last. OK maybe not first.

One other reason I wanted to build up the bike is that a bunch of buddies do some trail riding and most do it on cross bikes or brevet type bikes so nothing technical. They hit alot of the trails around Mt Tam on SF area. These are 100k-200k rides of on and off road rides.

So I have a frame/fork HS and wheel set in my garage to build up. I also have a triple road crank that I thought would work well for the trial riding but not sure if there is a reason not to use it at cross racing. When I was at the races I noticed single rings and lots of compact doubles but I am not sure I even saw a triple. If this was strictly a cross bike I would not go triple since I do not think would not need the little ring at all.

So is there any technical reason to not have a triple for cross racing if you do not plan to use the little ring? Nor do I believe I will even have to shift out of the middle ring at my beginning level.

Thanks, Willy in Pacifica

If your main usage for the bike is trail riding, use the gearing you are comfortable with.

Single rings and close-ratio gearing are great for racing, but aren't quite as useful for trail riding (although, that hasn't stopped me from hitting the trails :devil:).

While a triple will provide a huge range of gears that are often not useful/needed for racing, using one in a race is not such a big deal, especially if you're just racing for fun (and not a paycheck). And you're right, you'll probably stay in the middle ring for the entire race, unless the course has some big straights or downhills.

Mainly, you usually don't need that many gears in cross. And the more you need to size your chain and adjust your drivetrain to handle a triple, the more likely your chain is to come off, which is the real danger in a cross race.

That said, I ride the trails on Tam on my cross bike, with a (compact) double up front and a mountain bike cassette in back.