 You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Im off on a trip to the alps soon
were taking in the tour and also getting some road miles
were putting in some road miles of late , but i cant help wondering if it would be better to take my CX bike instead of my Road bike
A..its more comfortable to ride
B .. the gearing is lower , which at my current fitness level will help
C .. Its got disc brakes ,,Now this is the troubling one , on normal UK roads i think they would be great ,, But in the alps on long descents im not sure
Im worried about the braking forces on the forks
And the possibility of over heating
Any thoughts ?
The road surfaces are much better over there than here, so I think comfort would be less of an issue. The major road climbs/cols aren't generally that steep - somebody told me they tend to stick with about 7% to enable lorries to use the routes and this is why you end up with long traverses and hairpins.
I took a hybrid to the Alps once with similar thoughts and hated it. If you plan to do some touring, bit of off road and cycle paths then the cross bike could be a good idea but for out and out road riding, take your road bike.
I'd say a cross bike is more suited to places like Germany where the off road stuff is tamer and mainly double-track so you can get more use out of it.
there is also the option of putting the cross bike gearing/cassette on road bike for lower gearing.
I took my cross bike for a week of road riding in the alps last year, and it did well. It was set up as more of a road machine with slicks and compact chainset, but it coped well with climbing and descending and long rides. Having discs was very confidence inspiring, especially going down alp d-huez and all the others. No need to worry about overheating brakes or stressing the forks, it's what they were built for! The pads will wear a bit on long descents, and I had to adjust mine (pretty average BB5's) to keep them feeling good.
You don't need super-low gearing, a 50/34 compact and 12-28 cassette is good. The hills aren't so steep (generally 7-10%), but they are all long, so you need a gear you can spin at for some time, and to bail into when you're knackered (it will happen!). As above, the road surfaces are way better than the UK so you can run high pressures and narrow tyres easily.
It'll be fine, and the disks an advantage as has been said, esp in the wet. Up Galibier by road then down on the old road, now a track, lots of other CX stuff too, Sarenne>Col de Cluy> Cheminee de la Balme (google it!)