Cyclocross is an interesting sport. Beyond the crazy heckling fans and the funny outfits, there are many interesting things that go on in the bike side of things. Whether to run disc brakes or cantilever, go tubeless, tubed or tubular and deciding on which tires to run can be a daunting task in itself. Courses change daily depending on weather conditions, and if you're running tubular wheels, it can be quite difficult to decide what to do if you only have one wheelset of the glued on type. You either sacrifice having ideal tires for the given conditions or fork over a good chunk of change to have 2 or more sets to coincide with the conditions of the course.
For me, it's pretty simple. I am running clincher tires with tubes. At least, for the time being. I started my first race and training sessions running the Bontrager CX3 tires. They are a decent set, modestly priced similarly to most road tires. They now are available in tubeless ready versions for people who want to both run lower pressure and not have to worry about flats (for the most part). These are a good option to run in almost all conditions. They have decent tread and grip. For the first race and sessions I started out with these running at 30psi to start, and went down from there. It is hard to get over the fact that in general, lower pressure is better for cyclocross. It's a sacrifice of speed in the open vs grip in the corners.
I got my tires down to about 27-26psi by race start and felt that would handle. The first lap went pretty well and I didn't feel the lower psi fighting me. Overall, it felt pretty good with a little bit of wet grass, but no real slippery sections. The only section that scared me with these tires was when I was on a road section for about 50 yards that leads into a hard right back onto the grass. I came in hard to push and my front end nearly buckled underneath me. I felt the tire fold and nearly went over the bars. Luckily I was so in the zone that I was able to stabilize and adjust.
This made me rething my tire choice.
After this I decided to get a set of Challenge Grifo tires for the next race. I had heard nothing but good things about them and know a guy who works for them so I got the inside scoop on how to run them.
For these I started at 40psi and could actually feel like I was getting better grip than with the Bontrager CX3s. Weird huh? I still felt like I wanted to run a little lower, so I bumped them down to 35psi, knowing I had room to spare, but I kept them there after doing some warmup laps and they felt good in the race. No slipping and no folding. I do think I should run lower pressure based on what people are saying and how the tires should respond in the corners. I should be able to lean into some corners more and still get grip without slipping out. We'll see what happens next time I get out to race or ride it.
-Dave
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