I wanted to share my latest bike project, a Salsa LaCruz

The LaCruz is a disc-only cyclocross frameset from Salsa. I was kind of intrigued by it and pulled the trigger on one on ebay a while back that was priced right and new in the box. Next I needed the drivetrain, and I found one of the last remaining Centaur alloy 10 speed groups from a mail-order place in England. I much prefer Campagnolo to other options.

The tricky part was the wheels. Salsa decided to use a mountain bike 135mm rear spacing, rather than the 130mm standard used on road and cross bikes, on the LaCruz. This gives you a heck of a lot more wheel choices, as you can use just about any 29er disc wheelset out there on the bike. For me it presented a problem because no one makes Campy compatible mountain wheels, as Campy has not made mountain bike components for well over 10 years. I know you're probably thinking that I could have just used one of those American Classic conversion cassettes, but I didn't want to go that route having had poor luck with one on my last bike. Teeth busted off of several of the cogs, and while American Classic was nice enough to replace them, it never really shifted quite as well as it should have. I considered going Ultegra or SRAM so that I could go large with fancy wheels but could not bring myself to compromise. A friend suggested that I go with a set of Velocity road disc wheels and just clamp down on the extra 5mm with the skewer, but I could not bring myself to do that either. The solution, although a somewhat costly one, came from DT Swiss.

The DTSwiss 240 hubs have easily replaceable freehub bodies. I found this lightly used DTSwiss 29er wheelset with disc-specific rims on ebay. After purchasing the Campy freehub body and some centerlock to IS rotor adapters, I was in business.

The ultra-torque crankset and bottom bracket went together like a breeze, and the new Centaur levers were quite a bit easier to setup then those I had worked with in the past. Campy changed the way the dérailleur cables thread through the levers, so no more madness there. Since I am using the Campy cassette and chain that came with the group, the shifting is awesome.

I added a Salsa Bell Lap bar, Pro Moto stem, seatpost, and cross levers to stick with the Salsa theme. Overall, I think the bike is a cool mix of Euro and Marin. Since the frame and fork are disc specific without any canti studs, it has a clean look. Campy's lever design, which allows you to route all of the cables under the bar tape, adds to the effect.

Regarding the overall selection of colors, the natural first tendency would be to load it up with all manner of Bianchi celeste green tires ala some 90's Jake the Snake, or perhaps a Chris King rasta motif. I decided to just keep it simple and play on the silver in the logos and alloy groupset, and added the silver Terry zero y saddle and Cinelli tape.

Happily the bike rides real nice. The only down side to using the discs on a cross bike is that they do add a bit of weight. In addition, even though these are the road version of the Avid BB7 mechanical discs, the return springs could be a little snappier. The braking has quite a lot of power, but not not the crispness you'd have with a nice set of Paul cantis.

Let me know what you think!