Hello all, So I'm just building up my first cross bike. Not having the cash for 2 - sets of rims right now, I was wondering if anyone has experience with CX-sized tread. I'll be using the bike mostly as a winter trainer on the road, next as a commuter/city bike, and finally as a true off-road cross bike. Maybe next season get in to the whole cross scene a bit more. Living over by Tabor & the 205 track, I've got some respectable CX training grounds a few miles out of my front door - which I plan to get on quite a bit. I'm curious to know if anyone has some experience with what type of tires might serve good purpose based on the above. If possible - my ideal tire would be a cross tire, that performed really well on the pavement (really good wear & roll... in fact the most important to me at this time), but would hook-up some on the loose trail stuff too, so I can enjoy a little of that mixed in. Problem is I'm very hard on tires - and would hate to destroy a pair of CX tires on the pavement to the point that they wouldn't work well at all off-road. Any thoughts - shoot away!

 I used to have a pair of WTB Allterainasaurus tires which performed decently on singletrack and commuting.  I even road them on some Hammer and Nails rides last spring when I didn't know any better.

This might be bad advice but I hit Saltzman road on 23cc slicks quite a bit so if I was just looking for "light" off road use I'd probably just get a standard road tire (probably wider then a 23 though)

It kind of depends on how big a tire you can run on the bike. If you can only run up to say 700x28 than you are really limited. I had the WTB All Terrainasuarus on my Bianchi San Jose. They would be perfect for your application.

Not sure if there is an "all in one" type tire that you are looking for.  Off road tires tend to be of a softer ruber compound to allow them to flex and bite into the dirt more effectively.  Because of this, the tires tend to get chewed up more when you ride them on pavement.  If you are planning on doing some CX racing, my suggestion is to get some CX tires... if you are going to commute and ride during the winter, get some winter road tires (armadillos work pretty well)