Don´t expect this to be a technical article about the bike. You can search Google for that and will find plenty of information (or you can click here), much more than my very limited technical knowledge can cover on it or any other bike, as a matter of fact.

The story behind this bike starts with the plans for my first bike touring. In 2014 a friend and I decided to go visit his cousin in the outskirts of Paris by bicycle.

At the time my father-in-law (who passed away that same year) was fighting an advanced type of cancer and I wanted to do something I had never done before and raise some money for Cancer Care Patients in his honour.

I am not really the road bike type of guy, but for a while I was already thinking of buying a hybrid bike to have easier and faster rides on roads (29″ wheels or 700cc, lighter frame, etc).

I was having a little trouble with the pedals of my Hard Rock, so I rode to the nearest bike shop in Chrowthorne to have them replaced and while I was waiting and chatting to the owner of the shop I asked him what he had on offer in terms of Hybrids. The first bike he showed me was the Specialized Crosstrail. I immediately liked it. Spent a few minutes looking at every detail of the bike, sat on it pressed the pedal and that was it… I wanted to ride it, so I bought it.

Of course I couldn´t ride it home because I was on my Hard Rock, so I left a deposit to secure the bike and came back 2 days later to pay the rest and take it home. With the bike I also bought the rack for my panniers for the Bracknell to Paris trip.

I like all my bikes, but this one is special. I love it! It´s in the same price range as the Hard Rock and has a similar groupset, hydraulic disc brakes, etc, but, although the tech specs are nice and make for a very smooth ride, I feel in love with it because it marked a change in my life, a departure from a person who was very controlled on his finances and would not spend a penny without at least a month´s worth of product and market research. In fact I discovered later that I paid about £50 more in that shop, that day, than I could have if I had done some research and the most amazing thing is, I really don´t care. I liked it and bought it straight away.

I´ll have a separate post on the Bracknell to Paris ride, so I won´t add much information about it here, but the bike performed great. It´s great to have the comforts of a mountain mike, like a front suspension, with the benefits of less weight, a bigger wheel and hybrid road tyres.

This is a really great bike and I can´t recommend it enough.