Kinesis has been a cornerstone of British cyclocross for decades, and the Kinesis CX Race is its race-specific answer to the advance of the big-name brands into ’cross.
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It is available frame-only for £549.99, and with a choice of forks. Since the frame can run either disc or cantilever brakes, your fork choice will follow. We plumped for a £379.99 TRP carbon fork with 15mm thru-axle that weighed 472g uncut, and got building.
Our 55.5cm frame weighed 1431g, realistically light for a ’crosser. A few requests and some desk scouring turned up a SRAM Rival 1 groupset, and colour-matched PRO bar and stem (thanks Team Sky), and Fabric saddle and bar tape. Kinesis-supplied CX Disc clinchers, Challenge Chicane Open Pro tyres and a Kinesis carbon seatpost finished the build.
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Scandium-aluminium is a light alloy, something borne out by the 8.63kg total weight, which is pretty competitive for a relatively inexpensive frame. In this form it’s also undoubtedly a race bike, as although Kinesis has included drain holes to remove water, it has omitted bottle bosses. A huge number of bolt-on parts allows for several configurations of cables and hoses. The rear mech cable travels above the top-tube and seatstay with end-to-end outer casing to keep water and dirt out, but its customisable clips aren’t great to sit on.
We routed the rear hose smoothly around the head-tube, leaving little chance of anything scratching the wonderful finish. The tapered head-tube anchors the slightly triangular top-tube and shape-shifting down-tube, while providing a solid power base for your efforts. A BSA bottom bracket with external cups means no-nonsense operation, and the rear end still uses quick-release skewers.
Racing form
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