A Nasty Surprise

"Surprise" because I was just in the bike store to get a couple of broken spokes on my around-town beater mountain bike fixed.  But it was on a close-out sale, it was the day after payday, etc.  And I'd passed up on essentially the same deal last year and had been kicking myself ever since.  And "Nasty" because, well, properly used cyclocross bikes are always nasty.
What is a cyclocross bike anyway?  It's a road bike minimally adapted for off-road use.  Here's the Wiki article about these mud beasts.  And here's the Wiki article about the sport of CX.  It's not a hybrid bike, even though they are mentioned as such in the linked article.  Those bring in a different set of compromises, starting from a mountain bike platform.
I don't anticipate doing any CX racing on this thing, though you never know.  I got it for road riding on crappy streets and for occasional light-duty mountain biking.

This thing is the way to get around the still-wrecked up streets in BSL.  It's like driving a steamroller.  A really fast steamroller.