So, I am hoping to do some long distance riding sometime in the near future (across the states at least, silk road if I am lucky). Right now I am looking at a 460 mile ride from Atlanta to my home in Clearwater FL as a possible trial run. Anyways, I am looking for some advice on a good bike for this. I can get a Surly Long Haul Trucker fairly cheap (I work at a bike store), so that is what I am looking at now. I haven't ridden one or know anyone who has one however, so I have no personal experience with it. Anyone here know much about it or any other touring bikes I should be looking at?
Where the bikes make you drop to your knees.
Not much about touring bikes
Not much about touring bikes (except a really low granny gear is your friend)... but I do know this, ride fully loaded for a couple of small rides (30 to 40 miles) first. See how the bike handles with you and all of the stuff loaded on it.
Also, test all of your gear on a short trip. Personally if I don't use it at least every other day, then I don't carry it (the only exception is my flat kit and a basic first aid kit). Another thing you should look into is going ultra light with your gear. I'm trying to get mine down to 15 pounds (minus the weight of the bike and the weight of my food/water).
www.crazyguyonabike.com is a great place for route suggestions.
For my personal bike, I ride an old steel Rock Hopper frame with a completely new drive train (all 8 speed Sram with twist shifters, the reasoning behind 26" wheels is it seems like finding a tube or tire for that size wheel would be easier in podunk nowheres-ville). I have a bomb proof wheel set now, a set of XT hubs laced to Ryhnolite XL's (haven't been lucky in the past with lesser wheels). To round out the rig I have a pair of Jandd racks and a Brooks Flyer saddle.
Done it
If you want to travel, and S&S coupled bike (in which case it will be steel) is a good choice, but now that airlines are trying to nickel and dime you, sometimes it does not matter that the bike is in a standard size suitcase, they will still charge you extra.
If you are not going to do fully loaded touring, then a randonneuring style bike is good enough and you are actually getting the advantage of less weight. If you are going for fully loaded touring, you cannot beat Cannondales unless you are getting a custom made frame. They are solid, have the right geometry, gearing and wheels - ready to tour right out of the box. I had no qualms about screaming down a mountain pass at 50+ mph fully loaded (300+ lbs).
The steel vs aluminum debate is moot on a touring bike. The stiffness of the frame gets absorbed by the big tires. Some people will say that if your frame breaks, a welder can fix a steel frame but not an aluminum one but that point is academic. The chances of a well made frame breaking are small to nil and I trust their quality control.
No matter what you do, watch out for the length of the chainstay. The Cannondale's is 18 inches and I would actually add a couple of inches there to get more room for rear panniers. Anything shorter will frustrate you.
Chainstay length
Where do you measure from? Center of BB shell to center of rear hub?
yeah
Center of BB to center of the dropouts (in the instance of horizontal dropouts.
A good rule of thumb with a touring bike is that you want to be able to squeeze a frame pump between a fat tire and the seat tube. If you can do so with a fender mounted, even better.
What you're really trying to avoid is striking your heels on your panniers.
Are longish cranks out for
Are longish cranks out for that reason as well?
Not really (I run 175mm
Not really (I run 175mm cranks and have size 13 hobbit feet, I never have heal strike). The type of rack has a lot to do with heal strike as well.
no
cranks go from about 160 mm to 180 mm, so about 2 cm difference total.
Chainstays go from 41 cm (56 cm Trek Madone) to 46 cm (56 cm Surly LHT).
I don't think that 1 - 2 cm difference in cranks is really going to make or break you.
but it does
46 is good. 41 is short, but then again trek only makes credit card tourers.
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yeah i know. we were talking about crank lengths.
in the difference of 46 cm - 41 cm chainstays, a long crank (18 cm) vs a normal crank (17 cm), isn't that big of deal.
my point was: get the right chainstays, and you can use your favorite crank.
also
is that if you're not carrying more than 30 or 40 lbs, touring on a road bike is fine. i toured on an old peugeot with a rack (and later a contini race bike when the peugeot was hit by a car) for 3 months in spain. no problems.
it seems like if you can get the surly below retail, then you might as well. it'd be an easy resale if it ends up sucking.
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I agree, but the only thinks to watch out for are the presence of eyelets for luggage of some sort and chainstay length.
If you're using panniers, you want to make sure that your heels clear bags.
STEEL!!!
STEEL!!!
I did orlando to birmingham
I dont have much good advice. take as half as much as you need and twice as much money
http://stupidhurts.org/tour-de-stupidity/