WHAT KIND OF BIKE SHOULD YOU BUY? by John Schubert
The American consumer in 2007 gets to be mighty picky when he buys something. We have a baffling array of choices. This is true even with touring bikes, even though the neighborhood bike shop is likely to have somewhere between zero and one touring bike in stock (and probably not in your size). Search a little wider and you will find a broad spectrum of nuances in touring-bike design.
But before I continue, let me remind everyone not to feel that you have to be too picky. Consider that forty-seven years ago my brother-in-law rode a camping transcontinental tour on a Schwinn three-speed, carrying much of his gear in a steel front basket, and he thoroughly enjoyed himself. Take inspiration from him. I'm not suggesting that you seek out a Schwinn three-speed for this trip, but rather that you should get decent equipment and then stop worrying about minor attributes your bike does or doesn't have.
We racked our brains and came up with the primary subcategories of touring bikes—general road touring, light road touring, heavy-duty road touring, mountain bike, recumbent, tandem, and folding—and spotlighted a good example from each category. As always, you could argue with our choice of examples, as did we. But we think we nailed a good example in each category.
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For a list of touring bikes to
consider, click here. |
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GENERAL ROAD TOURING
Smack dead center in the touring bike's universe is the "typical" touring bike sold by, well, by several companies. You could be well-served by bikes from Trek, Cannondale, Fuji, Jamis, Rocky Mountain, or Bianchi.
A good example of a well-designed touring bike is the Novara Randonee, sold at REI stores. Its $950 price tag and its specifications are typical of general road touring bikes. It comes with dropped handlebars (which many of us still prefer for their more aerodynamic riding position) and an REI aluminum rear rack. The rack saves you the trouble of buying your own, and it broadcasts a signal: this bike is made to carry stuff.
The frame is Reynolds 520 steel tubing. Steel is still popular among touring cyclists, partly because of its retro-grouch cussedness, partly because of its field repairability, and partly because it simply offers a great ride.
The Randonee comes with Vittoria Randonneur 700x32 tires. These are wide enough to be flat-resistant on pretty bad road surfaces, even as you bog down the bike with camping gear. It's my tire width of choice for unpaved rail trails. I'm currently testing a pair of Randonneurs, and they are very durable, long-lived tires.
Then there's the gearing. The front chainwheels are 26/36/48 and the cog cassette is a nine-speed 11-34, giving you a good low gear of 21 inches and an overkill high gear of 118 inches.
In this $950 price range, you're paying enough to get an actual brand name on your components, and in the Randonee's case, that name is usually Shimano. Brakes, hubs, chain, crankset, crank spindle, and of course, the derailleurs. You'll also get a pair of unprepossessing platform pedals with toe clips. This is pretty standard: bikes either come with usable-but-inexpensive pedals, or no pedals at all, on the theory that most riders will want to use the clipless pedal system of their personal choice.
The Randonee, and other bikes like it, will go almost anywhere and endure for decades. There's a reason why bikes in this class have remained the staple for transcontinental and similar rides.
LIGHT ROAD TOURING
But what if you're a confirmed credit card tourist? You need carry very little stuff for a multi-day ride (I've done it with an eight-pound rack trunk that held all my clothing and other stuff). You plan to avoid unpaved roads, or use some combination of skill and caution to ride on them. And you want your bike to be as spry as possible for this kind of riding.
Four years ago, Specialized reignited the choices for this kind of rider with the Sequoia, which is pretty much a hybrid between a racing bike and a full-on touring bike. For 2007, the Sequoia comes in a $770 model and an $1,100 model. It has skinny rims to fit skinny tires (It comes with Specialized 700x23C), but frame and fork clearance to fit tires up to 700 x 32C. Both models have carbon fiber forks (advantage: less vibration, less weight. Disadvantage: don't clamp pannier racks on those carbon fork blades); the more expensive model also has carbon seatstays. Both models have "Zertz" elastomer inserts to reduce vibration. You get three chainwheels, mounting bosses for a rear rack, a more upright (and more comfortable) rider position than you'd find on a true racing bike and cheapie resin pedals awaiting the pedal replacement of your choice.
The more expensive model has nine-speed gearing, with a low gear of 31 inches and a high gear of 113 inches. The less expensive model has eight-speed gearing, 32 inches and 113 inches. If you're in good shape, these low gears may be tolerable for very lightly loaded touring. Some riders may choose to have their gearing modified at the time they buy the bike.
To underscore the core point: you get an almost racing bike, lightweight and spry, with good tire clearances and rack mounts. Don't overload it and you can have some terrific adventures.
Other companies have started to follow Specialized's Sequoia formula. If one of them intrigues you, double check the tire clearances and rack mounting capability, because the marketplace is full of otherwise-wonderful bikes that lack these two key attributes.
HEAVY DUTY ROAD TOURING
What if you are just plain hard on equipment? You carry a lot of weight, you bash through potholes, you ride on rough unpaved surfaces, your weight just has more metal bending karma than other people's weight. Maybe you plan on riding vast distances over rugged terrain in remote country. You want a bike that is overbuilt and reliability is your top concern.
While there are several good examples of heavy-duty touring bikes, the ones that many people will think of are made by frame builder Bruce Gordon, whose $2,550 Rock Ôn Road and more affordable $1,849 BLT (Basic Loaded Touring) set the standard for bikes very disinclined to bend or break. Every one of his bikes is hand made in his Petaluma, California, factory, and he lives and breathes the needs of the touring customer.
One compelling reason to select a Bruce Gordon bike is to get Bruce Gordon racks. Gordon pioneered in the United States marketplace truly rugged racks that are extremely unlikely to fail in the field. (I was once privy to instrumented rack testing in which Gordon's racks clearly outshined every other rack of that era.) Other rack makers have caught up over the decades (or, in the case of Blackburn, simply de-emphasized their rack business), but Gordon still sets the standard. And Gordon's racks have special mounting points for your fenders, so you can have more rattle-free, rigid fenders than you thought possible.
On Gordon's web site, you'll find something few other vendors mention anymore: top tube diameters and wall thicknesses. Gordon correctly points out that touring cyclists with panniers need a more rigid top tube than do racing cyclists, to avoid steering shimmy. And so Gordon's top tubes have wall thicknesses 25 percent greater than the competing brands listed.
A Bruce Gordon frame is made from retro-lover's steel, shod with high-end Shimano components, and available in a huge range of frame sizes with your choice of 700C or 26-inch wheels. A 700 x 45C or 26 x 1.25 tire will fit in the generous clearances in the frame and fork. With 26-inch tires, you get an 18-inch low gear and a 102-inch high gear. I'd call that a perfect range. With 700C tires, you get a 19-inch low gear and a 111-inch high gear Ñ perfect on the low end, a bit of overkill on the high end, and changeable if you want. The BLT is a "no substitutions" menu item; the Rock Ôn Road offers more customizing and nicer components for its price premium.
Yes, you pay a price premium for having a bike handmade in the United States, but the premium is surprisingly small. If these are the specs that meet your needs, this bike is a great value.
MOUNTAIN BIKES
Beefy touring rigs like the Rock Ôn Road are tough enough for extended off-pavement tours, but for rugged dirt tours like the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route or serious singletrack touring, you'll want a mountain bike. With their upright riding position, wide hand placement, meaty tires, and terrain-smoothing suspension, mountain bikes give cyclists the ability to ride on roads and trails that simply wouldn't be possible, or at least wouldn't be much fun, on traditional tourers.
In recent years, full suspension technology has gotten so reliable, and its comfort benefits are so immense, that many people feel a full-suspension bike is the way to go. The Specialized Stumpjumper FSR is my own favorite from that point of view. Adventure Cyclist deputy editor Aaron Teasdale has had good luck on all manner of dirt roads and technical trails, using both trailers or racks, with a Santa Cruz Blur. After riding the never-ending washboard roads of Wyoming's Great Basin, many Great Divide Route riders swear by the benefits of a fully suspended bike.
To get another expert opinion, I asked the man who's put the most racks on mountain bikes that weren't made with rack mounting in mind: Channing Hammond, founder and major domo of Old Man Mountain racks. For long tours in remote places, Hammond recommended a bike that combines rear suspension comfort with no rear suspension moving parts Ñ the titanium Moots YBB. This bike has a conventional suspension front fork, but the rear suspension has a small telescoping tube on the seat-stay, and no pivots anywhere. The rear triangle simply flexes upwards to absorb shock. Moots can do this with titanium, because, when properly engineered, the metal has pretty much infinite fatigue life when flexed within its elastic zone.
Moots sells framesets and titanium components, and its retailers sell complete bikes. Accordingly, there is no one price or component specification chart for a YBB, though you already know that titanium doesn't come cheap. But if you're looking for a sweet ride that'll outlast several sets of components you bolt to it, the YBB will be your loyal sherpa from the Arctic Circle to the Steppes to downtown Brooklyn.
RECUMBENT
Say good-bye to the sore butt, numb hands, aching neck, and "watch my front tire" riding position. Say hello to armchair comfort, more daily mileage on less training, and a rider position that naturally puts your eyes watching the scenery, not your front wheel. Really, is there a rational reason why most of us ride "wedgies" (as recumbent fanciers dismissively refer to our bikes)?
The recumbent buyer faces a plethora of choices, and the differences among the various designs are very real. You can have your handlebars in front of you, or underneath your seat (my favored position, but a small minority in the marketplace). You can have a long wheelbase, a short wheelbase, or one in between. And these wheelbases vary by many inches, enough to make a real handling difference. (The millimeters by which one wedgie's wheelbase varies from the next have no such importance.) You can have a fairing, or not. Your chosen recumbent may have its own custom racks and panniers.
But even partisans of other brands will tell you that the Easy Racers Tour Easy EX (the "EX" stands for "expedition") is an excellent choice for a touring recumbent. Designed by the late, and greatly missed, Gardner Martin, the Tour Easy has a long wheelbase (about 66 inches, depending on frame size), gentle handling, and a plethora of innovative touring accessories.
The Tour Easy is made in the U.S., costs $1,995, and has a 27-speed drivetrain with a stump-pulling 19-inch low gear and a knee-busting 113-inch high gear. It has a 20-inch front wheel, a 700 x 35C rear wheel, and it weighs 30 1/4 pounds. But these statistics don't tell the whole Tour Easy story: the Tour Easy can be had with a windshield-style fairing and also a body stocking fairing, so you'll look like a little cruise missile heading down the road. More significantly, you'll have a fraction of the aerodynamic drag of wedgie drivers.
Your panniers can be integrated into the aerodynamic shape defined by the stocking, and your dashboard under the fairing can have every electronic gadget you'd ever want. Your seat is 14 inches wide, making it the envy of everyone who's gotten sores on a conventional bike seat.
Plus, you'll be invited into the fold. Tour Easy riders have their own club, their own magazine, and their own annual rally. ("Look, Ma! Hundreds of those things cruising down the road.")
TANDEM
Touring on a tandem can be utterly delightful. Your companion is within easy conversing distance. Every pedal stroke is teamwork, which, when done well, makes you gush with good vibrations. The bigger, heavier bike is more stable over bumps, and
a reasonably well coordinated team will ride faster on a tandem than they would on a pair of single bikes.
Most mid-price tandems are at least fairly suitable for touring. They usually come with rack mounting eyelets, plenty of low gears, and room for nice wide road tires.
Still, some tandems are more "touring friendly" than others. One of my favorites is the Santana Fusion SE, which Santana calls an "Enduro" tandem. It's optimized for touring, Santana says, "whether or not there's pavement." At $3195, the Fusion SE is not the cheapest tandem around, but then again, Santana has long been the Mercedes of tandems. You'll be treated well for the money you spend.
The Fusion SE has 26-inch wheels, for which you can buy a plethora of tires, ranging from racing skinny to huge mountain bike, and the chromoly alloy steel frame is made to clear just about all of them. The 26-inch wheels are inherently stronger than the larger 700C wheels most of us use. The captain's cockpit is made with an unusually low top tube, giving you gobs of standover height. Your gearing includes an 11-34 cog cassette and your choice of 24/28/48 all-terrain chainwheels, with a delightful 18-inch low and a well-chosen 113-inch high gear, or 30/42/52 road chainwheels with a still-respectable 23-inch low gear and an overkill 123-inch high gear. (Note: a tandem team can make good use of a somewhat higher high gear than can a single rider.)
S&S couplers are a thousand-dollar option, and with skillful disassembly and packing, the Fusion SE fits into a single hardshell suitcase you can take on an airline flight.
Santana's Enduro comes in four frame sizes and is the right tandem for many kinds of riding. You can fit skinny tires for go-fast rides, or bring your camping gear on rugged trails, or anything in between. And you'll have your spouse/best friend/parent/child along with you for the ride. It doesn't get any better than that.
FOLDING
The sophistication of good folding bike designs is truly a pleasure to behold. There is nothing like a splendidly compacted folding bike to accompany your travels on public transportation (including those consarned airlines), or in small cars, boats, and planes, where bringing a non-folding bike can be a hassle. The multimodal tourist with a folding bike can instantly shift travel modes: cycle one day, boat the next, hike the next, and then stay in a city with his bike unobtrusively stashed someplace small.
One could argue in favor of any of a number of different folding bike brands as being the most suitable folding bike for touring, but I give the nod to Bike Friday. The company has a dizzying array of models, but the two that stand out for the touring cyclist are the New World Tourist and its upscale lightweight cousin, the Crusoe.
It takes only seconds to fold either bike enough to stash in a car trunk or lug onto the bus. It takes longer to do enough disassembly to fit the bike in its airline-acceptable suitcase. If you want, you can buy wheels and a towbar, with which the suitcase can come behind you as a trailer.
But don't let all this folding technology keep you from seeing the reason why Bike Friday has such a devoted following: it handles like a big-wheel bike. Many an owner and many a bike reviewer has expressed amazement that the small wheels do not detract from the bike's performance. You can tow your possessions in the aforementioned suitcase/trailer or use Bike Friday's elegantly designed racks to mount your panniers.
Even though all Bike Fridays are made to order in Eugene, Oregon, the entry price for a flat handlebar New World Tourist with an eight-speed single-derailleur drivetrain is a very reasonable $898. The 15 other models in the New World tourist/Crusoe lines range up to $3,640. Along the way you get three choices of handlebar configuration and five choices of drivetrain. Weights range from 17.9 to 25.1 pounds. And the company loves to customize bikes for your needs.
Bike Friday's dizzying variety also includes folding recumbents, suitcase-able travel tandems, a go-fast bike that you could bring on the airplane as carry-on luggage in the good old days when bike parts weren't considered weapons, and numerous other configurations.
All bikes are sold factory-direct through the website. Since a lot of riders trade up to fancier models, the company also sells pre-owned Bike Fridays at lower cost.
Buying a Bike Friday also effectively gets you a club membership. There are actual Bike Friday clubs across the United States, and even touring events directed at Bike Friday owners. And Bike Friday owners are always very interesting people!
Hopefully, you can use these pages to do some research and find a machine that will let you, too, do just that. Good luck, and if you've
got your own take or want to share some of your experiences regarding this subject, head over to the
Adventure Cycling forums. See list of touring bikes to consider.
John Schubert is Adventure Cyclist's technical editor and shares his views about a wide variety of cycling-related topics in each issue. He can be reached for further comment or clarification at
Photos by Tom Bol and Chuck Haney.
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