Originally Posted by Bacciagalupe

Generally speaking, any touring bike will cover all of those uses.

Touring bikes are designed for stability while loaded. In the "plus" column, the LHT is stable when loaded, comfortable, is rugged, and can take full racks & fenders.

The biggest "minus" is that touring bikes are not particularly fast. The rider position is somewhat upright. Your tire and wheel choices will also affect speed.

My best guess, based on comparing my cross/touring bike to my road bike, is that if you use wide tires, heavy rims and sit upright (all good things for touring), you'd probably lose 2 mph on average compared to a standard road bike.

Frame weight has nothing to do with performance, by the way. My cross/touring and road bikes weigh the same, but the road is about 2mph faster than the cross -- maybe more when I use actual cross tires.

So if you're building from scratch, I'd consider a few options:

1) get one stem with tons of rise, and another with little or no rise. Use the upright position for any ride where comfort is more important than speed (e.g. touring)
2) consider using two wheelsets, one set for touring and one for speed.