Touring - Trek 1000 as a touring bike

I recently just got interested in touring and don't really know if I should stick with my Trek 1000 for touring. What do people think.

I biked across the US last year on a Trek 1000 and both it and myself survived. It is not the best bike for this purpose since it has a short wheelbase making it unstable but you can be pretty agile with it, has 25mm wheels which are also less stable than a normal touring bike but are lighter making it easier to climb, is aluminum which means it can't be repair but is much lighter than steel, and the fork is carbon fiber which can fail catastrophically but for me survived unpaved Wyoming roads. It's a road bike so it's much lighter and agile than a touring bike which is both good and bad, but it does have a triple ring which is important.

So it's not the best bike for touring but if you already have it, go with it. Keep in mind people used to bike tour on junk department store bikes. If possible I would get wider, stronger wheels and a steel fork.

You can buy Surly touring forks for a bout $100 if you need to carry front panniers. I'm not sure if you can mount rear panniers, so a seat-tube clamp type rack should work. If not, Nashbar has single-wheel trailers on sale right now. You also should be able to mount 700x28 tires, a size that Schwalbe marathon comes in.

I found this picture of a Trek 1000 on tour:

http://i.pbase.com/g4/85/557985/2/59591418.JoyIndianaTrek1000C.jpg

This gal has a very entertaining journal on crazyguyonabike: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=rzyi&page_id=32039&v=T9

Above is the link to photo of her loaded bike.

Her (Trek 1000) went cross country with a few broken spokes. Pretty well loaded up, as well.

My brother in law's Trek 1000 can use 700 X 28 tires but that's max. It does have rear rack capability easy enough and can keep your same fork by using an Old Man Sherpa rack for the front.

How much money do you have? Like GZ says, you already have it. It will probably work, but it isn't the best. If you have $1,000 to spend (or much more), buy a new dedicated touring bike. It will be better suited to the task and less likely to suffer a mechanical failure. Or you can spend $500-600 and get a used tourer - either an older Trek or Cannondale, or a newer Fuji or Novara (and there are others.) Check Ebay and Craigslist.

Or make a few minor modifications to the Trek 1000 as mentioned above and go for it. It will probably work fine, and you'll likely have a wonderful time.

Depending on your size/weight, I don't recommend the 1000 for touring. I sold my 1000 on craigslist for $300 and used that to buy a new Trek 520 touring bike for $900 on sale at my LBS (I can also recommend REI's Novara Randonee for $949). I'm 6'0 and weight 205-210, so I appreciate the 36-spoke wheels, solid frame, wider tires (32mm), etc. I sacrifice some ability to keep up on club rides, of course, but not as much as I thought I would. I recently did a 75 mile charity ride on the 520 averaging 17 mph (flat route!).

As an earlier poster wrote, if it's a budget issue, then you can "make do" with the 1000. I had to be very creative with my own budget since I have 3 kids, but I just had to have certain features, and I made it happen.

Good luck with your planning; it can be of the most fun parts of the journey.