Touring - Sizing up the long haul trucker.

Hello, I am probably going to be buying a long haul trucker here soon.
This is going to my first touring bike, up until now I have only ridden race bikes. My current road bike is the Ridley Excalibur, size medium.

I had the chance to ride the 58cm LHT frame at my local shop, but they didn’t have the 56cm in to compare. I am going to be ordering this bike online.. I felt like on the 58cm I was stretching a bit, but without the 56cm to compare with its hard to make a sound judgment.

After comparing the geometries of my current bike and the surly, it looks like the 56cm LHT would be a better option.
But is it possible to try to simply match the numbers? The bikes are essentially two totally different beasts.

Obviously, finding a 56cm and riding it would be the best option, but if anyone can give me any tips, that would be great. Find the links to the geometries of the bikes below.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/4646/surlyti6.jpg
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8645/ridgr4.jpg

my Ridley is a size medium, I am ~6ft 1in tall

I am 6' with a 32 inseam (long torso) and the 56cm LHT fits me great.

The LHT's long head tube only required my cant cable brake stop to set the stem even with my saddle. I am also running a 110mm zero rise stem and have 3.5" of seat post showing.

Cheers Eric in AZ

I'm 6' 2" w/ a 32-33" inseam, and I ride the 60. 58 was definitely too small, and the 62 didn't feel all that bad.

Last time I checked they had the 56cm in stock in Bellingham. Might be worth a drive north for a test ride. I found they had it at KULSHAN CYCLES 360-733-6440.

I ended up ordering a different bike but they had one a few days ago. Seemed like good guys over the phone.

Best, Kyakdiver

Which LBS are you looking at in Seattle? Free Range Cycles and Recycled Cycles both stock them, so make sure you've checked both places.

I bought my LHT from Free Range Cycles and was very happy with them. Fortunately for me, they had both the sizes I was debating between in stock, so I was able to test ride them back to back to decide. They even swapped out stems on both bikes several times until we found a stem length for each bike that was comfortable. Either frame size could have worked for me, so I ultimately decided to go with the smaller frame with a medium length stem instead of the larger frame with a very short stem.

I'm 5'11", 31" inseam. I ride a 56 cm road bike with the bars set about 1 inch below the saddle. I am currently commuting on an old MTB that's too large for me, but I have made it work by using a forward seat post and moving the saddle forward. The ill fitting (making it work) bike is getting old and I want to be able to do some solo touring as well, so I began looking at touring bikes.
After going over the same delema as you are now, I ordered the 56 cm LHT frame and it is being built up now. I hope to be able to ride it in a few days. The olny thing I asked the shop to do special, is leave the stear tube long enough to use two stems and a short spacer. The only catch I see, is that rasing the bars will effectly shorten the top tube length. This can be corrected with the longer stem. The problem I faced with a frame that is too big, is getting forward enough to put my knees in the proper relation to the crank and spindles. Then using a longish stem for the correct reach. BTW, the bars on this bike are even with the saddle.
I chose to go with the same size as my road bike because. When I started measuring, where my sit bones are on the saddle to where my hands rest on the bars, and bottom bracket to top of saddle on both bikes, I found they cockpit was set up almost identical, but shifted forward on the big bike. If your road bike is a good fit I would feel comfortable going with the same size. You could compare the geometries of your road bike and the LHT frame. You may find out there not that different, espically if you have a classic framed road bike.
If you'd asked this question in a few weeks I'm sure I could give an even better answer!