Touring - touring on a non touring bike

Hello all,

Last summer i purchased a schwinn circuit for $100, which i think was a steal of a deal. I rode the seattle to portland on it and have done several other day long trips over 100 miles. I am considering doing a seattle to LA this June. Besides the fact that it doesnt really have the proper mounts for the racks i am going to need, is this feasable, or am i dreaming. What is the real difference in a touring bike?
Thanks

With a non tourer, you might want to consider pulling a trailer like the BOB. It'll probably be a lot gentler on your frame.

George

I tour on a 8 year old steel hardtail mountain bike. The bike is more of a racing bike, long TT, 8spd XT equipment, pretty light for it's time. The bike actually had lower rear eyelets but in either case, you can generally retrofit most bikes road or mountain for racks even without eyelets. My old Man Mountain racks (www.oldmanmountain.com). My rear mounts to my lower eyelets and the brake bosses on the seat stays and my front rack mounts to the brake bosses and a QR system.

If you had a mountain bike with only disc brake mounts, then you can get a P-clamp through a hardware store and mount it via that.

A true touring bike is going to have rack and generally fender mounts, allow for wide tires and hub spacing (for stronger wheels), geared more towards lower gears than higher, many of them have friction shifting (barcons) and the geometry would allow longer chainstays for pedal clearnence and less of a racing position, a little more upright. This is just a few differences, there are alot of nice touring bike mfgrs out there that are all different...

But that doesn't mean anything. If you're comfortable on long trips with your current bike, sounds like you are, there's no reason not to fit it to go on longer trips.

Jay

You can adapt racers for light touring, carrying minimal kit, and staying at hostesl etc, but if you want to camp, then a Bob is probably the best way.
With small amount of luggage, you should look at the larger Carradice saddlebags. You can also get small front pannier systems which dont need rack mounts.