Touring - What's In A Frame?

looking for opinions/comments from y'all who have built
up (or planning to) their touring bikes. how important do
you think the frame is overall? assuming we start with
a decent quality frame, correctly sized, with the requisite
braze-ons, of cromo that 'ol speedy at bubba's garage
can repair if necessary. ( murray or huffy not considered.)

i built up my first touring bike with a mercian frame, adding
all my favorite components: xt deraillers, sugina at triple,
campy downtube shifters, phil/rhyno wheelset. i've got
about 50k miles on the bike now, still running fine.
sure i got the fancy vincitore scrolled lugs, custom paint,
internal cables, etc. not sure it was really worth the $800
to have the frame built by elves in the english countryside.

recently completed an mtb-touring bike based on a NOS
schwinn frame (complete bike sold for around $450) i got
on ebay for $10, plus a NOS touring fork, $7 on ebay.
added xt deraillers, xt 5-arm crank (24-36-46), xt cantilevers,
dia-compe xcm levers, suntour 7spd thumb shifters, brahma
bar. bolt-on phil/rhyno lite wheelset, 13-30 FW (phil wood
now has bolt-on bob trailer adapters), blackburn racks,
fenders, etc.

since the hubs and rims were also NOS - bought at half
price, total cost of this completed bike is about the same
as the cost of just the wheelset on the first bike, around
$500. done some 'short' loaded rides, comfort and
performance are great, will be leaving early april to
tour through new mexico and arizona, maybe across
death valley in june.

basically what i'm getting at, is that we don't have to
limit our choices to the few mass-produced touring
bikes and custom frames.

Yes your bike is worth having the elves in an English country side build it!

But the frame is very important IF you going to be doing heavy touring-not credit card touring. Most tourers carry about 65 to 80 pounds of stuff plus their body weight. This weight is not as static as one may think but when you hit a bump all that weight goes up then come down and the downward force is greater than just the 65 or 80 pounds of weight your carrying. It's that downward force that will make or break a frame (even racks) over a period of time. The question is how long before something breaks? There is no way to tell, it may never happen or it could happen the next time you ride. On cheaper frames that risk increases, your Mercian is not a cheap frame and that's one of the reasons it's held up so well, the Schwinn is the bike that comes into question. You mentioned a trailer so I assume you use a trailer instead of panniers, trailers do increase rolling resistence and stopping times vs using panniers, but it would take the load off the frame.

Personally if I was doing multi state touring I would get use a better and a steel frame. Trek makes an excellent (for the price) touring bike called the 520 and it only cost about $1,200 and I saw a 2003 model for $900; you can't get anything much better than this until you get up to the $2,500+ range in a custom touring bike like Thorn eXp or Beckmans Sakkit Expedition 26

I basically agree with you. Use a good, solid frame, sturdy racks, sensible components and wheels, and you'll be fine. I currently use a lightly modified ten year-old mountain bike as my touring and commuting bike-- all stock components except for the street tires and the rigid fork. Before that, I used a sport-touring frame that I bought for $300 in 1979 and which wasn't anything special. Both worked fine and I really like the mountain bike set-up I use now for my solo, self-guided trips.

65 - 80 pounds of stuff? That sounds ridiculous to me. On my most recent trip, I carried about 30 pounds of gear on my 30 pound bike, including water and tools. I can't imagine why I'd need to carry another 30 - 55 pounds.

So I have to ask: What in the world are you carrying?

So I have to ask: What in the world are you carrying?

i carry lotsa stuff, prolly too much. but then on a long tour - 6 to 12 months - i want to
do more than just pedal. i'll have a set of hiking boots and a buttpack with h2o bottles,
small shortwave radio for news and weather.

i like a little comfort while camping, so i get a 2-person, 3-season tent. nice to be able to
stretch out, especially when you take a day off due to heavy rains.

so:
tent/bag/ridge rest 10 pounds
cookset/utensils/fuel 5 pounds
food for 3-5 days 5 pounds
clothing 5 pounds (more if you need cold weather gear: vest/polypro/fleece)
tools/spare parts 5 pounds (a hundred miles from nearest town, i don't wanna walk)
water!! 5-40 pounds (250 miles across the desert. it's 105 degrees. thirsty?)

lots of misc stuff that adds up: camera, couple rolls film, toiletry kit, flashlight, spare btys,
rainsuit, sandals, first aid kit, spare tire for the trailer?, water filter, maps, maybe a couple
paperbacks, rope to hang your food in bear country, bike cable/lock, sunscreen.
(i'll draw the line at cell phones and laptops and 200mm zoom lenses.)

trailer is not always necessary, of course, but it lets me do away with rear panniers. lightens
the load on the rear, and makes carrying 2l soda bottles of h2o so much easier. still use the
front bags to carry cooking stuff, soap, food. anything with odors that can be hung in a
tree.

I don't know, Saddle. Maybe my scale's off. I carry most of what you listed there, if not all, and I'm still know where near 60 pounds of gear. The miscellaneous stuff in my bag doesn't add up to 30 pounds, as you sa6 yours does. I will grant you that when doing a long trip like you suggested, or traveling under exceptional conditions such as desert or cold, you'll have to carry extra gear which can add significant weight. Anyway, enjoy your trips. It'd be neat to cross paths some time.

There's a lot to be learned from the ultralight backpacking folks. You can make simple tents from silicon impregnated nylon and save about half the normal tent weight. Make an alcohol burning stove from a couple soda cans and you can fit your entire cooking set - including fuel - in a 1 qt. aluminum grease pot with a total weight of about 1 lb. If you're touring in warm weather, get a summer weight 45 deg F down sleeping bag and save more than half the bag weight and much packing volume.

Just a few ideas that seem to work for me.