Touring - Rack suggestions and the Conversion is almost done (Pics)

I have a mountainbike and I have a road bike, but I wanted a third bike somewhere inbetween. Since I plan on riding the length of the Katy Trail this year, I decided to find an old hybrid and give it the old LHT treatment of sorts.
It started as this:

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o61/mudman93/Picture.jpg

and turned into this:

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o61/mudman93/Picture017.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o61/mudman93/Picture018.jpg
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o61/mudman93/Picture019.jpg

On One midge bars, Ultegra 8spd bar end shifter, Cane Creek Brake levers, Shimano FC-M730 Crank 48/38/28, Un 54 BB, Deore DX FD, Deore XT rd, Deore XT Cantilever Brakes, Wheelset is 32 hole Xt hubs laced to Salsa Delgado Rims (36 would have been perferable but I got such a great deal)

The only things now left original to the bike are the stem, headset, and frame. All I need now is a 26.2 seatpost (anybody have one cheap?) and to decide on a saddle and front and rear racks. Any suggestions?

Looks nice, Mudu. You can`t reuse the old seatpost?

Saddle...Brooks Flyer. Racks...Jannd Expedtion are my favorite.

Aaron:)

The original seatpost was a pig and had plastic parts on it. I donated it to the local bike coop along with some other parts I had lying around. So a new seatpost it must be. At least this Sunday is the annual bike swap meet in St. Louis so I might find something there.

Racks...Jandd Expedition are my favorite.

Aaron:)

You beat me to it. :)

Tubus Racks are expensive but built like a tank. Call Wayne at The Touring Store (http://thetouringstore.com/) and he'll hook you up with a set.

AE Bike has a pretty good selection of seat posts. This Kalloy is a good,solid and fairly cheap unit.

http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30&action=details&sku=ST1562
Good looking bike!
(edit) +1 on the Brooks Flyer!

Tubus Racks are expensive but built like a tank. Call Wayne at The Touring Store (http://thetouringstore.com/) and he'll hook you up with a set.

I agree, unless you should want a front platform. I had a set of Tubuses from Wayne which I loved, but replaced the front with a Jandd for the platform. It's heavier. I'm undecided about which I like better. Is the platform worth the extra weight? I don't know.

For a saddle the default choice seems to be a Brooks B-17. I bought a Brooks Champion Flyer to see what all the fuss was about. I like it a lot. It's not perfect, but I haven't found anything better (and I have a collection of saddles that were worse.)

Oh, yes, the B-17 is awesome. I only have a few hundred miles on mine, and it's already plenty comfy.

If you do go Tubus racks.... This is probably blasphemy on this forum, but instead of getting them from the TheTouringStore. You can get them for a lot less at wiggle.co.uk. and then add some coupon codes to it as well (google for them) and you can it even cheaper. I got my panniers and racks from there and all together spent $190 dollars less than I would have at the TouringStore.
As I said this is pretty much blasphemy because there is a huge following of this Wayne guy, because "he is honest and will answer any of your questions" but I have also got this advice from this forum and no one is to say that the guys at wiggle are dishonest and give bad advice.

Boker you are going to burn in hell. Just kidding. I only say that because Wayne lives in the same town I did and my friends who have had experiences with him say he is the shnip shnap snitty bang bang. Sure your dudes are cool too

Not to hijack the thread, but I just checked out wiggle.co.uk and ended up buying a Shimano Deore XT M-771 (48/36/26) crankset for $140 US and free shipping. That crank isn't even available in the US and when I found one on ebay in AU it was twice as much. Thanks for the tip.

the katy tail, I did this fall of 07, it was really great, but I DID appreciate rolling on pavement at the end of the 225 or so miles. They had worked parts of it, and there were some soft stretches, but it was great...

brooks b17 - they make a narrow version of this. on my road bike I ride the 143 version of the toupe. I tried the regular brooks saddle on that tour, and now use a borrks B17 narrow.