Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling - soma saga as a LD bike?

I've seen some feedback on this bike from the touring forum, but was wondering what people thought of it as a long distance bike. I usually ride long distances with a larger saddlebag, but not "loaded". It seems like it would fit the longer distances (300km plus) better than a typical race oriented road bike. Your thoughts?

It all depends on how you are fitted on the bike. The geometry isn't going to affect your comfort if you are fitted correctly. If you are carrying a load I'd say go for the touring bike. If not, it doesn't matter what bike you are on as long as you are fitted properly on the bike. There are a lot of things that affect comfort like wheels, tires, seats etc but geometry isn't one of them. All geometry does is change the handling characteristics. ie steering faster/slower and stability over uneven terrain. One thing you do have to worry about with race geometry bikes is that bike shops often cut off the fork stem which can limit the height that can adjust the handlebars. If you need higher bars to be comfy on a long ride you might be in trouble. When I buy my bikes I have them leave it uncut so I can raise and lower the handlebars depending on the ride/race I'm doing.

I use a Soma Double Cross as my LD bike. 5000 miles this year, my longest ride was a 200K this year.

The Double Cross has been great. I would guess that the Saga would weight about 1 to 2 lbs more than the Double Cross. It should be more stable and will double as a touring bike with robust capacity.

Michael

I've seen some feedback on this bike from the touring forum, but was wondering what people thought of it as a long distance bike. I usually ride long distances with a larger saddlebag, but not "loaded". It seems like it would fit the longer distances (300km plus) better than a typical race oriented road bike. Your thoughts?

It looks like a really great bike for loaded touring. But that doesn't sound like what you're going to use it for. The latest Bicycle Quarterly has a review of the Surly LHT, which is a touring bike that seems fairly comparable with the Soma. Based on BQ's review, I wouldn't go out and buy myself an LHT as a brevet bike, but I sure might buy it if I was going to be doing some loaded touring.

If what you want is a brevet bike, i.e. a "sports/touring" type bike, able to handle a certain amount of luggage in addition to the rider (e.g. in a saddlebag or handlebar bag or even in a front or rear rack), and with a geometry suited to brevets, then I would think that the Soma Stanyan or Soma Smoothie ES would be better choices in the Soma line.