Touring - Beginner good bike

hi, i have allways wanted to tour and am finally able to purchase a bike. I am lucky enough to afford a half decent bike and am thinking of buying the giant ocr tour 2005. Its about 1700 canadian. Can anyone tell me if this is a good purchase for serious touring ...im 200lbs, and will be packing appropriate amounts for long distances. thanx

Hi

Is the 'tour' different from the normal 'road' bike? If no, it makes a good training road bike but would be of little use for touring as the rims may not be up for it but more important it has no fixings for a front/rear rack therefore you would not be able to carry panniers.

Have you considered a Hybrid bike, they tend to be more comfortable, stronger and better value for money. I hope this might be helpful.

Will

A much better touring bike is the Urbanite

http://ucycle.com/bikes/item.php?name=urbtour&cat=urbanite

You can use either road or mtn rear hubs as it has 132.5 mm rear spacing. :)

And remember STEEL IS REAL,

Aluminium is for making beer cans :p

hi, i have allways wanted to tour and am finally able to purchase a bike. I am lucky enough to afford a half decent bike and am thinking of buying the giant ocr tour 2005. Its about 1700 canadian. Can anyone tell me if this is a good purchase for serious touring ...im 200lbs, and will be packing appropriate amounts for long distances. thanx

The OCR looks okay for touring with a couple of minor problems. The disc brakes can interfer with the rack mounting which is important for touring. Disc brakes are "sexy" but not really necessary. A good cantilever brake is suitable even here in mountainous Colorado. (I even use them on tandems without braking problems.)

I would measure the rear chainstays. Anything less than 45 cm on a medium frame (56 cm) is too short for touring. The bike will be very squirrelly under load which is never a good thing. The front end geometry looks to be a bit too steep also. A more relaxed head angle will be more stable.

Finally, considering that most touring bikes last forever, I not convinced that the integrated headset on the Giant's will last a long time. There are some problems with the headset that are design related and can't be fixed if the headset wears out. The Chris King (http://www.chrisking.com/tech/int_headsets_explained/int_hds_explain_1.html) website has an indepth article on the problems with integrated headsets.

The Urbanite bike quoted by another poster looks good. I have a Cannondale T800 that is a great touring bike. The Fuji World Tour and the Trek 520 are worth a look too.

Stuart Black
"Aluminum: most abundant metal on the surface of the planet. Why not make bikes out of it."

hi,
if you live in Vancouver, B.C. try La Bicicletta on Broadway. They carry Vitali and Marinoni Touring bikes. They are a bit more expensive but worth the money. Very knowlegable staff. ckeck it out.

good luck

tradewind

You might waht to check out the Bruce Gordon Cycles BLT (Basic Loaded Touring)
http:www.bgcycles.com

Bruce Gordon
Bruce Gordon Cycles

Sorry, can't help you out with that. Don't know too much about Giant bikes I'm still waiting for a reply regarding the Redline touring bike I would like to purchase.

I looked at the Giant OCR Tour, the Cannondale T800, Fuji's Touring bike and Trek's 520. I rode all but the OCR Tour, but the stress a disk brake buts on spokes turned me off. I am 195 and have concerns about breaking spokes with my weight and the 30-35.bs of gear I will carry front and back. No need to make the problem worse.

As for steel vs aluminum, go with what you like. "Steel is real" is so overdone and annoying. For big guys a good aluminum frame makes a good deal of sense, much less flexy then steel. I bought a T800 and it felt much better to me than the Trek 520. Plus, the out of the box gearing for 2005 rocks! Component spec for a bike that will see a lot of hard times is nice too.

I looked at the Giant OCR Tour, the Cannondale T800, Fuji's Touring bike and Trek's 520. I rode all but the OCR Tour, but the stress a disk brake buts on spokes turned me off. I am 195 and have concerns about breaking spokes with my weight and the 30-35.bs of gear I will carry front and back. No need to make the problem worse.

As for steel vs aluminum, go with what you like. "Steel is real" is so overdone and annoying. For big guys a good aluminum frame makes a good deal of sense, much less flexy then steel. I bought a T800 and it felt much better to me than the Trek 520. Plus, the out of the box gearing for 2005 rocks! Component spec for a bike that will see a lot of hard times is nice too.

I don't think that spoke breakage due to braking stresses from disc brakes is that large of a concern. I'd be more concerned by dishing problems on the rear wheel caused by the disc and with mounting racks to a disc brake equiped bike. The dishing of both sides of a wheel, one for the freehub and the other for the disc could lead to a more highly stessed wheel that would have spokes more prone to breaking on both sides of the wheel.

As for steel vs aluminum, I have both. The steel bike (an old touring bike) is slightly more comfortable for in town, unloaded riding. The T800 I ride is a bit harsher but when it's loaded is much more stable then the steel one. That's why I bought it. The old one would develop a very nasty shimmy on fast downhills with a load and, living out here, it's kind of hard to avoid fast downhills! Even when riding to work!

Stuart Black