SpikedLemon

I see your point that it's quite a wide and gray spectrum.

I did quite a bit of touring on my CBR929: Comfort was there (for me) but capacity was limited. No way I'd haul a tent (or tent trailer) but 12+h/day in the saddle was no problem.

The gearing on that Touring model is almost the same as my Synapse. Which I use to tow the kids around, ride weekends and occasionally commute to work. I'll admit that I've wished it had one more gear lower and one more gear higher: it does it's task.

JamesRL

Thirty years ago, when I was young and strong, I bought an interesting department store bike. It had all the eyelets for rack and fenders and a long cage Shimano Golden Arrow derailleur, but a standard 52/39 crank and 27 inch wheels with Wolber Super Champion 1" rims. Not an ideal touring set up.

But despite that I did a one week ride on it, Rear rack with panniers for clothes and street shoes. Light tent and sleeping back on top of the rack. Front handlebar bag with camera, map, snacks. I ate simply, grocery stores, fruit stands, and once a day a full restaurant meal, usually end of the day.

True I didn't climb the Rockies, but I did climb a mountain and some big hills. Did a double metric century on a loaded bike on the hottest day of the trip (had to stop for 40 minutes).

So this bike would have been more than adequate for that trip. True it might not be the ride across the Rockies bike but pretty good for many people.

side_FX

I also wonder where the 920 disc fits in? Is it also a tourer? Would it be fun to ride it on the road without any gear weighing it down? Is the 8.6 DS a better all-a rounder option? These are the things that keep me awake some nights

WalksOn2Wheels

The 920 is basically an offroad pack mule adventure bike. If I had one, I'd probably leave the racks off. I can't imagine that the rack system would be better than a bag-based bikepacking system for that bike. I guess maybe I'd leave the front rack... I would definitely take one over an 8.6 DS. Mostly because I don't like the forks they put on the hybrids and think it's just inviting trouble down the road.

Feldman

Cannondale's touring frames have a good rep for handling loads well--and handling us Clydes' weight well, too.
As for the gearing, bike companies get kind of chicken**** about spec'ing appropriate touring gearing; too many consumers are irrationally focused on the appearance of a 50+ tooth outer chainring and brake/shift levers; too many dealers aren't either smart enough or brave enough to try to educate them, and too many product development people have too much racing in their background. Bike companies need 40+ year old product planners who have either lived carless and/or ridden across the USA a few times. That being said, Cannondale has done some brave, interesting touring bike spec in the past. They were the first company to spec Magura hydraulic rim brakes, for instance.

DMC707

Awesome ! -- I am about to order 2 of these --- i have been tinker-bell'ing around with an 11-34 on my road bike and trying not to cross chain for a while now

cyccommute 

+1 I have a 2003 T800 that I've done about 10,000 miles of loaded touring on



It was, and is, a great touring bike. Of the production touring bikes it ranks as #1 on my list...slightly above the Surly LHT for a loaded touring bike.

The T800 frame was replaced by a T1 frame this year.



The only reason I replaced it was that I had the frame and I wanted a bike of a different color. The T800 is currently resting in my garage attic awaiting the day when I put it back into use.

Both bikes, by the way, handle marvelously under a touring load. Rock steady and super smooth. Without a load they are a bit stiff, however. This might be part of the problem with "parking lot" test rides. The aluminum stiffness comes in handy while climbing as well. I had an old Miyata 610 that I've done many tours on. I never could stand to climb on that bike. It was way too noodly. But I can stand and climb easily on the Cannondales without the bike wandering all over the road.

One of the reasons that people don't tour on aluminum is that they are under the mistaken impression that a steel bike "can be fixed anywhere by the village smithy". While this may have been true up until about 1970, the thin steels used on even "heavy" touring bikes like the LHT aren't easy to weld unless you have very good welding skills. I've had a repair done to a 1984 mountain bike which used thicker steel than the LHT and the very experienced master machinist and welder who did the work was shocked at how thin the steel was. He said it would be extremely easy to burn through the steel.

Don't blame the bike companies too much. Part of the problem is due to Shimano deciding to mess up the shift ratios on their mountain bike line. Where bike companies and bicycle tourists used to use mountain bike components on touring bikes...fitting since mountain bike components were adapted from touring bike components in the early 80s...they can't do that any more. There's this thought that "compact doubles are just as good as triples" which is completely wrong headed when it comes to gearing. Where a triple has a continuous range with good steps between the gears, compact doubles are, basically, two separate drivetrains that happen to be fitted onto the same bike. A compact double is okay for close ratios that you find on racing bikes but they are really bad for wide range gearing systems like touring bikes need.

randallr

My experience touring with 20 kg on a Klein Adept has been superb. The thing is a total truck for touring, rock solid, not the least trace of shimmy even if you wobble the handlebars back and forth at spead. So I second what's been said about stiff aluminum frames for touring. My low gear is 24 in the front, 28 in the back. I used that gear a lot in Langedoc and Provence.

Buffalo Buff

Depends on what your load and route are. Ultralight 12lb load through the mountains, or a more typical 50-80lb setup on flat terrain, it'd be fine. Fully loaded, 80-100lbs, through the mountains? No thanks.

cyccommute 

Personally, I wouldn't use a that range for a bike with no load in mountains. In the eastern US mountains, it would be too high for most of the steep climbs they have and in the western mountains, it's too high for our altitude.

As to load even in the old days of 7 lb tents and 5 lb sleeping bags, 80 lb for a fully loaded touring bike is on the high end for a loaded bike. Most people try to keep their loads to less than 50 lbs.

chasm54

Who the hell tours with 80lbs of gear?

Buffalo Buff

Every bike tourist I've seen on the road while I'm touring has been hauling over 70lbs, some over 100lbs.

I used my Ridley Fenix with stock 10sp 105 gearing for a tour through the mountains of NC, VA, WV etc., on my way up to Ohio. Did fine, but I only had about 15-18lbs of gear that trip.

chasm54

In that case you've had your eyes closed most of the time. I've toured for over thirty years. I'm certainly no ultralight tourist, and I have never gone much above 40lbs even for a 8-week tour. Of those I encounter on the road I occasionally see people with huge amounts of gear but over 70lbs would be highly exceptional - and a bit dumb.

cyccommute 

The only tourists I've ever met who were carrying 80lbs of gear were a couple on a tandem. That's actually not bad considering that it's the gear needed for two people.

Buffalo Buff estimates of touring loads is certainly over the top. Even for tandem tourists.

indyfabz

Did they tell you this or did you estimate based on looks?

BTW...A few years ago ACA weighed the bikes of people who stopped into their Missoula headquarters. The vast majority of people had nowhere near that much weight.

Buffalo Buff

I haven't been touring for more than a few years so my sample size is small, but thats what I've seen. A couple of guys doing the trans amaerica trail with four panniers, handlebar bags and more carrying over 70lbs each. Saw a guy in Florida with four panniers and a fully loaded trailer, hauling over 100. Doesn't make sense to me but they looked like they were having fun.

I talked with them. I don't know some of you are assuming otherwise?

cyccommute 

That's drawing a conclusion from very limited evidence. I suppose that if you've only met 2 or 3 tourists and they were carrying more than 70 lb each, then your statement "Every bike tourist I've seen on the road while I'm touring has been hauling over 70lbs, some over 100lbs" has some merit. But based on many years of discussion on the Bike Forums and lots of touring experience, loads of over about 50 lb of luggage are on the high end of "normal" and 70 lb is way out on the edges of the distribution, just as 10 to 12 lbs are on the extreme low end of the distribution.

I hosted a Japanese tourist in 1988 and he was dragging around about 90 lbs of weight but that was bicycle and luggage combined. Japanese bicycle tourists of that era used canvas bags, canvas tents, steel stakes and a hammer to drive the stakes. This guy was even carrying a box of cassette tapes for his Walkman. His bike was steel which puts his luggage load at around 60 lbs.

But even in 1988, I would have called his load extremely heavy. I wasn't touring at that time with the lightweight equipment that is available today but my touring luggage load was still less than 50 lb. Since then I've gone to a 1.2 lb tent, a 3 lb sleeping bag and a far lighter stove and cookset.

Finally, when you talk about "seeing" bicycle tourists on the road, that means something different in my mind than actually talking to them. If you had said you had met them it would be less ambiguous.

Squeezebox

I want to spend some time looking at the specs of the Cannondale Ultimate, Trek 720, and an endurance/Paris Roubais type. The Ultimate looks like a lot of space between rear tire and seat tube, the Trek less room. And the endurane stuff pretty much a racing bicycle. Might get back to you about that. The Ultimate is obviously for light touring. Looks very good for that. I wouldn't try to put 80 lbs on it and expect to live. Looks like it should handle small panniers on rear with minimum gear wt. The Ultimate is not an expidition bicycle. So don't think that any bicycle that's not set up to do Tierra del Fuego is some how not a touring bicycle. People do credit card touring on carbon fiber racing bicycles with just a seat post bag. And that is touring. And the full load heavy packers are touring also. Personally I don't think you need a 2nd set of rain gear just in case. In the Ozarks in July I might not take rain gear or a sleeping bag. And the heavy folks probably think if I go out without a spare rear derailer I'll crash and die. So there's a lot of different ways to tour, and a lot of different bicycles to do it on .
So please let's stop throwing monkey poo at each other.

cyccommute 

Yes, the Cannondale Ultimate has longer chainstays than the Trek 720. The Trek's chainstays are 42.6cm while the Cannondale's are 45.7cm. For comparison, a Surly LHT has 46.0cm chainstays. For the 56cm Cannondale, its wheelbase is 106cm while the Trek's is 102cm. The LHT has a 105cm wheelbase.

The Cannondale uses the same dimensions as the Cannondale touring bikes they made up to 2011.

I don't see how you draw that conclusion. First, I wouldn't put 80 lbs on any touring bike but if I did put that much on the Cannondale, I wouldn't expect it to fall apart. But Cannondale touring bikes have a history of being every bit as capable as a steel bike when it comes to touring. Everything about its geometry speaks to doing the same kind of touring people expect the Surly to do. It's got a long wheelbase with long chainstays and can handle far more than "small panniers on the rear with minimum gear weight". It would certainly do a better job with a rear load then the Trek 720 would.

Even comparing the Trek 720 to the Cannondale would be difficult in terms of ride. The 720 is more modern mountain bike than "touring bike". The short stays (16.8") tuck the rear wheel up under the rider which makes for better climbing in loose conditions but the bike isn't going to be a stable under a heavy load as the more traditional touring bikes like the Cannondale and LHT. If anything, the Trek 720 is more a niche bike for off-road bike packing than for loaded road touring.

That said, the Cannondale touring bike I have handles dirt roads and trails pretty well. I toured around Lake Erie this spring and about half of my trip was on gravel roads and tow paths, including the C&O Canal which is more like many forestry roads here in Colorado then a maintained bikeway.

lubers

[QUOTE=cyccommute;18399644]+1 I have a 2003 T800 that I've done about 10,000 miles of loaded touring on



It was, and is, a great touring bike. Of the production touring bikes it ranks as #1 on my list...slightly above the Surly LHT for a loaded touring bike.

The T800 frame was replaced by a T1 frame this year.



Had the same 2003 Cannondale T800 fantastic rider, also had the 1986 ST400 frame that I had built up for touring, sold both a little over a year ago due to knee surgery that hasn't gone too well. With that said I just ordered a Fuji Tourer from my local dealer who gave me a killer price to get back into riding.

Animal157

The more i study this bike, the more I think C-Dale missed the mark on their market position. If they had not used the word "touring" then folks wouldn't be talking so much about how it "misses the mark". What makes this bike unique, and what interests me the most, is the geometry. The only other bike I've found with this stack/reach ratio is the Vaya. I'm looking at the "Ultimate" (so as not to use the inappropriate 't-word') and would strip off the fenders, swap out those concrete tires for some tubeless 35c g-ones...maybe some shorter chain rings that are more in line with my riding. My guess is it would weigh in around 23lbs. Could do the same with the steel Vaya for 600 bucks less, but it wouldn't be Ultegra hydro and it probably wouldn't be sub-25 lbs. All I know is I can't find many drop bar disc brake options out there that will accept 40c tires (even if I only want to run 35s), has a stack/reach >1.55, and will accept a front rack.

dr_lha

I have a bike that fits those specs, takes up to 700x45c, has front and rear rack points and has a stack/reach (at least in my 58cm frame) of 1.56. It's a Black Mountain Cycles Monster Cross.

Black Mountain Cycles: Black Mountain Cycles Frames

Black Mountain Cycles: Cross Frame Info

Animal157

Alas, it does not appear they carry the stack/reach that high as you venture down towards my sizes (50-54). Fantastic looking bikes though! Pictures of yours? The Black Cherry looks amazing...

Of course if I just accept a 120deg x 130mm stem and as many risers as I can muster, the field opens way up!

dr_lha

Take a look at this thread:

https://www.bikeforums.net/clydesdale...r-cross-2.html