mtn.cyclist

"Touring" is a verb....something you DO. You can DO it on any bike you want. If you tour, the bike you're riding is a touring bike. I have "toured" on my Litespeed Solano, Specialized AWOL, and Litespeed Obed.

Happy Feet

I agree that one can tour on just about anything and I do find the discussion of various modes to be interesting in an educational sense, but there are a couple of problems with having no parameters on what we mean by touring bike.

The first is only related to the forum in a sense that discussion devolves pretty quickly on any subject. A. asks about panniers for touring, B. suggests ortliebs, C. suggests a Carradice and D. suggests buying a custom made road bike.

The more curious problem is that of specialization vs generalization. Someone alluded to the C3 in question as being pretty limited in scope as far as touring goes. That's true. It makes a good CC or very light tourer. So if someone invests heavily in that bike (cost being part of the OP's discussion point) they have a good bike but one that can only do a small spectrum of touring well.

Perhaps they want to go off road a bit and try the gravel grinding scene. The C3 is no good so they need to buy a second off road/adventure bike. Again, high quality/custom for some.

If they want to do a more loaded, self supported tour they once more need to buy a different bike. According to some it will also have to be a custom etc... That's three expensive bikes.

Or they can buy one general purpose mid range touring style bike that will take them on all three types of tours by simply swapping out a few components like tires etc...

saddlesores

no. because words have meaning when spoken in sentences.

otherwise:

"hammering" is a verb...something you do. you can DO it with
any tool, and if your tool happens to be a carrot, then your
carrot is a hammer. and then you get some crazy dude on
a carpenter's forum saying you need an expensive imported
chinese radish if you want to hammer properly.

otherwise:

you can tour on a hasbro big-wheel, therefore.....

Doug64

I've toured through 11 European and North American countries on 32 mm tires. One tour had over 400 miles of unsurfaced roads and trails, and over 500 miles of cobbles and sett stone roads and trails. 32 mm tires worked just fine. We were fully loaded.

I believe Nun has the history to prove that using a light weight carbon bike for self supported touring in most situations is possible.

Where are you encountering these horrendous riding conditions?

jefnvk

Out of curiosity, did you find 32mm tires acceptable in Iceland (oops, I see you edited that bit out)? I've been there in a car, I can't imagine anything but fatter MTB tires would be acceptable on many of even the main roads there. Ring Road (Highway 1) on the far side of the island was nothing but lane and a half soft dirt shared with heavy trucks.

There were a few trails in Belgium I would have preferred a bit wider tire than 1-1/4 (~32mm), but I could have avoided them by knowing what the colors for paved and dirt were on the map, and in any case we still sufficed...

Doug64

I've also been there, but did not ride. However, Nun did some serious riding there. That was the point I was going to make.

nun

I used 35mm Duremes in Iceland. 32mm would have been fine for the Ring Road even on the unpaved bits in the East but if you plan to go into the interior a lot then wider tires would make things more comfortable.

nun

I have room in my bar bag for a couple of bottles, but if I need to fit a six pack I take out my food bag and strap it underneath the flap of my saddlebag....the longflap extension on my Carradice Camper give loads of spare capacity. The six pack then fits into the Ortlieb.

jefnvk

Good to know, I want to go back some day, and flights are just so cheap from Toronto!

Just out of curiosity, when were you there? It has been nine years since I was there, and in a wet spring condition, just curious if maybe the roads have gotten better than my pictures remember. We were in a little Toyota (Yaris, I think), and there was one area of the ring road on the east side as you headed up the mountains and inland that I didn't think we were going to end up making it through, a combination of uphill and mud and ice were brutal.

nun

Yes.

nun

I didn't ride that bit over the mountain to Egilstaddir, I took the bus and it was dry and dusty on that day. I think 32 mm would have been ok, but maybe there would have been some pushing required if it was snowing.

mstateglfr 

Thats some seriously heavy modification to turn the bike into what you currently have. And I agree that what you have turned it into is going to be much better for ultralight minimalist touring and supported touring when compared to the stock C3 you linked.

I do have an actual genuine question(vs the typical heavy vs light bashing). Do you notice the higher weight placement due to bikepacking gear? I am sure you have more than gotten used to the weight being higher, but do you ever find it to be an inconvenience? I dont mean do you ever think its so bad that you want to change, but do you want it to be lower, if it could be lower?

mstateglfr 

So any bike that I can ride singletrack on is a mountain bike?

str

more expensive means for me: build your custom-frame-and-fork dream bike, i don't need any returns. fun comes from the fact that my bike exists only one time.

str

yes, but 35 or better 37mm offer far more comfort.

str

a bike with Rohloff behaves like a lame donkey, "glued" to earth.

str

you can use the bike perfectly with a saddle bag, handle var bag and frame bag, enough spacer for long touring.

str

what makes you think he has no experience, you know him?

nun

I can't really compare it to the lower weight distribution of panniers as I haven't ridden with those for so long. The bike does feel slightly different when I put the bags on, but not much as their combined weight is 21lbs and the saddlebag might be quite high, but it is right under my butt and so close to the center of gravity so there's not much moment. After 5 mins I don't notice the bags and can ride out of the saddle and in a similar way to without them. That makes the riding more fun for me.

str

what? credit card touring is not real touring. real touring is 4 full panniers! each pannier 10kg, even if it is only for a week around town hall. thats real men touring. 😂

Squeezebox

The big boys at Paris-Roubais are putting much more stress on their bicycles than you or I could ever dream about on a traditional touring bicycle. They are putting disc brakes on carbon bicycles, a lot of stress in a small area. Why not rack mounts? Should not be much different. Sounds like the technology is there , just not the market. They do elastomerics on carbon. I'll guess that touring geometry would not be difficult. Just not cost effective at this point in time.
Same with components like Di2.

Squeezebox

If you look there are many people that have multiple bicycles. So what's wrong with having several special bicycles that do that 1 purpose very well each, instead of 1 bicycle that is adequate at best. If I had the money I'ld have a C3 and an Americano.

ColonelSanders

Just as long as there are at least 32 spokes per wheel.

Squeezebox

I really hope you're joking. If not check with your doc about your meds.

jefnvk

I must have missed the classification where they raced with loaded racks and panniers and didn't have a chase car with a team of mechanics and a pile spare bikes following them, not caring at all about the longevity of their bikes so long as they lasted the day or the chase car was close...

In any case, I've heard some interesting theories that PR would be run faster if the riders were on steel bikes.

Because I've found that it is just hard to have more than five or six bikes in a two bedroom apartment (unless I wanted to remove my home bar and brewery, which I don't), and I could still find uses for more bikes that aren't taken care of by those!