ho hum

I bought a second bike (a Jamis Coda Comp) to build a dirt road, road, trekking, touring kind of bike. I have several old bikes and am really interested (and poor enough to be cheap) that I am willing to pirate parts off of all of them to build up the one bike that will meet my needs. I want to do overnight trips. I live in the SW desert of New Mexico with elevation changes that are significant on the roads I can ride. Fairly rough rocky dirt roads when dry, gooey caliche in rain. I have a rack and panniers.

Here are my choices:

1. Drop bars, moustache bars and flat bars.
2. STI, bar end, and XT shifters.
3. Dura Ace 2 ring crankset (not octalink) , XT Deore Crankset, Suguino Crankset (triple).
4. Direct Pull cantilever brakes
5. Dura Ace short cage derallieur, XT derallieur
6. 14-32 XT cassette, Dura Ace 12-23, probablly a whole bevy of choices in my parts box for custom combinations.
7. Avocet Cross 700X35, Specialized Armadillos 700X28, IRC E-Cross 700X38
8. Threadless headset stems of various lenghts and angles.
9. Look 256 Pedals, SPDs, Wellgos flat pedals with SPD on one side, straps
10. Cranks available 53,50,48,44,39,36 and a bunch of smaller ones.
11. Biopace or round?
12. Saddle I've already picked.
13. Fenders or not? I've got a pair.

I'd rather spend the money on the tools to fix all of this stuff myself. I go out in the garage and look at all the bikes, wheels, frames, boxes of stuff and could easily put together a couple of servicable old bikes. I saw a Park tool set for less than 200 dollars and think I'd enjoy the tinkering around.

NoReg

There aren't that many tools that are required. Back when I started this stuff, the only specialty tools were Campy at huge cost, and over here nobody had metric sockets or wrenches to augment, and a lotof the bolts that are now allen where soemthing less easy to work on. Currently there are many sources of cheap bike tools, and metric is as comon as imperial. About all you really need are frewheel tools, or whatever they call them today, a cone wrench, and a BB tool. Almost all the rest is standard stuff. So by all means throw it together yourself. Sounds like you have some pretty specific needs that you would be best at sorting out. Since you are using retread parts, worst that can happen is that you will have to switch something out.

Blackberry

You pretty much can't go wrong with any of your choices, but I would suggest for loaded touring a low gear of 20 inches or less.

And since you asked, here are my completely biased opinions:

1. Either mustache or drop bars. They give you more hand positions.
2. Bar end. Less complex. Fewer parts to screw up.
3. I've got the Sugino and like it (No knock against others)
4. Whatever works and is in your price range.
5. Dunno.
6. Avoid knee surgery. Low gears are good gears.
7. Dunno about the others. I've had good luck with Armadillos.
8. A tall stem makes for a happy back and neck for long-distance touring.
9. I've toured on everything from $6 plastic pedals to high-end SPDs. I'm ok with all of 'em.
10. See no. 6 comment.
11. Either (I've still got Biopace on an old Mt. Bike. Seems ok but nothing special).
13. Fenders are worthwhile in the rain. If you've got 'em I say use 'em.

Sebach

Awesome thread, I'm paying close attention to this because I'm faced with a lot of these decisions as well on my tourer for next summer. Because I will be spending weeks on my bike, I really don't want to make any huge mistakes. I keep going back and forth, I'm not sure what to choose so these response are helping me a lot too.