Originally Posted by
antokelly
ok lads hang on one second here explain this to me.take the op bike unloaded then take my thorn sherpa unloaded.which bike is going to feel the more lively on the road i reckon the litespeed is ,more efficient because it's a much lighter bike for starters and been a race bike the angles give it that more zip where as my wonderful sherpa is heavy not built for speed.
now load them up with the exact same weight ,which bike is a winner again i reckon the litespeed.
but i could be wrong has been known.
True dat.
With no load or just about any load, my earlier 26 lb. Soma build always felt quicker than my current 29 lb. Jamis with its 20mm longer stays and 25mm longer wheelbase.
However, I've also ridden both with the same wheelset and a 40-ish lb. load on the same rear rack. The Soma began to show its limitations by getting a bit wobbley in faster corners where the Jamis remains totally solid.
That's why I bought the Jamis and moved the better touring wheels, rack, and gearing over to the sturdier frame. I thought the Soma would handle loads like that better than it did.
Of course now I'm moving some of them back and preparing to sell the Jamis frame. I don't need more than 30-40 lbs. unless I'm camping and since nobody would give my what my old, bombproof, 1999 GT Backwoods was worth, I have since set it up for touring as well.
I don't need two touring bikes for one road and one mountain trip per year. The GT can handle both.
