Originally Posted by
cyccommute
The Sirrus (plain one), the Sport and Elite Disc have metal forks...with eyelets for front rack. The Elite (nondisc) has a carbon fork with aluminum steerer. Not a good choice for touring.
The frame would be a good platform to build into a touring bike. As others have pointed out, the upper levels have carbon forks which aren't that good for touring. Other issues are the flat bars, the low end parts on any of the bikes that would be useful as a touring bike, the 32 hole wheels and, in my opinion, the integrated headset. The high end bikes have better components but they also have more carbon parts which make them either less useful or absolutely useless as a vehicle for carrying a touring load.
On the upside, they are cheap so you can afford upgrades.
+1 Plus the geometry is useful in multiple roles. You can sport tour on it, commute, and I'd go as far as road race on it when fitted out with drops.
Knowing that I'd be radically upgrading I'd go with either the base model, Sport, Or Elite Disc depending on what my initial budget is. I have no use for carbon so that rules out the upper end models with the alloy and carbon forks.
Which ever of these models you go with, the first thing I'd get rid of are the wheels. My '07 came with Joytech hubs and they used dust sealing as sophisticated as a rubber test tube stopper. Perceptibly draggy when spun off the bike. I'm not sure about current production, but my '07 uses 130mm rear hub. I had set of wheels made up on Ultegra hubs and Mavic CXP33 hoops whech have worked great for commuting.