Originally Posted by
Niles H.
In other words, even lighter bikes can be plenty strong for (reasonably gentle) ultralight (UL) and sub-ultralight (SUL) touring.
The question here is, How light can one go? What are the (safe) limits, while still maintaining sufficient performance and reliability?
I don't know, but cost would become pretty prohibitive to my frugal mind. A 17 pound road bike is already too expensive to suit me.
That said I think carbon fiber would be a fine material to make touring bikes of whatever weight from. I personally would love to have a lighter bike, but not at any cost. The thing is that:
- The demand would be pretty low for the lighter weight CF touring bikes given that there are not that many folks touring really light.
- The demand would probably be pretty low for heavier duty CF touring bikes because the heavy touring market tends to be a pretty traditional market (and small).
- The low demand for both would mean low production and high cost.