Originally Posted by
kstephens
I have a pretty decent road bike already for group rides, organized centuries, and for regular solo rides. So my options now are get a dedicated tourer, commuter, grocery getter, and pull the kids trailer bike or upgrade the road bike (but I was really planning on getting another 8,000 - 10,000 more miles out of my current set up). Plus, having a size 13 foot (on a 60 cm. max frame), I am pretty much stuck with considering a dedicated touring frame if I want my heel to clear a rear pannier.
It doesn't sound like a dedicated tourer is necessarily your ideal match.
Take a look at the Surly Ogre and Salsa Fargo. They both have long CSs (the Orge has 46cm CSs when hub is positioned fully rearward) and are capable of numerous luggage and trailer attachments. Both are available as framesets if you decide to DIY. Surly and Salsa are QBP brands (the largest USA bicycle distributor), and the bikes are manufactured in the same factory in Taiwan, except for the Titanium Salsas, which are made in TN by Lynskey.
The Fargo has been sold for ~3 years now and has proven very popular. It's designed for drop bars.
The Ogre is new and 20 & 22" framesets are currently sold out, but more on the way. The Ogre is geometrically identical to the established Karate Monkey model, but the dropouts are changed to accommodate CS disc brake mounting, and the fork is "fancier". The Ogre is designed for flat bars.
Bikes intended for drop bars have shorter top tubes than bikes intended for flat bars, to provide for the 70-150mm additional reach of a drop handlebar. Flat bars typically shorten reach 20mm of more due to their sweep back. Trying to swap bar types doesn't work well reach-wise, since you end up either too short even with a really long stem, or too long even with a really short stem. So decide from the start whether you like drop bars or flat bars to make life easier.
http://surlybikes.com/bikes/ogre
http://salsacycles.com/bikes/fargo/
http://forums.mtbr.com/surly/ogre-bu...ad-756937.html
http://forums.mtbr.com/salsa/salsa-f...ad-467422.html