Unfortunately, I had a mishap with my beloved Bianchi Volpe, which left it with a messed-up fork and a small dent in the down tube. It's currently at a LBS, which is checking into appropriate replacement forks. They're kind of lukewarm on the dent in the downtube. It may be fine or maybe not. My first instinct is to replace the fork and ride it, if I become convinced that the down tube isn't a danger. If that doesn't prove to be possible, I will have to look at buying another frameset and transfer over whatever components I can. In this thread, I'm really trying to find out about my options if that doesn't work out.

I've been doing a little searching and I'm not coming up with very many affordable true touring framesets (I'm defining that as less than $500). So far I've got the Surly LHT, Soma Saga, and Nashbar aluminum touring frame. The Nashbar would have to be paired with a different fork, because the steel fork the matches the frame is backordered until June (or I could wait until June before doing this).

I would also consider a frame that isn't necessarily marketed as a touring frame, but that works well for touring. However, I did just buy a steel cross bike (Motobecane Fantom CXX) and don't really want to duplicate that. Therefore, I leaning toward a true touring frame, but I'm open to suggestions.

The Volpe has 700C wheels, cantilever brakes, and drop bars that I will want to transfer. I envision using this mainly on the road.