The thing is most of us have shopped for new touring bikes and the pickings are slim. The bike industry has pretty much abandoned touring, or perhaps it's the cyclists. I actually shopped for an older touring bike like a Miyata for a long while but never found a decent one in my size for a fair price, so I ended up ordering a Bob Jackson World Tour from England. The bike often touted on this forum, Surly LHT, has a geometry that is a very bad fit for me. The Soma Saga is a great fit for mr at a comparable price, but it wasn't being sold yet when I got my BJP.