Originally Posted by rekmeyata

When you say low trail do you mean long or short trail, or do you mean bottom bracket drop?

Just because Rivendell has a long trail doesn't make it a better bike than a Trek 910. In fact for touring purposes less trail is idea for more stability at lower speeds.

Bottom bracket drop simply means how low the center of gravity will a bike have, thus a lower bottom bracket will have better handling and better stability which in my opinion would be more idea for touring as long as you won't be riding over any obstacles but if you're doing that you need more of a mountain bike design because your touring offroad. However as the BB drops you decrease how fast you can turn without hitting the pedals so for a racing bike you want a higher BB, and a track bike has a real high BB compared to other bikes so the pedals don't hit the floor of a high banked velodrome. BB drop is often excluded from most frame dimensions, but it's easy to measure simply draw a line horizontally level to you get above the BB than measure from that line to the center of the BB.

Chainstay length is another good indication as to how comfortable a bike will be on a long tour, thus most touring bikes have longer stays which is why the wheelbase on a touring bike is about 6 inches longer than a racing bike. Trail is also easy to measure, simply measure from the center of the rear dropout to the center of the front dropout; whereas chainstay length is measured from the center of the R dropout to the center of the BB.

Lastly is the stem height, on touring bikes the idea is to get the stem height as such a height that the handle bars are even with the seat (though depending on personal preferences some owners may put theirs lower or higher than stock.

Stem length isn't real important for touring but suffice to say that the average person regardless if on a touring bike or a road bike usually while their hands are on the drops that the hands will obscure the front hub, any changes to that is strictly personal.

The better touring bikes will have a long trail, which is due to the longer chainstays (which affects long term comfort that touring demands), low bb, with the bars about even with the seat.

So with all of that in mind the Trek 910 would be better than the Rivendell for touring purposes, but this is all subjective, Grant seems to think that high trail is better but I think he's thinking for the person who may go mildly off road and may want a tad more ground clearance for the pedals but from a standpoint of comfort while doing loaded touring the vintage touring bikes hit the head on the nail with perfection which is why bikes like the Trek 920 and the Schwinn Voyager are considered the holy grail of touring bikes.