Originally Posted by
cyber.snow
I thought I was down to two choices...the seemingly king of touring bikes, the Surly Disc Trucker and the much cheaper REI special Safari. So I went out and rode both bikes. The safari felt good but I was really turned off by the fact that the lines to the rear brakes and shifter ran down the top of the center bar and visions of jumping off and getting pinched in the wrong placed danced through my head. I asked the REI rep if there was some kind of protector for that and he didn't know of any solutions....
If you really were that concerned about the cables, you could run full length housing under the top tube instead. But, the cables are normally under tension and it would ve very difficult to accidently get anything including fingers stuck under the cables. On one of my bikes, every cable uses full length housing to keep dirt and mud out of the cables.
I agree with veganbikes that a stem is easily changed.