Originally Posted by
ct-vt-trekker
Last year I built a couple of bikes my wife and I use for touring and gravel road riding using what HillRider suggests here. Shimano FC-5703 external bearing BB . I used 105 triple front der and for rear I used 9-SP Deore Mountain bike long cage M591. For cassettes I used Ultegra 6700 in 12-30. For loaded touring we will switch out the 30 T granny for a 26 T it's easy as this crank uses 74mm BCD. Be careful of some of the newer Shimano triples that no longer have 74mm BCD granny gears.
We also used the 5703 STI road brifters. Everything was bought new online. Cost for everything is very low, I think the brifters were only about $125/ pair on closeout from the UK.
The tight cassette is great.
Thanks guys. This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. It's from the 9-speed era, but it's what a lot of people have turned to because the big manufacturers have pretty much abandoned tourists for the time being.