Originally Posted by
cyber.snow
After reading this thread about 4 times, I am convinced that I shouldn't be spending a great deal of money on my first touring bike. After calling around, I can find places that sell TREK 520 Discs and Surly Disc Truckers, not found anyone that actually has a Soma Saga in stock or Jamis Aurora available to even look at. So I will just focus on the two that I can find. I ran the geometries and find that the bikes are almost identical..maybe some changes in the mm range, but no big differences (they could be substantial, but I am not smart enough to know how much some of these small differences make). Also I don't see a lot of difference in the drive trains, etc on the two bikes. The bikes were originally priced very close and that makes a lot of sense. But now there is a TREK sale in my area and I can get the 520 for about $1200 vs $1600 for the Surly. Is there something that I am missing? Will both bikes run a wide range of tires? 28mm-42mm?? I realize that the 54Cm Trek has 700C wheels and the 52CM Surly has 26" wheels. What I am trying to understand is if there is a difference between the two bikes that would be worth the additional cost of the Surly??? Sorry in advance for more noob questions and for going out of thread on this....
520 Disc seems like it has pretty decent components, Surly Disc Trucker's components seem roughly the same. Maybe Surly costs more mostly due to popularity? I still see some 520's on the bike path but seems like half of tourists are riding LHT's. I don't see any specific info re widest tire for 520 Disc but for prev 520's people say 38 mm about the widest tire, maybe 40. I'm using Ritchey Tom Slick 1.5" (38 mm) on Disc Trucker; pretty light but wide enough for semi-cushy ride. I'm not sure why folks would want a narrower tire for loaded touring unless route was pretty smooth. Disc Trucker takes up to ~50 mm tires. On bumpy roads those wide tires can be 3X more comfortable than 32/35 mm tires & some can be inflated to 70 lbs for smooth parts.
On the other hand it's a bit ironic that bikes with harsher rides usually only bother me on local rides. Bike paths can be bumpy but many touring areas have fairly smooth roads.