Originally Posted by
Squeezebox
So I want to do some light - UL touring. I've been looking around and keep coming back to the Trek 720. I think I like the 14 L fork bags. A 7L handlebar bag. I'ld probably put on a rear rack and 20L panniers on that, colder weather probably 30L. bags. I would go to 34-46 chainrings from the 36-50 it comes with. I would consider the FSA MTB crankset with 27-39 that Wouldn't cost much more. Nashbar. So what do you think of this setup as a fast and light tourer? What do you ride for fast and light? Opinions appreciated.
Please & Thank you.
Not sure how much stuff you are carrying, but that is a lot of capacity, more suitable for fairly heavy touring IMO.
Just for a comparison, all my stuff for a backpacking trip fits easily in a 45 liter pack even when I need to carry a bear canister and 5 days of food. Since I never need to carry the bear canister or that big load of food on a bike tour I find I need much less. Without the need for a bear canister and all that bulky food on tours I can get by on a fraction of that capacity.
Some of that depends on how bulky your gear is and how you pack. My gear all packs pretty small and I tend to compress everything to it's minimum size, so YMMV. I suggest getting all of your gear together and seeing how it packs in stuff sacks or duffels to get a better idea of how much capacity you need. Then decide what bags, racks, and so on you need. I think it makes sense to do all that before thinking about what bike to use.
So my recommended best practice:
1. Work up the gear list.
2. Figure out what racks/bags that requires.
3. Choose the bike based on all that.
Obviously if you are planning to use stuff you already have for items 2 and 3 it may prevent using this approach, but even then keep in mind the way the dependencies go.