Originally Posted by Happy Feet

I'm sorry... you need to change the bell? Did I hear that right? I also didn't know the LHT came with pannier bags, lights or computers.

Or did you mean you need to buy those things to add to the LHT. Which of course you do. I suppose some might want a completely kitted bike off the shelf but then just as many would complain it was kitted with stuff they didn't want.

I consider most of those things to be accessories, in the sense I can take them off one bike and add them to the next. If we accept off the shelf being the bones of the bike ie. add accessories and go, then there are many bikes, new and used, that fall into that category. A trek 520, Specialized awol, some Salsa's and Surly's and others all provide a good base platform that requires little retrofitting. Most early era rigid mtb's also require minimal retro fitting beyond bars perhaps and road tires.

A bike where someone takes one set of perfectly good shifters off and replaces them with another, or swaps out one set of functional stock rims for another set of hand made rims doesn't really fall into that category. That is really just a personal preference sort of thing. OTOH, I had to replace the 7 speed freewheel on one older mtb with a lower geared freewheel because I couldn't climb hills with the former, so that would be a case of a necessary retrofit - the gearing was just too high for loaded touring. I would say swapping out flat bars for either drops or trekking bars, or at least bar ends or perhaps aeros, is another example of a needed retro fit. Other than those examples it's a pretty rare event.

My philosophy is "good enough is good enough". The purpose of a touring bike is to allow someone to tour with it. Most bikes allow that. People who get more into the specs of the bike than the touring have, so to speak, put the cart before the horse though I admit it can be a fun hobby - but not something that is either necessary or deserving complaint about.