I'm in the market for a new bike. My dream: a "do it all" bike leaning toward road commuting and touring. Upright-ish position, can haul tons of ****. Lightweight "enough" but burly "enough". Price must be reasonable but not extravagant.
My previous bikes:
Crosscheck - toured a lot, lightweight, but ultimately broke apart and somebody offered me a good deal, so i bought a
LHT - toured a lot, still have it. loved a lot of it, it can handle weight with such minimal vibrations, Original stock drop bars (ritchey?). Problem is i like more upright riding, especially with commuting (needing to see cars) and especially as I get older and back hurts more, and no disc brakes, so i bought a
Troll (notice a pattern? maybe i buy too many surlys
) - this is my current daily baby, with jones h-bar and ergo grips. i'd ridden trails with bikepacking bags, toured with panniers (and burly cart) and use it daily. its pretty awesome.. mostly. problems? its a bit too jeep-ish, clunky, and heavy. I like the riding position of it (in between breezer upright and long haul). something is a bit off in its weight distribution, too... riding hands off, if there's evena little weight on the rack, i get front wheel shimmy. I did not get this from the LHT or the Crosscheck, even with weird weight distribution on the back.
So those are my thoughts, gals and guys. Is there one bike out there that, while not perfect (nothing is) can bring me closer to me "do it all" mentality? Is there a easy solution like get super wide dropbars for the LHT that will make me love it again? Should I sell both the Troll and LHT and get two new bikes that would satisfy some other kind of need? Any thoughts would be super helpful (I fee like @
mdilthey will have something to say), even if critical!