Originally Posted by
Spoonrobot
For light touring under <20 pounds full load I would never consider a production touring bike. They're overbuilt for that purpose and would ride poorly for an average riders weight with that size load. I'd much prefer an endurance road bike, regular road bike with rack mounts or even a QR mounted front rack. I finished an overnight last week on an endurance road bike (soma fog cutter) with an 11.5 pound load mounted on a front QR rack, it was a very enjoyable ride and much better than when I had a touring bike and tried similar.
I'm light for my height so my Trucker frame is heavier than necessary but even w/o luggage the Trucker has a fairly comfy ride, 50mm tires help of course. I enjoy my new Haanjo EXP Carbon gravel bike mainly since it's so much lighter but ride comfort is about the same. The EXP OTOH handles
much better on descents, BTW the the current Haanjo 5C EXP is only $320 more than the Trek 520.