Originally Posted by
dualresponse
LOL! I was feeling that way today. I took my steel Schwinn up into the mountains to see how it did moderately loaded. In the winter, the heavy bags are quite nice, keeping my speeds low and my face from freezing.
Since this thread is about "Fully Loaded carbon frames"-
My only thought I had while riding some of the unmaintained gravel roads, was- "Gee, a 1200-1500 gram carbon frame would be taking a real beating right now." - but when compared to 30+ year old well used steel frame, who knows what would snap first!
Also- the long wheelbase of the older bike was nice on the descents. So stable, even with an incorrect fork rake, I could do it loaded with no hands. (don't tell anyone though)
Gratuitous pic of the schwinn up on skyline today. I should have taken some pics of the fireroad getting there. I do like the idea of the carbon gravel bike/ lightly loaded carbon gravel bike/ perhaps with frame packs/ etc as mentioned. I need to approach wife carefully regarding this matter
:
There are lots of mountain and gravel bikes that I'm sure would do just fine on those descents with rackless setups. But you might be voiding the warranty doing it with 4 x panniers and 50lbs of gear. When I got back into touring in my 40s I did what I had done as a teenager and used a saddlebag and a couple of racks to strap things like tents and sleeping bags onto. Then I realised that with the new ultralight camping equipment I could get rid of the racks and tour fully loaded with just a saddlebag and a handlebar bag. Without the need for racks that freed me up to go from a steel sport tourer to pretty much any bike and I went to a carbon endurance bike because of the relaxed geometry and as this was before carbon gravel bikes were widely available and I didn't like the high bottom brackets of the cross bikes available. I had to changed the gearing to a mountain bike rear set up and replace the 50t ring of the 50/34 chainrings with a 46t to give me a nice all day cruising gear range and a 25" low climbing gear. It's nice that I can get almost the same gearing stock on the Diverge now.
Also here's my gratuitous steel picture from today. It's very trendy as I have a 1x setup...but the rear is a 6 speed free wheel so really it's very retro. My trip was far more urban that yours and there was very little climbing, but it was also pretty cold.
