Originally Posted by
Darth Lefty
You want to do loaded touring, that is a touring bike. It gets a MTB/hybrid triple system. Pretty easy to see that the two biggest shifting brands DGAF about supporting that combination with anything really new or premium, especially not with drop bars. Shimano still makes some really nice, really low double and triple systems - for flat bar controls. If you want to use them with drop bars, you will need to find help from a smaller brand. Which means Gevenalle or that Tanpan thing or Microshift barcons.
SHIMANO DEORE-XT T8000 Series | SHIMANO BIKE COMPONENT
I have on my gravel bike a group based on T8000 with Gevenalle shifters and a clutched Microshift 10 speed derailleur, so 48-36-26 in the front and 11-32 in the back. It used to be on my touring bike. It would fit a 11-36 but you pay for that with bigger jumps at the tall end of the cassette, which isn't so pleasant when cruising on roads.
The gearing range you get is marginally wider than the typical GRX setup, and the whole system is heavier and more kludgy to operate, and the shifters can do their own thing when going really fast on bumpy ground.
I won't ditch the system, because it works and I wanted to use all the parts I had laying around instead of sinking cash into it like my road bike, but if I was building a gravel bike from scratch, I'd probably go with GRX.