Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
You have backpacked, so you have light weight camping gear and you know how to camp with it.
Some people on this forum carry less on their bike than a typical backpacker would carry. And some people carry a lot more.
The bike you want is one that can carry your gear, and you, and be comfortable for long days in the saddle, and can climb steep hills, and is extremely reliable. So, think about how much gear you want to carry. That will tell you what you need for a bike.
All that said, generally for touring you want lower gears than stock on most bikes. So, that is another factor to consider, sometimes increasing gear range on a bike is costly enough that a different bike might make sense. I did not research the bikes you cited, I have no idea what their gearing is like. Maybe they are good enough?
I know I did not answer your question, but I gave you a few other questions to ponder instead. A lot of people went out and bought what they thought would be the perfect bike, only to learn that it was deficient in one way or another. Think about the big picture, how much gear, how steep are the hills?
My light touring bike has 37mm wide tires and fenders. My medium touring bike is used with 40 to 50mm wide tires, and fenders. My heavy duty touring bike uses 57mm wide tires. My lowest gear on two of these three bikes is roughly 20 gear inches. That said, there are people that will tour on 32mm tires, and if extremely light weight maybe 28mm.
How big was your pack for backpacking? Were you one of the minimalists with a 25 liter pack or did you carry something more like a 60 liter pack? These are the kinds of things to consider when trying to consider how much gear you are putting on a bike.
Backpacked with a 55L pack and 20-30lbs of weight. I've only ever backpacked with a group (or there was always a couple of packhorses when we went packtripping at which I carried very little) so I've never actually had to put all the gear soley on myself. Tire clearance is my other concern with the Domane. Trek says it can only take up to 35mm but I'd like to at least know that if I wanted to go wider, I could. Both the bikes I mentioned come with gravel gearing and I'd probably want a 2x just for the extra gears (such as my current set up on the Trek 6700).
Originally Posted by
phughes
The Domane has rear rack mounts, but has a carbon fork, so I would not mount a front rack. I have done most of my touring with only a rear rack though, so that should be no problem. The only problem I see is the gearing. I believe it comes with a 34T chainwheel as the smallest up front, and a 32T as the largest in the back. I would want better than that. I have a 24T up front, and a 36T in the back. It is definitely nice when fully loaded on big hills. That being said, there is no reason you cannot tour on the Domane.
I would definitely have to swap out the gearing on the Domane. Currently setup with 50/34 front and 11-32t back like you said. My 6700 at least has a 36/26 front and 11-42t cassette.
Thanks everybody so far for all the awesome points you all have raised. You've given me lots to think about!