Originally Posted by
atnyc
I’ve toured with a sport’s bike. My current “touring bike” is a standard “sport” bike. Frankly, the new “endurance” bikes are so much more relaxed than the earlier versions of “century/club ride bikes” of 10 years ago.
Precisely! Lots of factors. One of which would be that I’m not touring in the middle of nowhere. So I don’t have to carry the kitchen sink!
I’m not necessarily touring in the middle of nowhere but I have found over many years of touring that there are places where you
have to carry the kitchen sink. The midwest US has vast distances between towns and some of those “towns” only exist in name only.
Why? (Carry food and water for any substantial distance?)
We’re talking about ROAD touring. Not mountain bike touring of the Continental Divide trail!
There will be water and grocery stores near, if not at, the campground. Even if I have to carry 5 lbs of dinner and breakfast ingredient for 2 miles, I wouldn’t be going at mark 2 speed during that last part of the day.
Not necessarily. Those towns that exist in name only
used to have grocery stores but many of them have closed because a HelMart opened 60 miles down the road. If I don’t carry food, I won’t eat. Not every campground has a store.
Truth be told, I don’t like how the old “touring bike” rides when not carrying loads. Long chain-stays and lax front center, they tend to ride about as fun as riding a couch. Given this will be a bike that only goes “touring” a couple weekends or at most 1 week, it’s overkill to spec for loaded touring. Much better to just fit the load for what the bike could handle instead.
That’s not been my experience. The black touring bike in my post is my most used bike. It’s zippy enough. The white touring bike handles a load better than any other touring bike I’ve ever used. Even when I’ve stripped the load down as I did towards the end of my last tour, it handled well.
