As an Atlantis owner, I'd recommend you buy a Surly LHT.

Not that I regret tossing a huge bag of coin to Grantalf and his elves at Rivendell. We loves our precious. The bike excellently handles asphalt, gravel, and non-gnarly single-track. It's very nearly One Bike to Rule Them All, just as they promised. But, I don't like parking it outside the theater downtown during the midnight movie. And I only own it because I decided not to buy a car. Or a house. Save the money for candy bars; you're going to need a lot of them.

The Rivendell folks themselves can be rather precious. Rivendell wants to sell you the bike based on stand over height alone, but they sex up the approach by focusing on your "pubic bone." They even have a cut-away diagram of Cartoon Man displaying his pubic pone. Except Cartoon Man's pubic bone doesn't look anything like any pubic bone you've ever seen. The poor Man looks like he's sat down hard on someone else's ulna. It's more ***** than bone. But I digress.

The Atlantis is a great bike for touring, though I never figured out why the front fork doesn't have screwholes to mount the front rack. Rivendell had an entertaining but somewhat nonsensical explanation for this (lack of) feature that I've forgotten. It's too bad because Surly's very Nice front rack looks very adaptable.

But, the bike makes me happy every time I ride it. I wouldn't call exactly call it a Lexus (not quite that cushy) or a Mona Lisa (maybe Warhol's knockoffs). The bike is more like pretty pony with a gutsy disposition.


I have one other moderate priced suggestion, besides the LHT. How about a single speed steel mountain bike frame with a geared hub? Those frames are not that expensive. You wouldn't necessarily have to get a Thorn to make this idea work. The Rohloffs are too expensive, but I wonder if one of the other hubs might work. The extra weight of the hub could be weighed against some other advantages.

You can also get away with being very cheap, if you find the right used frame. Actually many "used" bikes were hardly used at all and the components may also have lots of wear.