Originally Posted by Netcelt
The 105 crank is wonderful on the 520 if you never carry anything. However, put some loaded pannieries on the bike or tow a trailer and that 52 ring becomes dead weight. Switching to a mountain bike crank such as LX or XT will save your knees. There's really no need to have a 52X11 gear combination on a touring bike. If you look at the custom builders, they all use mountain bike cranks.
I guess you would never be going that fast under a full load, huh? I'm looking at it for day tours (64-100 moles) where I just carry a trunk on my rack. I was thinking that have such a wide range of gears as the Trek 520 offers would be really nice since sometimes I wish I could go faster on the flats to keep up. Maybe it's just overkill... I just like having the flexibility...
If you have the larger triple, what do you cruise in? 14-52? 11-42?
Which triple should you use? The 28/38/48?