I recently built up a touring bike using the Nashbar frameset. I love it!

The fork is aluminum (not CrMo as the per the catalog description). I'm using the Nashbar Trekking crankset, 48-38-28, with a junior racing cassette, 14 to 25 9-speed, and 27" wheels with 1 1/4" Gatorskins. (The terrain is really flat around here!) There's plenty of room for fenders and even larger tires if you wish. The "7 o'clock" rear brake cable location makes it difficult to run cantilever brakes, however. The cable run from the rear housing stop on the top tube to any sort of add-on housing stop is pretty tortuous so I opted for V-brakes, which has worked out pretty well. I'm using drop bars with bar-cons and road levers with Travel Agents to get adequate cable pull (and adjustability to boot).

A word to the wise - don't even try a trial fit of the bottom bracket without using Never-Seize on the threads!

I have about 1,000 miles on this bike so far with zero problems. It's my primary bike for both utility and recreation riding.

Cheers,
Bob P.