Mtroup

It will really make your tour more fun if you can get that load down a bit. Not even necessarily talking a full-on ultralight-bikepacking setup, but some different gear choices could make a large difference. I carry a few unnecessary "luxury" items myself, but 60 lbs is petty hefty. Maybe do a weeklong tour with that setup, and see what items never get used. Then look at some of your heavier gear (tent, sleeping bag, etc) and see if you can shave a few pounds there. Every little bit helps.

boomhauer

No doubt about it...
Maybe if they stay in the confines of Arizona and the like, water is a real weight hog.
None the less, on my three or four excursions to the desert water wasn't a super serious concern....but it only takes once, I guess....

djb

with respect, suncruiser, thinking of taking 140 lbs of load on a bike trip is not really reasonable.
You may think it is ok on paper, but in reality it will be a whole mess of trouble.

I'd urge you to get out on some test trips with whatever bike you have and see how X lbs is, and go from there.
good luck with trying out touring.

Trevtassie

The term fork is sometimes also used to describe the part of a bicycle that holds the rear wheel, which on 19th Century ordinary or penny-farthing bicycles was also a bladed fork. On most modern bicycle designs the rear wheel is now attached to a rear triangle made up of multiple triangulated tubes, rather than an actual fork, but the rear fork usage persists

Just sayin'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_fork

alan s 

I'll think about that as I take a "wet showers" after a ride.

suncruiser

Thank you. I feel like I'm going to pare the weight down, 60lb of gear was the maximum weight I was willing to hold on the bike, and I figure if I anticipate the stress/struggle of the heavier load, the lighter it gets means happiness to me. The trailer is likely going to start off fairly light and gain weight as the trip progresses, so by the time it gets too heavy hopefully I'm on the last leg of my tour

Rob_E

I've commuted on my ETs a few times. I don't find them bad on pavement, but they definitely buzz, and I don't know how well the tread would hold over long road miles, but I'd be tempted to try them. The downsides to me are: they are too wide to fit in a standard bus rack and, according to the Amtrak bike specs, too wide to fit in an Amtrak bike rack. Also, when paired with wide rims, they don't fit in my S&S case for air travel. I'm considering a 2nd S&S case, so that I can split one bike into two cases and take my fat tires. So in any trip where mass transit might be called upon, the ETs can be a liability. Until recently my more frequently used wheelset was a pair of Big Ben 2.15"s. They are great for road and lite off-road. I wouldn't count on them to take you through any soft or wet stuff, as they don't have much grip, but they do fine on hard pack. I recently replaced them with an Almotion set because they were tubeless ready. Haven't decided yet if that's an improvement. Tubeless is nice. The Almotion might have marginally more grip, but maybe not. And the Almotion feel stiffer to me, in spite of being tubeless and running at a lower pressure.

I just did 400+ miles on the Almotions, with probably 2/3s of it being rail-trail and towpath trail. I would have taken the ETs in a heartbeat if not for the Amtrak issue and the S&S issue. The Almotions handled the trail fine, and I'm sure the Big Bens would have as well. But there were some wet days where the trail seemed to want to latch on to the tire. Even at 2.15" I feel like the tires were sinking in a bit, and I bet the ETs would have rolled over that without noticing. On the other hand, maybe the extra tread would have just grabbed more mud from the trail and thrown it on the underside of my bike. At any rate, I have plans to ride the GAP again, and this time without the need for Amtrak, and this time I will likely take my ETs.

I think, apart from the mass transit issue, I'd take ETs on any trip that was at least a third off pavement, and take a less grippy tire for anything with more pavement.

DropBarFan

I think one can buy sufficiently strong wheels in various diameters; I'd focus on finding a bike that can handle wider tires w/fenders yet still have front/rear rack mounts. Marrakesh & 520 are nice but a bit limited on tire width.