I don't do touring, so I've always wondered, how often do you make use of the extra spokes that you would have in the holders?

I mounted a Tubus Fly to my LeMond last year for some geared brevets. Used small panniers and had room for more. I would have cleared my heels without any problems, but to give me a bit more room I made some small aluminum extensions that pushed the rack further back. Took an hour using some hardware store parts.

Tubus Racks are wonderful. I've looked at several and settled on the Fly for my needs.

Personally I'd go XC - I had a dedicated tourer (a Trek 520) that I recently sold as I never really got into it. The CC gives you lots of options for rigging the bike, gears or no, racks, fenders, wide tires. I love mine. Currently running it FG, and I have thought about lite touring on it with my Carradice saddlebag and a handlebar bag.

Extra spokes - get a cork, tuck them and other stuff you may never use into your seat post before putting it into the frame. (assuming there's enough room for them)

It is missing the lowriders up front - but this can be overcome with Old Man Mountain or Tubus racks.

You are generally carrying a lot of extra weight that also happens to be centered around your wheels. It's a lot more common to break spokes under these conditions.

That said, not have a purpose built place on the frame to store spokes is a minor issue. A nice touch on a touring specific frame, but if you don't have it you just stuff them in your panniers or tape them to your frame.

ahh gotcha. for a while I thought it was some sort of show-offy thing, like "I tour so much I need lots of extra spokes"

wait, you're touring fixed?

There is a perfect place for storing spokes on almost every bicycle made since the 1880s. Inside your seat tube, along with as many zipties as you can jam in there.

If you start breaking spokes, it is likely that you are going to need more than two in a cute little holder.

*edit* - late to the party again, bmike was on it already.

I also vote for the crosscheck. Load it up for the long haul, rear rack and fenders for the city, strip it down for centuries, fix or singlespeed it, ride it on fireroads and XC trails.

The LHT is optimized for touring, but the crosscheck is a swiss army bike.

If you are lightweight touring or touring between hostels, don't bother with rear specific panniers. Just get 4x front panniers.

Is $900 out the door for a LHT a good price? I met a shop owner guy who said he could hook me up. Seems pretty damn good to me...

If you like the smaller wheels of the LHT but want something with horizontal dropouts, the Kogswell P/R looks kind of close...

smaller wheels?

Sub 52 cm (I think) frames have 26" wheels and the rest have 700c.

Another difference between the LHT and the CC is the geometry, although not having ridden either I can't really comment.

The top tube on the CC is longer comparetively.

The kogswell pr looks like an awesome bike, but you'd better pack a few 650c tires, good luck finding those on the road.

the seat stays on my sister's lht (which is a 26" wheel frame) are really, really long. I'm not sure about angles and stuff though.

kogswell p/r has 650b tyres not 650c tyres.

there is a difference.

Weird, I thought all sizes of the Trucker had 26" wheels. A friend with a LHT told me that it was for use in 3rd world countries where it's tough to find 700c tires except for racing tires that won't do much good when your bike is loaded...but I guess he's just short and trying to play it off.

straight from the horse's mouth:
http://www.surlybikes.com/longhaul.html

"42-54cm accommodate 26" wheels
56-62cm accommodate 700c wheels"

Oops I meant 650b
Still, same deal.