Best wishes for you & your wife. Surly LHT/DT do seem to have long top-tubes which fit me (longer arms) but not ideal for some folks.

We will be here when you have more questions.

I am curious why you didn't like having exposed cable. I always figured it to be a plus as compared to full length housings. I don't think the differences are very great but there is less friction, less weight, and a cleaner look IMO.

I don't find the differences to be enough that I'd bother to change it either way, but I tend to think the exposed cable has a slight edge over full length housings.

Ive only ever seen full length housing for brake systems, so the shift cables, if not electronic, are going to have cable stops somewhere. I've also had bikes with cable stops installed on the top of the top tube, it was a Klein road bike and it did have problems with sweat corrosion at the stops, it ended up a warranty issue with Klein. I've seen this as well on an old Cannondale, but not on my other bikes.

Internal cable routing can be a PITA depending on the design. That same Klein Quantum I owned with the corrosion had internal routing of the shift cables. Before yanking the old cables, I would have to cut lengths of old brake housing to pull into the frame as a guide for the new cables. It took me a few before figuring out this method and I never saw any useful reason. My Miyata tourer has internal routing for the rear brake cable, inside the top tube. It uses rubber gaskets with holes for the housing, so uses full length housing. If the gasket breaks or deteriorates, I'm SOL unless I find or design a clever solution.

All the bikes I had (either w/ cantilever or v-brakes) had cable stops either directly centered on the top tube or under. Then I got a SS 29er, which was disc-ready but never installed those.

The 29er came with v-brakes and had clips holding the housing. Not like clips wrapping around the top tube. The frame had a few points where the clips snapped in.

So, the TREK had a cable stop positioned to the left of the top tube. Maybe if it was directly centered on top (or under), then I would of left it.

Plus those NOS Dia Compe clamps look nice. :)

Steve B. I think you might be right...instead of worrying about what bike to ride, I will start extending the rides on my felt. It has a rack on the back rated at 18KG and the engineer at Felt told me that back would easily take that and a little more. So for credit card touring, not sure what all I will need but other than clean clothes and toiletries and some water bottles, I won't need a lot. The V85 only has one water bottle, do they make a rack that I can add to the bike? Might be nice to take along two bottles. Especially if there are not a lot of towns or stops along the ride.

Tour on your Felt....
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...0502mitour.jpg

Look at some of the water accessory options used by Triathletes. Profile makes a dual bottle holder that mounted on the back of the seat as well as other systems. There's a bunch of stuff out there, including brackets that allow you to add a bottle holder to a down or seat tube.

When I am going a distance where I'll use up 2 bottles and am unsure of water availability, I'll use my 100 oz. Camelbak. keeps the liquids cooler, longer has been my experience.

This is always an option:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9PYmPy3Qp-.../two+cages.jpg

Unless you're the type to mount a bunch of gizmos up front. :D

I thought about going with the above along with the 2 in the triangle. I got shallow drop bars and can get smaller/shorter bottles. But I'm gonna add a front bag/decaleur that'll sit on a front rack.

Might get a bit crowded, unless I mount them inside the drops. Hmmm...

Another option would be to start hunting for the perfect used frame and other parts to build up over time.

Say you're housebound for the next year, or few years... there may be some benefits of escaping into the garage.

Rack on back would work great for credit card touring. There are a few rack top packs that also have fold out side panniers for a little bit more volume. Don't forget the rain gear.

Long ago I put handlebar dual bottle cage on a racing bike & the bottles sometimes bounced out, maybe current cages/bottles work better. Profile seatpost bottle cage works pretty well & is helpful even w/touring bike that includes 3 bottle mount spots. (1 for coffee, 1 for sports drink etc.)

Thanks for the advice, I will make sure that I pack up the rain gear also. I used to do a lot of diving along the N Cal and S OR coast and you reminded me of all the days that it was sunny in the valley but rainy on the coast. Thanks.

CliffordK, you have a great idea. I have a Titus Motolite that was built up in the 2009 time frame in my garage and I have put it on Craig's list. Maybe I need to buy that Surly Disc Trucker frame and take apart the Titus. I was hoping to get enough out of the Titus to pay for most of a touring bike but even dropping the price is not generating any calls....hate to give the bike away as it cost me over $4K back then. Of course, I could always turn it into a full suspension, (locked out) titanium framed touring bike...LOL.

Most of Canada there is extremely low odds that you would have any problem with two legged animals - your main problem may be having to tell too many people you don't need help when stopped for a breather.

Four legged animal problems are also very rare - there is always enough space that you and the animals can give eachother a wide berth. The only four legged beasts that regularly cause problems are moose on the highways - cars are upon them too fast for moose or driver to react and most cars make is part way under the moose before it crashes into the passenger compartment. Not an issue at bicycling speeds.

I am reminded of a video I saw of some d-bag snowmobiling somewhere in the northersn US - he came upon a moose in the middle of the trail, and instead of keeping his distance and waiting for a safe chance to pass, he aggressively revved his machine at the moose to try to scare it off... the moose felt threatened and charged the snowmobiler, who, after the moose made his point and was walking away, pulled out his pistol and emptied the clip into the moose before leaving it to bleed out on the trail. My point is that any gun you would want to carry on a bike is likely to not effectively dissuade the animals who are likely to be a problem - moose, grizzly bears, polar bears(should you be up north). We Canadians usually enjoy the outdoors while unarmed and there really isn't a problem.

Six legged creatures, however, are a problem whenever you stop in rural Canada - Mosquitoes, deer flies, black flies, horse flies, noseeums(sp?) are aggressive and very hard to fend off with a firearm.

You can find idiots in any country in the world, just some areas seem to have a denser population.

Somewhere I heard that the Canadian Mosquitoes are so large that they have been known to carry off small children. LOL

Thanks for the tips.....