I just talked to a LBS about a Gunnar, custom geometry with 105 stuff for $2.5K. Worth thinking about.

You may not need custom geometry. Think of the possible adjustments available with a standard size. You have many mm to fiddle with saddle height, stem length, stem height and angle, reach of the bars, crank arm length. The Gunnar site has a lot of fit info. I have a friend who, as a new rider, was convinced by the shop that he needed custom geometry. He ended up with a goofy stack of headset spacers, maybe 60+ mm! On a custom! Needless to say, his next bike was a standard size. The Jamis Quest has been mentioned, that is also a very nice bike, IMO.

What are you up to? You have been posting random irrelevant comments all over the forum. Enough!!

I keep circling back around to the Trek 720 , The 14 L fork bags, on a carbon fork. Clamp on front rack on a carbon fork sounds iffy, if not just plain bad. 34-32 low gear is a bit higher than I was thinking but still about 30 inches for paved use sounds okay particularly if I can keep my gear light. 25 L panniers on rear. tent and sleeping bag on top. heavy stuff and electronics in handlebar bag. The rim brake Domane is geared different but probably a better frame. But for cold weather there's no front fork space to carry extra stuff. That's my latest thoughts.
Thanks

Put soft things in those bags * Put a rear rack on it You can buy one at the same time from the Trek dealer
and they'l put it on for Free + knock of 10% for the Rack .

Though they seem perfect sized to collect 2 Growlers :beer:

Any preferences for fenders?

Not using fenders is lighter ;)

My preference is to skip them, but when I did use them I thought the Planet Bike Freddy Hardcore were nice. I found them wide enough for 32mm tires, but some folks prefer wider ones like maybe the Planet Bike Cascadias. I used to think I wanted fenders, but when I stopped using them I didn't miss them. I still have a set of the Hardcores on my heavy touring bike, but haven't ridden it in years.