if the whole wheel broke with multiple spokes out I would walk, just like if my chain broke. lol I'm a runner so going 10-20 miles is no problem other options include riding sag, taking taxi or bus, call friend or family.

Oh I posted a picture of me on my specialized fsr entry level.

Sorry to burst your bubble but the marrakesh is the expedition bike in this category, not the 920. It has more MTBish geometry than the 920, which is almost a pure road bike geometry wise. The marrakesh has slacker angles , less bb drop and takes 2" tires. And it's a 29er as well, which is nice. So you're flat out wrong there.

Road wheels and touring wheels are two completely different beasts. Most touring bikes come with good wheels for the intended purpose, namely enough spokes and a rugged rim. They aren't excellent but are still very good usually. And to get an excellent touring wheelset you rarely need to go over $500. With road wheels you're looking for different attributes such as lightweight etc. So a 'nothing special' road wheelset is just heavy usually. But the 920 wheelset is just wrong for the intended purpose.

If we indeed play the what if game, wheel failures are difficult on tour. They are the thing I dread the most on tour. Wheels are no hard to fix per se, but they are difficult to fix well on tour. And if a spoke does go, it implicates that the whole wheel has been compromized and other spokes will follow. Spoke swaps usually require pretty specialized tools as well. If you try to limp to an lbs (on an expedition tour no less...............) you'll compromize the wheel even further. A broken chain however takes 5 mins and quick link to fix. A bike will work without a derailleur or with a botch chain tensioner fix. But that is a reason why I'd prefer rohloff in an expeditioner.

I mean yrah, if the wheels were built by a master builder with really good components (still wouldn't break the bank as this is touring we're talking about) it might be ok with 28 spokes. But the 920 wheels aren't. They're factory, not to mention bontrager.

If the 920 was a frameset it would be really attractive. But in its current form at least the rear wheel will need to go, preferably both. Maybe next year's model will be better.

but why would you do this? why go to the expense and trouble of finding the
perfect wheelsmith and source or custom-manufacture just the right components
from exotic materials? to what end?

save an ounce or so just so you can push the envelope, riding a loaded bike
or a grrrrrrrinder on technical terrain, with wheels right on the edge of
catastrophic failure? what's the point?

i'd rather go ultra-conservative on wheels if i'm touring, especially if on an
"adventure" tour....which in my case means jungle trails in laos or cambodia.
if loaded on a 700 i want phil hubs, 48 spoke 4x, 36 for 26". plenty of other
more sensible areas to shave weight.

You wouldn't. It was an example, but I agree that it would be idiotic to get built wheels just to have them weaker.

I personally think though, that even with 700 wheels 36 spokes is enough if the component set is good. But that means a really good rim, like ryde or dt swiss tk540) double or triple butted spokes and a hub that minimizes dish (one of the reasons I chose hope rs mono).

Granted, my gf has stock wheels on her 520, which I do trust because 1) she's a lightweight and 2) I retensioned them so they are now essentially hand built even if the spokes aren't butted. But I have some dt alpine III's as spares is a spoke does go.

The trouble with 48 spoke components is that they are really hard to come by and impossible if trying to find affordable. 40 is a bit less complicated but 40h hubs are still pretty expensive.

Go to Trek bikes.com then to inside Trek then C3 project .
Very amazing stuff that people are doing on 28* MTB wheels.

Also interesting. the Trek Paris Roubais series they do, Domaine. Their top end models have 18/24 spokes with calipers. The disc model has 24/24. Maybe they know something about spoke count and wheel stress to make that decision.

Mtb wheels used for jumps/drops break frequently. The fact my 32 spoke wheels have survived this long is a miracle (although the 150kgf ds factory tension might have something to do with it)

I'd agree with you on the paris roubaix thing, but firstly they are light riders (even the biggest heaviest riders are pretty light) and they aren't carrying anything, and they still break wheels, every time

And it has been stated before, road wheels are different from touring wheels. Mtb wheels also face different stresses but I wouldn't go under 32 in the rear even with those. If I did bikepacking 36 would be a must

And it's funny how you compare pro line bikes and their wheels (which alone cost more than the 920) to the 920, which certainly isn't pro level, nor are the wheels. The 920 wheels are lower mid level bontrager. They aren't even in the catalogue. You are too clueless to be a troll.

Dead wrong I may be about the geometry but I'm quoting the manufacture website in the description of both bikes. I get you guys hate the bike with a vengeance but you are very negative. Weird I know a lot of cyclists which are very happy people as I am. But if you had studied the geometry on the 2 bikes you'd think you'd have read the description. I've carried over 70 pounds in my tt bike with its crappy tires no problem so maybe it's my #115 frame. Right now I think I'm gonna leave this forum bc if a person doesn't agree with you you and a couple of others are hateful. That's immature and not informative. If you are smart then you know enough to be nice to people. What kind of bikes do you guys have? What tours have you done? All I hear is a lot of negativity and even name calling which is ok if you're 5 yo.

They are very reasonable in this forum - as long as everyone agrees to get a Surly LHT or a CO-Motion, and never contemplates using less than 32 spokes, and never suggests that a nice bike can be made from any material other than steel, there won't be a problem!

greetings,
I would hope you stick around here, there are a number of very helpful folks here with lots of experience. I personally like to apply the "at a dinner party etiquette" behaviour on internet forums, ie talking to someone as if they were in front of you and you've just met them at a get together--unfortunately this isn't always the case, so I hope it doesnt put you off.
In any case, if you don't come back, have a good riding season, and if you do stick around, its always fun to talk bike and touring stuff. Being a bunch of biking nerds, its fun to discuss, compare and learn about stuff.

re carrying 70lbs of stuff and you being 115....ooof, makes my 140lb but old guy knees hurt just thinking about it--but thats the thing, whatever you ride, whatever you carry and however you want to do a bike trip, if you are having fun doing it and are ok with the various stuff, thats the main thing.
cheers from a very cold Canada with no riding for at least a month and a half...

I suppose the bottom line is if one likes the 920, buy it, if one doesn't, don't.

Personally I've always had a thing for the Novara Safari, at least in concept.

Not likely to happen tho.

The check is in the mail, the 920 is 1 step closer.

Sadly, that comment muddles just about everything to make it almost nonsensical.

The guy who has disparaged the LHT with a passion for what seemed like months (but never rode one) is the same guy who threw out the CO motion as an alternative.
The person who went on and on about the Cutthroat being the perfect bike is now claiming to prefer the 920.
The person who claims the Marrakesh is strictly a road bike now says they may be dead wrong about that.

And there are people who keep trying to discuss the facts about each option in regards to the pros and cons of materials used. They explain it all and then the OP ignores everything and starts off on another tangent. Sure, we could just have a touring forum wherein touring value is determined by colour or cool factor and reviews canbe gven by people who don't even own a touring bike but then where would people go if they wanted facts?

No one cares if SB buys a 920, in fact we have been telling him for a couple of months to buy any bike. This all started with people pointing out that the 920 has a couple of flaws as far as touring goes... low spoke count and a through axle. If he or anyone else can live with that then fine but this discussion comes on the heels of multiple months of other discussions where the Op has been extremely opinionated and insulting about peoples choices when he hasn't even toured himself. So the flack that is flying has more to do with his posting style than the 920 or any other bike.

As to what bikes and what tours: I own Al and CroMo mtb conversions and am leaving for a weekend tour in 3 hours... so don't take it personal if I don't reply.

On this particular note: 700c wheels and 29er wheels are the same thing in terms of rim diameter (622mm).

"29er" refers to how the total wheel diameter is 29 inches when there's an inflated 2" tire on it.

19" ETT is ~48cm. I think in metric for bikes.

I'm surprised you'd even consider T920 since it's smallest size has a 54cm ETT. WRT to fit for females/shorter persons, the basic problem with the T920 is it uses 700c wheels for all sizes. This forces frame geometry to maintain an inordinately long effective top tube length to help mitigate toe-overlap occurrence on smaller frames. Also seat tube angle steepens and head tube angle slackens with smaller frame size. This is a very common but very compromising solution to TO on small framed 700c bikes, used for years by every major bike manufacturer.

Salsa Vaya in smallest size has a 49.5cm ETT - it is the shortest reach 700c-wheeled touring bike that I know.

If you are amenable to the fact that smaller wheels on smaller bikes for smaller people makes sense, then consider the Surly LHT. Surly sensibly fits smaller (559BSD/26") diameter wheels on sizes <54cm, which permits them to actually proportion ETT length to frame size.

The smallest size LHT has a 49cm ETT with 26" wheels, which is probably as close a match to your stated target ETT as you will find in a stock drop-bar-capable tourer (if disc brakes are desired, then look at Surly Disc Trucker, same geometry for a given size as LHT).

You actually are a good candidate for a custom sized bike frame. I say actually because a lot of people have custom frames made when they could easily fit a stock frame size. Since you have indicated considering multiple frame materials and more costly bikes, I suggest you take a serious look at a custom builder like Rodbikes or CoMo. There are many other custom builders, most do not have touring-specific building expertise, so those are my stock answers for touring bike builders. Since custom is costly and a long wait time, you may also want to consider titanium as a frame material. Look at Lynskey, they've made more Ti frames than anyone.

Getting yourself professionally fit for a bike will probably be money well spent in the event that you do choose to have a custom frame made. Find a LBS that has one of these contraptions.

Janine1 -- give the guys at Billy Goat a call or visit. I mentioned your height and your interest in the 920, they will work with you. Anyone in St. Louis interested in test riding my 920 give Billy Goat a call.

- I was actually in a bike shop today during my lunch hour to pick up a saddle bag and chuckled to myself as I passed a 920. I really have nothing against the bike. I think I have posted in this thread already, but its such a long thread that I dont remember. If I did, it was in reference to the spoke count. This is a multi-month discussion which has managed to span multiple threads and forums. Really, its nuts.
Point is, dont judge this place by this thread. Posters here tour with recumbents, old steel, new steel, carbon, aluminum, upright, drop bar, butterfly bar, and most anything else not listed. Its diverse and very informative. Unfortunately, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and one poster has been dominating the attention recently. Itll pass(hopefully) and you will gain some good insight.

In 1980 I was riding on a fancy Lippy touring bike from Ogden Utah to Boulder Co. Somewhere in between I met some other cyclists at a park and there was this old guy, ten yrs younger than I am now, riding a Gitane 10 spd loaded to the gills. Steel rims, etc. He had been on the road for a long time. His legs looked like tree trunks. I was light and fast but it was a good feeling being on the same road with old farts doing it.

One of the reasons that I take very little seriously here and just ride my damn bike! (Trek 920 BTW with 3000+ miles on and off road.)

1. quoting the manufacturer's website? that would be their marketing department reaching
out to you. read it with a 5-pound sack of salt.

2. don't know about the others.....i don't hate the 920. don't particularly care...have no
deep emotional feelings for it at all. is just a bike i wouldn't care to ride, as it's not suited
to loaded touring. is a lot of overpriced faddish components slapped together to appeal to
a specific demographic. this year it's grrrrrravel grrrrrinding for middle-age farts, next
year who knows.......maybe unicycles for bungee jumping. see mfg website for details.

3. of course negative. when you ask for opinions about a certain bike, you'll get
lots of comments about what's wrong with it and why it won't work for one individual.
you may get some positive remarks, but if you peruse the thread, you'll see most of
them posted by someone with no knowledge of that specific (well, generally any) bike.
i don't need to ride the 920 to state i don't like the brakes........they be hydraulic, which
i would never take on tour. that's valid. but to claim how greaaaaaat those brakes are
for touring, never having ridden the bike, nor toured ever, is not.

4. i don't love the LHT. never ridden one, probably never will. seems like a decent bike
well-suited for touring. i'm sure if i went over the specs, i could find something wrong
with it.

5. currently have only one bike. BMC mtb (but the frame is more hybrid-ish). had
a cannondale aluminum road bike, a steel custom-built mercian touring bike, an
infinity recumbent, a schwinn spyder........and various others over half a century.
first tour after high school was across europe, fully loaded, on a schwinn paramount.
much was learned in the first few weeks!

6. have toured over a quarter million miles. maybe closer to half a million, but i
prefer to err on the side of caution. across the usa, perimeter of australia, new
zealand, all over europe, and now much of southeast asia and china.

7. please stay....if you're a real human. unfortunately, your very first post seemed
to be a squeeky sockpuppet. something you learn to live with on public forums.
or would that be forii? or forae?

Wow you have an issue with that term. We get it, you think riding on gravel with a bike better suited for riding on gravel than pavement is lame. The horse is dead, you beat it long ago.

I happen to love riding on all the unpaved roads- low vehicle count and high farm count...a nice place to escape to for sone riding. Oh how sheepish of me.

You are genuine and rough it in real off road conditions, you were grindin before grindin was cool, you dont need a company to sell you anything you dont already want.
Others are lame for participating in a relatively untapped genre of cycling.
Yada yada yada.

sorry. i didn't understand. i keep reading about this newfangled "genre of cycling"
yet it's never been explained well enough for me, a lowly bicyclist, to fathom.

i was imagining in my imagination that it was narrow tracks in the mountains,
barely wide enough for a ectomorphic goat....and i also imagined a thin layer
of granitey gravel (like you'd find in your driveway) down the center. occasional
roots and boulders thrown in for variety. i dunno, maybe a creek crossing now
and then, maybe even some mud?

but now i know. this amazing new genre is simply......."riding on unpaved roads."

got it. now i know... and consider me informed that both my hybrid and, indeed, even
(especially) my mountain bike are woefully inadequate to grind the gravelly experience.
no, that doesn't sound right....how about "grinde le experience gravelle!"

the experience/lifestyle/genre demands a new breed of bike (and don't
forget the new breed of color-coordinated accessories!) to tame said
unpaved roads.
i am convinced.

Sarcasm notwithstanding, you know what the term describes and you started a thread on the term a couple months ago and it was explained very well. https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/10...avel-bike.html
This also is around when you began deriding the activity by mockingly calling it 'grrrrravel grrrrrrinding' for some reason.

Neither your hybrid nor your mtb are inadequate. Nobody has claimed they are(except you, sarcastically) and in fact I specifically mentioned youve been doing the very thing that is currently a niche, so clearly that upright hybrid of yours works quite well.

You claim that such a style of riding demands a new bike, but that isnt accurate and you are smart enough to know it isnt accurate, so why even make the claim? While it doesnt demand a new bike, a new bike may be beneficial. If someone has a couple road bikes which max out at 25c tires and have road double gearing, that is probably not conducive to ride many of the types of gravel around the country as the tires would jump and deflect all over the place. Plus, the more aggressive frame geometry may not be comfortable for 3 hours of bumpier riding. So in this instance, a different bike would be a good decision, assuming they want to dedicate the time to make the purchase worthwhile.


I could ride my road bike on some rolling single track and do most of it, but that isnt close to ideal. Instead, a mtb with lower gearing, a higher bb, and some fatter tires will make the experience more enjoyable.
Apply that to riding on gravel.
You do it with a hybrid. I do it with near 25yo hybrid converted with some drops. Others do it with CX bikes. Others do it with the currently popular all around drop bar bike frames. Riding on gravel can obviously be done with many different types of bikes. But that doesnt mean there shouldnt be a genre of bike which is marketed for gravel.



I dont expect any of what I just typed to change your mind because it appears you are proud that you do things differently from the lemmings who follow the latest trends in cycling mags. I just dont understand the vitriolic mockery directed towards those who dont conform to your view of how cycling should be.

For those that are more seasoned touring folks than me, I have a sincere question.... Would a pull behind trailer, with maybe just front panniers negate any possible impact of 28 spoke wheels? I am heavier than a lot of folks on here probably..215. What about a trunk bag on rear rack, front panniers and then a bob trailer or something like that? Would that alleviate any possible strength issues on the rear wheel. Thanks in advance.-John I was going to buy front and rear Arkel Panniers, but thought I could probably get a trailer instead.

Please get some 36 Spoke Wheels for touring.

Why worry about breaking spokes with the 28's