Is your seatpost clamp backwards?

It is. The frame builder built the bike that way to better keep grit and water out of the slot in the back of the seat tube. He said if it bugs me I can always turn it around.

It's been two days and squeezy hasn't figured out how to post pictures.
I'm beginning to suspect the bike doesn't actually exist.

(just kidding, I knew it the whole time)

Looking at pictures on the trek website, is it really a combination of external and internal routed cables on a touring bike? Is it the brake cable (hydo fluid line) or the shifter cable that is internal?

Amazingly, yes. The rear brake line is routed inside downtube, shifter cables are external, presumably to engage cable stop/minimize cable friction. If I had an aluminum touring frame, I would definitely cut big holes in the downtube just to hide a single housing. Cause we all know this will save 20g of weight, be super aero plus look cool. Besides, what could possibly go wrong from cutting holes at the ends of an aluminum downtube that will bend and twist thousands of times on every bike ride?

Downtube internal shift cables. There's an interesting opening just above the BB about 2 cm x 0.5 where the cables come out and go to the deraileurs. Hopefully my son or his friends will help me post photos.

Wait what? I did not notice that before! That's almost even more idiotic than having 28 spoke rear wheel on that thing. Why would they do that? It serves no reason whatsoever. Makes the frame weaker, makes cabling more fiddly (and trust me, trek internal routing is sometimes like straight from the soviet union with the 'innovations' and all that. Lose a tiny ferrule and you use all internal cabling capabilities for example), forces you to cut housings and have exposed cable which is a contamination risk etc etc etc. If they were smaht, they would have allowed for full length housings especially for shifter cables.

Except of course they expect riders to use the massive front rack to carry a full tool set including surgical clamp tweezers, flashlight and rare earth magnets (that's what I use to route internal cables)

So where did you get your engineering degree from? And what testing equipment do you own?

you poor man! where in the world do you live that's so far from a starbucks?

Congratulations! Buying a bike can be an agonizing experience; more so when done by committee.

I hope you enjoy your bike. It will take you to new places, some may even be relatively close to home.

You received a lot of guff about your choice, some of it undeserved, but also some that you initiated. The 920 will handle most situations; and if it does not work out, it is not an irreversible or irrevocable decision.

Have fun, and use that bike. Your goal should be to wear it out!

Where are your pictures? Let's talk about that first

Since you are questioning his assessment and opinions, I think you should answer the same questions.

He needs his son (One he has mentioned lives in NY) or his son's friends to help him figure out how to load photos even though the process for doing so has been explained in detail at least once in this very thread. How convenient.

Wow are there a lot of haters on here. Enjoy your bike man. You don't have to prove anything to these clowns. Just ride it and have fun.

Well, he did bring it upon himself somewhat by basically insulting almost everyone over the last couple of months at one point or the other.
That being said; I'm actually hoping he does have a bike and can get out and ride because I have always thought that practical application tends to temper theoretical ideology. Probably the biggest disconnect in this case has been a whole lot of supposing and not enough doing. At the end of the day I believe most people want others to be successful while touring and if that's what happens with Sq it will be a happy ending for all (or should I say beginning?).

Riding a bicycle is supposed to be fun!

Shoulda had a V8

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=510373

What has also been slightly irritating in the case of Sq is that he asks questions which he already has his mind set on already, insults everyone who disagrees on the choice or have other suggestions, insults people who have made different choices and promotes his (still unrealized) choices over others and insults people who point out the faults in the bike Sq has already chosen to be the grand tourer of his life.

Honestly, the 920 is just riddled with issues. it IS a good concept, having 29er tires on a 700c touring rig, especially if you have fender clearance is a fantastic idea. More tire clearance doesn't mean you can't use thinner tires for tarmac tours. But the 920 just is not well implemented.

28 spoke wheels are the obvious issue, especially with the heavy duty racks implying you can carry 4 panniers through single track. Again, if the wheels were actually engineered for such stuff (deep vee, triple butted spokes, reinforced spoke bed and extra high spoke tensions) they might be really good for that intended purpose. But the wheels are just lower mid level 29er wheels, which have a lot of know issues such as cracking rims, broken spokes, etc etc (did a bit more research on this)

Gearing is a bit weird as it's a double so might be interesting on bigger hills. I'd go for a triple but whatever. The component set overall is very mid level stuff, which doesn't support the massive price tag.

Internal routing on a tour bike is just not a good idea. It isn't. Fiddling with that stuff at a well stocked bike garage can be frustrating and usually requires at least some sort of fiddly tools (like i've mentioned before, I use strong magnets and surgical tools to deal with internal routings). Doing that stuff on tour in the wild would be an absolute nightmare. And cables do snap occasionally. And on a longer tour it might become relevant to swap the shifter cables just as a part of routine maintenance, especially not that Sq has supposedly put brifters of his bike, which are quite sensitive to good quality good condition cables. It would have been much smarter to pump the frame full of attatchment points so you'd get a full length gear cable housings. Not the easily contaminated thing the 920 now offers. You wouldn't need to make as many housing cuts, no fiddling, just one cut on housing, one cut on cable. That's it. More starts to require a cable cutter. Not to mention that while internal routing holes might not make the frame noticeably weaker, they certainly don't make it stronger.

It just is not a good bike in it's current form. It's overpriced for what it is, and it's not suitable for its marketed intended use. And all this forum did in the beginning was to try to convey that to Sq, who had already decided that the 920 was his dream bike, insulted everyone who criticized the bike and all the people who rode something else, like the LHT made from very low grade steel tubing and which rides very badly (although it's actually more nimble than the 920)

I continue to disagree with you on all counts.

I don't see what purpose continuing this thread could possibly serve.

Hey Squeeze, it's quite the drama you've created around the posting of pics.

I keep checking the thread to see the pics, but alas...none yet :(

PICS SQUEEZY..... :troll:

There is a 48 page thread on posting photos:

http://www.bikeforums.net/forum-sugg...t-picture.html

Since things have changed since 2005, I recommend starting at the end and reading backwards.

I accept the fact that the Trek engineers know more than I do. Ask them for their credentials and about the equipment they use for testing.

Patience Grasshopper the time will come!!
I have a flip phone not a smart phone. Seems to make a difference. I think some folks will be interested in the internal cable routing stuff for 1 thing.
Patience please ! I'll work on it promise

I accept that Mavic engineers know more about designing wheels than I do, but that doesn't mean they have not produced products with issues.

^ the above goes for every bike and bike component manufacturer.

Fair enough! Some more than others.

This thread is worthless without pictures. Start a new one when you figure it out. Later.

With trek? Definitely more than others.

No but seriously trek is generally fine, but they are just so dang weird so often. Like what nipples do they even use as they don't seem to fit to any nipple wrench... and how do you make a slippery saddle so chafey? And why do they put a 130mm wide seat on an expedition tourer? And why 2 cross in 32 spoke wheels? And why are trek internal routings just so incredibly bad in every way? (Specialized on the other hand knows their stuff there).

It's incredible how that stuff just crops up. We have 1 Bianchi, 2 specializeds, 2 treks, 1 pelago, 1 surly and our drunk bikes. And ALL of the friggin weird stuff is in the 2 treks (admittedly the 520 is a really decent bike but even that has the weird nipple size). None of the others have any issues.

I blame Lance and all the advice he gave Trek while under the influence of PEDs. ;)