Heck the only real customizing I have thought about doing, granted it could maybe be a two part customization would be to add the angle iron to the dropouts and convert it into a fixed gear bike like I have did with my other bike. I have the flip-flop hub I use on the other bike and rode it single speed with the chain tensioner a couple of years ago on a 5700 mile trip. I was going to ride it fixed last year but ended up buying the new(2010 model year) bike since the shop wanted to get rid of it and gave me a real sweet deal so they could finally get it out of the shop. Otherwise there is no need to customize a touring a bike other than for fit...at least I haven't found any reason for it yet.

I bought this frameset for $10.00 and changed out the 27" wheels for 700C ones. I built it up with parts in my parts boxes and used it for a number of tours. After a couple of loaded tours I decide to get cantilever brake brazeons, rear cantilever cable stop bridge, rear rack seat stay mounts, and a pair of bottle bosses under the downtube brazed on by a custom bike builder (True North near Guelph, Canada). All that cost only $65.00 and now i have a full up touring bike. it gets used a LOT! I also often use it for water runs to a nearby fresh water spring that's about 25 miles round trip. I carry 8 four liters water jugs. The bike is comfortable, tracks well and is very stable when loaded. It's also a nice ride when unloaded. You DON'T have to break the bank or spend a fortune to get a decent touring bike and setup.

Here's the bike with and without the panniers.

#04b Miele Uno L.S. Rebuilt 4 Touring - Added Bottle Mount, Canti-brake Studs & Bridge by Miele Man, on Flickr

#04a Miele Uno L.S. Rebuilt 4 Touring - Added Bottle Mount, Canti-brake Studs & Bridge by Miele Man, on Flickr

In 1975 a friend of mine went to Victoria B.C. Canada, bought a used cheap 10 speed and then rode to Newfoundland. He chronicle his trip in a book he wrote "A JOURNEY ACROSS A CONTINENT" (David Gidmark pub. PAPERJACKS). Again it proves you don't have to spend big bucks to enjoy touring.

Cheers

Cheers

I modify pretty much all of my bikes. My Cilo is the only one I really haven't changed much on aside from parts that needed replacement and those I tried to keep with something that would look original or be original or have similar functionality. Granted it was a lot, new seatpost (Nitto S85), chain, freewheel, pedals (PD-A600), handlebar tape (Newbaums three colors) and tires (Conti Grand Prix Classics) and I might soon replace the hoops with either a similar Araya rim or with something from Velocity or H+Son but continue using the old DA 7400 hubs since it is a vintage bike and I want to keep it close to what it was.

I like improving my bikes and tinkering with them. I just recently put new wheels and a new chain, cog and chainring on my Langster and not that long ago installed new brakes and pads and a bell on the stem. I am finishing up the Co-motion and hopefully will soon have that up and running and on to my next project.

I think you and others think tourists tend to fiddle with stuff more because most stuff out there isn't touring oriented and everyone is different so we want to get the right fit and gearing and gear for our bikes to work for our touring needs.

I wonder where that bike you supposedly bought is? Haven't seen pictures and by this time you could have easily figured it out. There are plenty of online tutorials and people here have offered help and apparently your soviet cousin was going to come and help. I mean if you don't have a bike that is fine but just come out and be honest about it.

My favorite touring bike, a Bianchi Volpe, has evolved a lot in the 9 years that I have owned it. The only things original from the 2007 Volpe are: bars, seat post, stem, and STI shifters.

Before riding it across the U.S. the first thing I did before leaving was replace the saddle. After returning home the next thing I did was replace the drivetrain to get substantially lower gearing.

After having a rash of broken spokes with the stock 32 spoke wheels, I had a set of good hand built 36 spoke wheels built.

I replaced the fork with a 2013 fork to increase my bar height by about 1 1/2". It fits like a glove. The newer forks also had mid-fork braze-ons for a front rack, an added bonus.

The frame developed a crack that was covered by warranty which was replaced by a 2013 frame and fork. I used my old fork with the longer steering tube.

I got a killer deal on a pair of Paul cantilever brakes- switched out brakes.

I wanted to raise the bars on one of my other bikes, and Bianchi and Cannondale touring bike forks are almost identical. I took the fork off my 2007/2013 Volpe and put it on the Cannondale because the fork had been powder coated black, and would fit well with the Cannondale. I replaced the fork on the 2007/2013 Volpe with a black 2015 Volpe fork.

The start of fork "musical chairs last weekend."


2014—Getting ready to pick up our Christmas tree.


Every change was made because of wear and tear, durability, or to make the bike fit better. It evolved to meet my needs. Those needs were determined by a fair number of miles touring on a lot of bikes.

Each individual's needs in a bike can differ widely. Being a fat old man with more
old injuries than a retired pro lineman, I spend a lot of time personalizing my
bikes. Of seriously limit means, the most I've paid for one of my bikes is $60,
&, of course, at least twice that in upgrades. The single best upgrade I've put
on a bike,(something I should have done years ago), was pedal extenders.
Putting my knees at a better angle has not only given relief to knee pain,
but also greatly increased the power delivery to the pedals. If you have a
naturally wide stance this is probably the best ,cheap upgrade you can make.

Can't agree with the OPs premise since I know lots of people who have changed out almost everything on their race bikes while my touring bike is essentially unchanged (r. derailleur and shifters replaced when the original ones broke and wear items replaced as needed - tires, freewheel, brake pads, one rim).

This sums it up pretty good.
p.s Love the look of your Bianchi, Doug. Sky blue is my colour too. My old Miyata tourer was sky blue but got a grey fork somewhere down the line, so pretty similar Got the same colour on my Bob Jackson now, but with matching fork.
Do like the look with a different fork colour tho'

[MENTION=147740]prathmann[/MENTION], When I built my first touring bike a few years ago I followed the advice of experienced touring riders on this forum. Because I heeded their advice, sometimes in minor disagreement, that touring bike is the least 'upgraded' bike I've ever had in spite of it being a parts bin / budget build. After my first loaded experience, I fully fell into line. So far the only replaced items have been a saddle and tires.

Brad

The way I look at it, is that if I'm going to be spending $600-$700 on a bike, it better be ready to go right out of the box.

That's not that much money for a good bike... Doesn't mean it can't be done, lots of good bikes at that price range. But for me a complete bike, at that price, with all the functionalities I want / need just isn't doable.
I get a frame with that money and have to add everything else on it as well.

I found a complete Karate Monkey with 36-spoke wheels, XT hubs, and a Sram X9 drivetrain for $450. Patience yields incredible deals.

In reference to the OP's question, it seems pretty apparent to me that most people don't plunk down $4,000+ for a custom bike unless they have a pretty good idea about what they want based on years of experience. My assumption is that a person who is willing to make that kind of financial commitment has probably spent a fair amount of time, money, and effort on other bikes, etc. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but rarely would a person just go out and buy a custom touring bicycle without going through trials and tribulations and expense.

It's enough money for a good bike. I've toured in lots of places on a bike that cost a whole lot less.

Most of our bikes were never ready to go right out of the box. I'd go a step further and say that most bikes don't come out of the box ready to tour.

Although, to me, that begs a second question: if that is the normal touring bike buying experience, why sell the bike completely assembled to begin with, or why not at least offer a customizable order sheet like a car?

Almost all customers see bikes as a unit. For every bike-savvy tourist that buys a LHT, there are nine bike-illiterate weekend warriors and college kids buying one to putz around 3x a year.

To that end, we are not the driving force in the market. We may define trends and we may condemn bikes that don't check enough boxes, but as long as an LHT complete build has "enough" touring chops that it can stand alone, it will sell to the blind masses. Now, the blind masses are a fickle group, and so they won't buy the LHT if the Salsa Marrakesh or the Jamis Aurora looks like a better deal. So, Surly will carefully pick and choose components, scrape the bottom of the barrel for stems and seatposts, and generally offer a sub-optimal build to meet the price point demanded by 9/10 people.

You can do a built-to-order LHT- surly sells frames, and bike shops are happy to facilitate. You lose the collective bargaining power Surly uses to get components at 30-40% less on a complete build than if you buy them individually, so your complete bike will cost 30-40% more.

Forgive my ignorance of current bikes, but are that many touring-type base models sold to people that putz around 3x a year? Seems like a costly purchase for something that isn't being used on a regular basis.

As to the rest, would it cost me 30-40% more? Presumably, the parts I am going to add cost no more whether the frame came with other parts that I paid for or not. To me, it sounds like I would just have the same add-on cost, but a higher base cost. I guess I could always strip and sell the OEM parts and make back some money, but it still sounds like paying for something I am never going to use. I'm genuinely curious, BTW, I've never bought a new bike and immediately swapped parts. It just seems more logical to me that if more than one or two things were getting taken off and replaced you would start with the frame and build up.

I agree! However, it is usually more expensive to build from the frame up, at least with new parts. The bonus is that you get exactly what you want. This bike was built up much differently than a stock Surly LHT. It also costed more. Mixing and matching components is not as easy as some folks would like us to believe, e.g., road and mountain bike compatibility.

I believe that a stock bike is a good choice for the inexperienced person. It has most of the right parts, and can be tweaked as experience is gained.


On a complete bike the saddle is usually the first thing to go, followed by gearing changes. Manufacturers vary from year to year. A few years ago the REI Randonee was the closest to my idea of a good touring bike: low gears, STI shifters etc. However, their newer models have reverted to the "semi-road bike" gearing.

You would be shocked on both counts.

First off, the MAJORITY of bikes sold in the US are rarely used. Some are never used. My local shops sees bikes that are ridden to the point of complete failure about as often as they see basically unridden bikes coming in for a "tune-up" because 10 years in storage has rotted tires/housing.

They had a pair of Serottas come in that they sold in the late 90's for like $2,000 apiece, new in all ways with a nice coating of dust. They just weren't ridden.

On my first tour, my buddy rode a Schwinn Paramount in almost mint condition because his grandfather bought it in the 1980's after winning the lottery, and then never used it. It's a waste, and it's the norm. Not every bike sold is treasured; many are considered to be toys, or they fulfill a sudden impulsive new year's resolution that doesn't pan out, or people don't get fitted properly and stop riding because it hurts. Sad truth!


Second point, the cost. The axiom my mechanic taught me is that in order to get your money's worth on a bike build, you need to own two out of three things:

• Wheels/Tires
• Frame
• Components

If you own 2/3, it's worth it to buy the missing piece and build a new bike. If you only own 1/3, it's a better deal to buy a fully equipped bike, strip the parts you don't like, and sell them on eBay or Craigslist.

So, if I have a nice XT Groupset and I want to put it on an LHT, it's almost certainly in my favor to buy a fully equipped LHT, strip off all the stock components, sell them, and put on my own components. That will be cheaper than buying a wheelset and a frame. Dang!


If this seems like a shill, remember that the bike industry is driven in large part by service. Companies are willing to "eat" the cost of selling a bike with such huge discounts on stock parts because they hope to make back their loss through the service of the bike over a long period of time.

That's the idea, anyways. Shimano selling groupsets through third-party online vendors for less than wholesale is a gross aberration that needs to be put down.

Not entirely clear to me. The amount of money that your are willing to put on something is (also if not more) function of your means. I am personally in a state of disbelief when I look at the prices of high end road bikes, often purchased, or so it seems, by wealthy middle-or-no-longer-so-middle-aged guys riding 50kms or less on sunny Sundays, wearing blinding lycras.

hmmm.... one question might be -- what is the ultimate touring bike. Unanswerable, because it depends on what you try to achieve. So it has to be broken down into smaller chunks. Such as -- under what circumstances does it make sense to install a carbon drive + rohloff hub?

Another question might be -- what gives you the most bang for the money, at various price points (maybe you can afford a $250 touring machine, maybe $2000, maybe price is not an issue).

But back to my initial motivation to interject -- people who know very well, may well know that there is no point in paying $4k for a touring rig.

I don't honestly think I would be that surprised, just kinda figured the impulse buys would be far more along the lines of carbon racers or high end MTBs than touring models. I did watch two older adults buying their first bikes since they were kids walk out the door with almost $3000 in bikes and accessories and clothing while waiting to buy some lube this weekend...

And that is a good point you have there. I suppose if one were looking at changing out everything, it would make more sense to start from the base and build up, rather than just replacing what came with it for a lesser upgrade.

There is a joy in building a bike up from a bare frame, carefully ordering components one at a time. That's worth something. And many people love the experience because the bike feels more personal, and maintenance is no longer a mystery.

When helping friends get into cycling, I always recommend starting on a nice used bike. I helped Kelley pick out a 90's MTB with XT components, and after she had about 1,500 miles on it of touring and commuting, she had no problem dropping cash for a Surly Ogre. We were both glad we stepped into the pool slowly.

I hooked my mom up with a resurrected Raleigh 3-speed from the 1950's, restored by my LBS. She bought a helmet on her way out the door, so the LBS was happy. She's only out $200 or so, and that bike will be all she needs for the 3 rides she takes a year. And, you know what, those three rides will be the best thing ever and it's ok that she doesn't use it more. She uses her yoga mat every day.

Let's see, big brick bookstores (B.Dalton, Waldenbooks, etc.) undercut local book shops and mostly drove them out of business; then Amazon.com undercut the brick bookstores, mostly driving them out of business. Did this hurt consumers? Sure, I always enjoyed browsing for hours in bookstores, and having a place where we could hold chess club, but I love getting substantial discounts at Amazon, too. Also, and just as important to me, I like the reviews--good and bad--for items that I am considering purchasing. So I vote yes, Shimano keep selling discounted parts through wholesellars for those who wish to do their own customization!

I don't get my books repaired at a local bookstore.

I don't see why? It's been my experience that many components, including Shimano groupsets and their components sold independently, are priced under US wholesale by German online retailers. Such that it is now, maybe, reasonable to build custom from frame + components.