I fully agree. I'd go with a Surly if it were me.

I was going to suggest a Surly since I have the LHT and it's the bomb but I didn't want to seem like a shill :D

"Don't buy that stupid bike! It's silly! Buy this cool bike! The one I also have!"

I also suggested the fuji touring because it has a pretty good geometry for touring use, ie. medium reach and high stack.

I resisted for a while, but with all the conjecture concerning the 920 and 1120, I could not help myself. In my opinion - just my opinion, mind you, I view the Treks as being more eye-candy than serious tourer. Its like buying a bottle of cabernet just by the looks of the label alone.

When I win the Powerball lottery I am going to buy a 920, load it up like I do my vintage 1920s LHT and ride it on the same rough, hilly/mountainous roads that I have ridden LHT on.

powerball, schmowerball......why not call your rich brother-in-law?

Let's say for arguments sake that I were to buy a set of EZ-Up sun canopy sand bags (because we have a canopy and they could be useful some day) and load my 920 up with 50 lbs rear, 20 lbs front. I currently weigh 200 and that would put the bike and its racks close to Trek's ratings. I can't imagine myself ever touring with more than that. How far would I have to ride my new 21st century toy before you would begin to allow that it might be capable of doing the job in a first world country where spare parts are not so much an issue?

Just curious, I might be willing to be a pioneer and run the experiment.

Or you could buy me one and let me run it myself since I already have the routes down. You really are taking things personally. I am glad you like your 920, and I am not opposed to new designs, which is not to say that my LHT's design dates to the 20s. I am simply curious as to whether those wheels, on what's advertised an all-road bike, can handle what I have done with my LHT's stock when set dating back to 2011, but I am not curious enough to drop $1,500 bucks at this current point in my life, although I can afford to. I'd rather shoot for retirement at age 55.

The traditional touring bikes you all know and love are 1920's designs that are well executed with modern materials. There is neither shame nor reason to be concerned about that. They are tried, true, but not the only way one could consider building a touring bike today. They likely will survive for as long as there are human beings who want to go bike touring.

I am not taking any of this personally. I am an (electrical) engineer. I don't take technical questions personally. I understand stress and strain and the benefits/limitations of modern materials even though mechanical engineering is not my primary field. When I hear you traditional touring curmudgeons telling people that we tried 28 spokes back in aught six and they didn't work I can easily appreciate that you may be right. When I hear you making statements about how Trek designs and manufactures their wheels I can easily appreciate that you may be just blowing smoke.

I am only proposing to do what an engineer would do in this situation: put to the test Trek's claims that these wheels and the rest of this bike are suited to condition 2 riding at a GVW of 300 pounds. I would not be doing anything beyond what I am considering doing for real some day other than letting sand stand in for all the expensive camping gear and panniers that I would have to acquire. I won't be asking the bike to do anything beyond what Trek claims it can do reliably. I will be giving myself some physical training and experience with handling a loaded bike that I would need to acquire before heading off on a ride across the USA for example. If I were to ride this bike loaded with 70 pounds the rest of the year (well I won't start until AFTER the Harmon Hundred in a few weeks!), over the winter on rollers, and up until the end of next July (when I would remove the excess weight) I would go into RAGBRAI with an awesome set of legs and lungs. I would probably do around 1500 miles by then.

Would that be enough to convince you? It is an honest question, I have no hidden agenda. It is something I might do in the interest of science. If I did, if I could, then we would all know something about how durable these wheels are at the load that Trek specifies. And if I can't do it physically then I've learned something important about what is feasible for me to consider doing with the remainder of my life!

Trek's OEM wheels for the 720 were so bad...there was actually a voluntary CPSC recall for MY2015/2016/2017 Trek 720 bikes with OEM wheels:

https://www.bicycleretailer.com/reca...nd-rear-wheels

You can get away doing 28 spoke....but they need to be well-built, not El Cheapo machine built. OEM wheels tend to be poorly built to start with, and mixing lower spoke-count with high-load touring is a recipe for poor service life.

In the late 70's my buddy and I toured all over the Midwest for several years using 27 inch tires and Pletcher racks. Everything we carried was strapped to the rear rack. Gravel roads were often on the menu. We thought nothing of it, and the Pletcher rack the same. 40 lbs of gear on those things and never once a failure. Sure, they swayed some when climbing, but the loads never let loose. Steel frames, stock 36 spoke wheels using zinc plated who knows what spokes and single wall rims, and never a problem with them.
A friend of mine rode his stock 1974 Schwinn Continental cross country without any problems at that time, too.

Considering how things have advanced, my guess is the Trek will be just fine, just as we were way back when. Stop over-analyzing the specs and ride what inspires confidence and gets you out on the road.

Yes, I still use an old steel frame with outdated parts, but not once has it let me down.

Well dang. I've never been called a curmudgeon before. I have to say it hardly describes me very well. Firstly I'm under 30. Secondly I'm usually pretty pumped about new bike tech, ie road tubeless, disc brakes, belt drive, hydraulic shifting, thru axles, you name it.

But the thing is that I'm also a very good bike mechanic, better than most who do it as their jobs (that's honestly not that high an achievement...) and I'm also a very good wheel builder. And thirdly I have at this young age already thousands of miles of touring experience. I'm not exactly sure but I think I'm nearing 10000 by now.
I also have some experience with two trek bikes, the fx 7.3 and the 520 disc. First thing to notice that both had bontrager wheels which were utter garbage. Not because of spoke counts or anything like that but because they used incompatible parts, incredibly bad rims (the 520 rims are so utterly bad I'm newly astounded every time I need to swap a tire), low quality spokes and nipples which are apparently of not any common size and also round more easily than aluminum nipples. At this stage I have a pretty vehement hate towards the bontrager wheels.
And the 36 spoke wheels of the trek 520 go out of true / break spokes even after I retensioned and stress relieved them. The max weight these wheels have seen is around 230lbs. My own 36 spoke touring wheels went out of true initially 0.3mm in the break in phase and have stayed laser true afterwards, and of course no broken spokes. These wheels will see 330lbs when we're touring and 260lbs when I'm riding just by myself (I'm 240lbs but there's the water etc)

Also Trek, like specialized is a gimmick company. If you look their road bike lines, they have these neat gimmicks like front suspension etc. which are proprietary and also incredibly difficult to source spare parts for. For years I was dreaming of buying a Specialized Roubaix as my do all, end all road bike. Now however the Roubaix line has the weird front suspension thingy, meaning that when the model gets old enough you won't be able to find spare parts for that one extra unnecessary part, thus forcing one to buy a new bike. Call me a traditionalist but I like to ride my bikes to the ground before I buy new ones. The fx 7.3 had the most idiotic internal cable routing system I have ever seen (why does an affordable hybrid have internal cable routing) which requires a special small proprietary part, which is both tiny and easily lost since it's not attached to anything. So you lose that one, you lose shifting.

I hope that highlights how I have come to the conclusion why the 920 may not be the bike Trek advertizes it to be.
While 28 spoke wheels can be fine for even heavy touring (though risky since if you do lose a spoke you need to fix it asap since the out of trueness of a broken spoke in 28 spoke wheel will be much, much worse than in a 36 spoke wheel) they need to be well built. My experiences with Trek wheels especially and also other machine built wheels tell me that there's a high propability the 920 wheels will not be very good. Combine a poorly built wheel and 28 spokes and you have an end result which will not be able to handle much.

as to the gimmickery, well some things only become gimmicks when applied to touring bikes. Mainly because they are unnecessary and add extra complexity and maintenance difficulty.
Thru axles are a good system. I honestly believe that and my future road bike will absolutely have them. My requirements for my future long distance road bike are: Thru axles, hydro brakes, 1xXX gearing, tubeless, carbon wheels, frame, fork etc. But I still won't put them in a touring bike simply due to the fact that if the axle gets damaged, getting a new one will be an absolute pain. Thru axles is not something bike shops stock, or if they do they may not have the one you have. There's already a host of different standards for them. Quick releases are found everywhere and good enough a system for touring use.

Hydraulic disc brakes are apparently decent enough these days (I've had issues with shimano and avid brakes, mainly leaks) but if it gets damaged you're hosed (see what I did there). There's no realistic way to field repair a hydro brake whereas you can bodge a cable actuated one to get you to your next bike shop. But does the bike shop have brake cables and housings? Definitely. Hydro parts that fit your brake? Not necessarily.

Now you seem to have this idea that just because you ride in a first world country you'll easily find spare parts if things go wrong. That has not been my experience. You know how far we had to go to find a moderate riser stem in Germany? 300 miles. Yeah. Even in the Netherlands we got immensely lucky when the BB in my wife's bike blew since we found a sport bike shop in a village nearby. That one was the only sport bike shop in a 70 mile radius. While there are loads of bike shops in Europe, most of them seem to be shops focused on your everyday utility bikes. So parts for 1 speed chain IGH rim brake bikes. Sport bike shops are much more rare and just to expect them to pop up on your route and have the parts you need is a bit naive. But of course if you have the cash you can get a cab or get next day delivery to a hotel and fix it yourself, provided you have the tools and knowhow to do it.

And I also get the other side of my argument. Don't carry your fears and pack lightly. But the fact of the matter is that stuff happens while on tour. Sometimes you end up on an Italian MTB singletrack. Sometimes when you're tired you make a mistake which breaks a part in you bike. Sometimes a truck passes too close to you and the air current pushes you into a mountainside totaling your bags. Anything can happen. Sometimes your bike may even get totalled and there's no cure for that. But some things are easily fixable and in my opinion it makes sense to maximize the things you can either fix easily yourself or get fixed in a low tech bike shop. Being low tech also allows you to carry less spare parts. The only high tech thing I carry nowdays is 3 cartridge bearings I know for a fact you can't find even in a well stocked bearing shop. Hope hubs, excellent hubs but not very easy to find spare parts for...

I didn't call you a curmudgeon, I called you a traditional touring curmudgeon. There is a difference and while the last sentence above demonstrates that you are not a curmudgeon in general or even in respect to bicycling technology in general, the rest of your post demonstrates that you are in fact a traditional touring curmudgeon! Don't deny it, be proud of it!!

I don't dispute your experience and I don't question the decisions you have made based on it. Yours is the sensible, sane, traditional approach to touring. Some of us are more willing to be pioneers and to deal with the consequences when things don't go as planned. I'm in my 60's and I do not plan to do any intensive self supported touring until I retire. That alone is a risk that makes any concerns over Bontrager wheels or thru axles pale in comparison. I have no particular reason to believe that I will be physically able to pedal through the Rockies when I near 70. I'm not sure I can do it today, the sandbag test I proposed above would answer that question too. But if I can and if my Bontrager wheels implode as I pull into Boise I will not be put out if I have to wait a few days for a proper set of wheels to be delivered to me. It is just not a big deal to me. But if I were in my 30's and had to get back to my day job in 10 days time, yeah, I'd be put out as all heck.

I understand your arguments and I appreciate your input. Yous is a detailed and refreshingly well argued tale. As I said, I am an engineer and that is a profession where it is required that you be both a curmudgeon and an early adopter of all things cutting edge simultaneously. You have to be willing to take risks when they make sense and to blend the latest and greatest with the traditional in a way that minimizes the risks and maximizes the potential gains. But because I am near the end of my life while you are still near the beginning of yours we have different views about what is and is not a risk and about what is and what is not a gain. No reason we can't get along but we may not ride the same bike even when we have the same purpose.

Huh?? I guess you just lost $1200 ;)

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...42923fda31.png

holy kamolee

thats $4140.00 in cad when you add in the 15% sales taxes.
$36something before taxes.

yowzer

that puts this bike into a price bracket that a majority of riders are not to take seriously as a purchase, given the competition or at least alternatives.

Not intending to thread hijack or give answers that aren't requested, but I agree with a lot of this. When I look at the 920, I think it's trying to be what the Surly Troll actually is. The Troll has mounting points galore, for under the price of the 920 you can add beefy Surly racks that are better than what comes on the 920, it's good on road and off. You can also do your 28 spokes quite happily on the Troll's 26" wheels. I had a Troll for three years and rode the hell out of it, touring, commuting, dirt, winter, summer. It took everything. I sold it only because I had the opportunity to buy a very good condition 1985 Trek 720. My wife's go to bike is still aTroll.

The Troll is $1750 and doesn't come with dropbar controls....and doesn't come with racks either. Simply in racks (beefier or not) than the Trek, add $400 to the price for front and rear (presuming not finding screaming sales or used equipment)....and you still are comparing a dropbar to a flatbar-and the two become equal in price.

Not to say that the prices of new rigs aren't getting ridiculous...

It's a niggle, but with the most expensive racks Surly makes at full retail you're still $100 under the cost of the 920. And those are steel racks, not aluminum. Also, I wouldn't call a Moloko bar a flatbar. I had a Jones on my Troll, and I found it to be every bit as serviceable as a drop bar for touring on road, much better off road and will more real estate for gear and packs. The Moloko would be comparable to the Jones in those respects.

And I agree with you on the price point. Last time I bought a new bike was in the early 90s.

TBH, $100 price differences on a $2,000 purchase is best describes as "which color do I like better" territory. YMMV.

Yes, hence the "niggle".