Rob_E

I ordered a Handspun dynamo wheel for my LHT, and it needed truing out of the box. It came to my house via UPS, I think, and might have been treated roughly in transit. I had heard good things, and was surprised to find that it came to me noticeably out of true, but it could certainly be the case that mine was an exception. Or it could just be the case that if you get your wheels as part of a complete bike, the package will be handled a little better with less opportunity to knock the wheels around.

BigBlueToe

I agree. While buying high-quality touring equipment (bike, racks, panniers, camping gear, etc.) may be initially expensive, once you've got it you're set; no need to buy more stuff before each trip. The last place I'd try to save money would be on my wheels - especially the rear. In 1992 when I was relatively new to touring I took a trip down the west coast, from Seattle to Santa Cruz. I was on a mail order touring bike from Nashbar. I didn't do anything to it. I figured it was a touring bike so it was ready to tour on. I made it to the California border before breaking my first spoke. By the time I reached Santa Cruz I was breaking spokes every day or two, sometimes two in a day. I aborted the trip (it was supposed to go to San Luis Obispo) and rode the Greyhound home with my tail between my legs. What had started as a glorious adventure ended as a depressing defeat.

Sure, there are lots of things I should have done differently, and before my next tour I had a guy build me the best rear wheel he could - spare no expense! (He chose Mavic 719's. No broken spokes to date.) I have two points. 1) It's definitely worth it to spend extra money if it means avoiding the kind of trouble I suffered. 2) Even though the wheel he built was expensive, it has lasted through three long tours, including another west coast trip (by my nephew who inherited the rig - from Vancouver, B. C. to San Francisco) with no problems. So, once the initial expense was paid for there have been no others. I hate to remember what I paid for all the spokes I had replaced on that first trip, as well as the number of hours I spent looking for a bike shop, waiting for the person to get around to fixing my wheel, etc. There was also the number of days I spent riding on an emergency spoke (a metal precursor of the kevlar ones they sell now - REI used to sell them) and a wobbly rim, with my brakes' quick release open so that I could ride - not much braking power. Sometimes I had to ride three days like that until the next town with a bike shop. Very unnerving!

furballi

One can often achieve 90% performance by spending 1/2 the price. A319 is 1/2 the price of A719. If a dial indicator cannot consistently detect a 0.001" gap at the A319's pinned joint, then this should be good enough for 99.99% of cyclists. Occasionally, I will come across a rim (A319) with a 0.007" radial hop at the pinned joint. This is not a big deal since a fully inflated tire can hop +/-0.05".

I've built many wheels with A319 for friends and their friends over the last few years. No report of broken spokes or bent wheels, yet.

Some Nashbar stuffs are pretty good (carbon fork, re-branded KMC Z7 chain), while others look good, put perform poorly. That said, I still spend more $ at Nashbar, Performance, and JensenUSA. You have research before you buy. I don't think there's a time limit on returned item at Nashbar. Just make sure the item is still in near-new condition.

SweetLou

Sorry to hear that. I've had nothing but good wheels come from them, but I have only ordered maybe 10 sets. I don't know how many people are building their wheels. I might have been lucky and have had really good builders do mine.

How do you get them delivered to your home? I didn't know this was an option. I had to pick mine up at work, then strap them to my rack to get them home. I actually rubbed one of the wheels on the street during a turn. it only caused a small scuff mark.

Rob_E

I got mine from AEbikes. I've never had a problem with them delivering to my home. I've seem Handspun wheels on-line from a few other vendors, too, so I would expect there are more than a couple of options for home delivery.

SweetLou

Oh, you ordered them from a bike shop/retailer. I thought you meant that QBP shipped them directly to your home.

Sam Tully

The only thing that I would say is that you cant get the larger sizes with 26' wheels......this is more a winge as I am tall and prefer to do more offroad touring.

spooner

They changed that with the 2010.

Sam Tully

Are you serious................... I hav'nt bothered researching the new Surly, I just assumed it will be just a differant colour. You have just made my day if you are correct, the only problem is I just finished
rebuilding my old tourier because of this issue 6 to 8 months ago.

Fitty

No disc mounts.

DukeArcher 

I saw three other cyclists this year on the Carretera Austral with cracked frames at the same place - at the meeting of the seatstays and seattube. Maybe it is a good bike for coast to coast road style trip but for the rough stuff, I wouldn't take one.

BTW, I did see one non-malfunctioning LHT in the Patagonia trip and it was at the end of a Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia trip...so who knows.

surfjimc

This forum worships the LHT like the Bay Area worships the Prius. If it makes you feel good about yourself, then buy one. They are not bad bikes. There are plenty of other good quality entry level tourers out there. REI. Trek 520, Rocky Mountain, and the list goes on, but not like entry level road bikes.
The new BD Motobecane would be a much better deal than the LHT if it had rack eyelets on the fork (An oversight they claim will be fixed in the next run). They are similarly speced, but the Vuelta wheels might be suspect and you need to be able to do your own set-up. Their Windsor tourer is about the same, nasty wheels, but it has the front eyelet. These both seem a better deal to me for a budget conscious buyer. Pete's on his third long tour right now on his Windsor.
I have to confess that when I was deciding on a new touring bike the LHT was on the short list, but I went old school with an 80's Specialized Expedition.
Just found this link about the Vuelta wheelset

NoGaBiker

Yeah, I've read that Carretera really cut corners with their Austral model. I'd stick with their more robust Panamericana.

benajah

It's funny, there was a time when Germany and England wanted to import American goods because WE were the cheap labor. Stuff migrates I suppose. Several manufacturers are talking about Asia becoming too expensive now and they are looking at Africa.
Its a funny world.

benajah

I am a huge Surly fan, of many of their bikes, but I do have to admit, a very large part of the appeal is the marketing and somewhat "rebel" quality to them. They are good, solid bikes and a good value for the money, but not the only good value out there. That being said, I am in the market for a Cross Check frame to suppliment my LHT and Pacer and Karate Monkey.

DukeArcher 

I'm afraid that model induces severe cases of road-boredom and wind-burn, unfortunately.

NoGaBiker

Thank you! I can't continue throwing these jokes out there day after day without some affirmation and engagement! I'm only human.

aggri1

Hi.

I've a LHT which is now a few years old; a blue one.

One thing I've not heard (read) mentioned yet is the strange tiny rack eyelets (?). Those weeny little round lugs with the threads in them for mounting racks and mud-guards. When I first got the bike I wondered about them. Then I heard about a mate of mine who snapped off one of the rear ones (on his green LHT). I wasn't surprised.

But then, it can't be a common problem, or one would hear more about it, I expect.

I have ruined two threads in the lower fork rack mounts, despite being careful. Perhaps I'm supposed to re-tap the thread to clear the paint out before I use it. Anyway, I wasn't overly impressed at having to use a helicoil (I just used a bolt and nut on one side).

I also don't understand why those daft narrow lugs are centred on the fork tube: mounting a flat plate on the side of the fork is often impossible without spacers, and plenty of racks have flat plates as the surface which you bolt to, e.g. the Tubus Duo. Even the Surly Nice Rack needs spacers to attach to the fork (I'd love to see photos if you managed without). I think spacers are daft; I'd like to not have to use them and thereby minimise the bending load on the eyelet.

Is this just how all fork mounts are done? (Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?)

Other things I notice about the LHT are the high flexibility in the frame (which I do not consider to be a bad thing in a tourer), the length of top tube, and the lack of horizontal drop-outs and a rear disk mount (to avoid having a silly torque-arm dangling off somewhere). When pedalling hard, the whole frame bends a bit. I think that this flexibility is what gives the bike its high level of comfort, but it's not what a sporty rider wants, right? And the long top tube means that I do have to stretch quite a bit, which gives me lower back pain when I ride for a long time in first gear (like in the Swiss Alps recently). But that's a personal bike-fit issue.

Oh and the tyres that came with mine were crap.

I still very much enjoy my LHT. It's a great value-for-money bike in my opinion, and it handles a big load better than any other bike I've ridden.

Cheers, A.

Neil_B

Love it! Best comment on the cult of the LHT I've read.

JeanM

Don't hate us because we chose right.

Isn't it a bit hard to see a cult where half the people build from frameset only, with other parts than Surly's choice, and half of the rest change at least a few components to suit their taste/needs?

As a quiet and understated bike, a cult of the LHT is as likely as one of the minivan. Have you found one too?

Or, is it just possible that sensible people find in the LHT one of the best compromise available for serious touring? If you read these forums, you should know that the very vast majority of those who finally chose the LHT carefully compared the pros and the cons of other bikes in the same price range like the Saga or the 520. BTW, none of my other bike are Surly's. This is the case for a vast majority of LHT owners.

If you go on the LHT & Crosscheck Google Group you'll meet, on occasion, the Saga user or the Sojourn user or another who come there for advice and get it, no questions asked, no fuss. Why do they ask Surly owners? Because most are nice, unprejudiced and knowledgeable.

So, good joke but undeserved prejudice .

spooner

Which is why I specifically asked for negative comments. Trying to get past the hype and to the real issues of the bike.

dscheidt

Remember, the lead time for importing cheap aluminum frames from China (or whatever SE Asian country they come from) is the better part of a year. So Nashbar had to decide how many to buy from their supplier in late 2008 or early 2009, when the economic situation looked pretty grim. Lots of companies order less than usual amounts of things. Sales weren't as grim as they thought they would be, and they've run out.

Just one of the problems of having a supply chain that stretches that far around the world.

that-guy

It sucks that 30 cans doesn't ride very stable on top of the front rack. Had to go with 18 today. Other than that its alright.

John Coloccia

My wife just got hers. My only real gripe is that the stock brakes Surly tosses on there are garbage on this bike. I know that 50 people will chime in and say those brakes are great, but on this bike in this configuration it is an extremely poor choice and a waste of money. She has to get on the drops to squeeze hard enough to slow down going down a modest hill. *I* have to get on the drops to slow down going down a decent hill. I'm a bit annoyed that I have to buy brakes twice.

TomT74

All LHTs are pikes of cr@p. They suck canal water. It's hopeless to own one. You will never, ever really like it. It is the worst abomination ever foisted on the bicycle-riding public. It reeks, it has bad manners, it is incorrigible, unforgiving, ugly, and an insult to all 5 senses.

You must rid yourselves of the curse forthwith. It's easy to do. My shipping address is...........