Really interesting, thanks. As for separables, I have a long-standing lust for a Moulton but so far I have managed to resist. Eventually I shall fall, though...I always do. LOL

Admittedly your custom bike is much nicer, but the Trek is a pretty neat job too.

"Quite a bike. I imagine you can get a lot more gear on the back than you might want to haul around. How does it handle loaded?"

There isn't all that much Arvon info out there. He said somewhere that he enjoys tandems, and would drop a pal off then head out some long distance home, and was astonished how much he enjoyed riding a bike with a really long rear end, as a tandem ridden solo would have. This influenced the overlong rear stays. And he isn't the only one doing that, though he may have the longest ones.

What I like about his racks is that he actually provides enough room for the average gear. The top rear gets normally something like a tent, or sleeping bag, or foam mat. That stuff is all much longer than the racks one normally sees. The load either looks badly controlled, or even stuff like a fly I lost, may find it's way out. I like the long top platform. I don't really see it as an excuse to carry any more stuff, as with the extracyle. Just the regular rear panniers, and the normal stuff that goes on the back rack top, but properly controlled. And this option is there even on not so overlong rear ends. He provides that truss top rail system so the rack can stick out to the back as required.

As an example, the useable length of my current rear rack deck is 12". My ensolite mattress is 20". I would prefer it if the deck was that length also.

Massive D - Arvon started riding his tandems solo when his wife, (a lovely woman), was unable to ride and this inspired him to start building his first long tail touring bicycles.

He started building tandems because no-one built a tandem that he was satisfied with... he is a huge bear of a man and a powerful rider who once raced at an international level and also founded our provincial randonneuring club, and to date has ridden over 500,000 miles.

He saw the benefits of extending the stays were many in that many customers came to him looking for someone who could build a bicycle for bigger riders who tend to have much bigger feet and issues with kicking their panniers.

The long wheelbase distributes the load better and makes for a more stable bicycle and improves the performance and many of his long tails use the same oval tubing he developed for tandems to make them laterally stiff. S&S coupled models get conventional tubing.

He started building bicycles and hubs over 30 years ago and had he been in a place like California his name would be more well known and his design for custom hubs is contemporary with Phil Wood hubs. He told me the first time he saw a Phil wood hub he thought someone had copied his design and said the machining was very well done... he turns his hubs by hand and it is marvelous to watch him work.

Have seen few people run a lathe with such smoothness and precision but then, he has been doing this for nearly 60 years as his trade was that of a machinist.

Will be expanding my information on Arvon Cycles on my website as he is quite close to me... he has been my mentor and teacher for many years, partner, and most importantly... my friend.

Lots of discussion about components and external frame geometry, not much on internal frame geometry. That's OK, a lot of bike manufacturers don't understand this point either.

You might line two bikes up, a 'touring' bike and a 'hybrid', and see very little difference. What is undetectable is the thoughtfully designed touring bike's thicker wall tubing (particularly the top tube) and the heavier gage forks. These differences combat the baggage's mass in motion trying to twist the frame - frame twist does really disconcerting things to handling, and shortens frame life.

Really, it seems to me that the bike's ability to handle touring loads (along with things like gearing and wheel strength) would be the primary focus of a touring bike. Utility bikes can haul more, but they aren't designed to be ridden long distances. You *can* load up a lesser road/hybrid bike, but it will not handle nor last as long as one made for touring would. That doesn't mean you can't, but there are trade-offs.

You could use a hybrid for light touring, but for a 2-month-long tour through the countryside with a full load, they will leave something to be desired. Most of the hybrids I'm seeing now are either just thinly concealed flatbar road bikes, or IGH city bikes. I wouldn't want to tour on a lightweight road bike... but I could see doing a tour on an IGH city bike if it's of good enough quality and strength.

The Arvon is not mine... it is a demo and is also for sale but lives here so people can come and take it out for test rides as our shop is 30 miles out in the country.

The older Trek 7500 has a very similar geometry to the Trek 520 and the ZX frame and steel fork are exceptionally stiff... this is not a bike you would want to run on high psi slicks. With 700:35 tyres beneath her at 75-80 psi the ride is / was truly amazing and the bike would suck up the bumps like they were not there whether you were running light or fully loaded and I also used this bike for a lot of towing.

I was really pleased with my 7500 as an all rounder and only parted with it as I have bikes that can do what the Trek did and because a dear friend needed a really nice bike and also loved the Trek, having borrowed it on many occasions.

Conversely... my Kuwahara Cascade is equally as stiff and is not as pleasant a ride when it is unloaded unless you drop the tyre pressure down and I use it's sister as my commute and run on 26 by 1.175 tyres at 65 psi and the ride is wonderful and still rather fast.

Tyres and pressure really do more to tune up the ride than anything else and this is why most touring bikes use higher volume tyres die to the extra stiffness in the frame.

Touring as seen on the coast, here, is what people do,
with the bike they chose to start the trip upon.

all sorts of bikes have been used for touring ..
the term is getting as vague as hybrid anymore..

The short answer is no. Touring bikes tend to be road oriented bikes with relaxed angles and long chainstays for comfort. They often incorporate some MTB parts, but basic idea is a drop bar road bike. They are sometimes set up as utility bikes because the geometry suits itself well to multiple uses.

Hybrid is a very vague term that incorporates comfort bikes and a bunch of different kinds. The most commonly sold hybrids are entry level comfort bikes such as the trek 7000 series. These tend to be bikes that don't know what they are, they often have angles that promote quick steering, heavy tubing, suspension forks and seatposts, short top tubes, short chainstays, upright riding positions. Basically they try to jam two or three types of bikes into one and fail miserably at all of them. I rode one for years and could never get it comfortable. I got a real touring bike and it was a revelation in what a bike could be, much easier to ride, much more comfortable and any adjustments made it better rather than trying to make it tolerable. The term hybrid also includes flat bar road bikes and other types of bikes.

Closer to the touring bikes are all-rounder or adventure touring bikes that take the idea of touring bikes and push it a little more towards the mtb edge.

no. "hybrids" are an abomination that came out of the 80's when folks discovered that mtn. bikes really didn't have a more upright posture but they could utilize the inexpensive 26" alloy wheels to make light bikes with fatter tires than "10-speeds". The most important part is that the bars were higher than the seat. Later on they got 700c wheels and shocks. Hybrids are a 60's 3spd bike tarted up with cheap mtn drivetrain and cheap shocks.
Touring bikes are road bikes that can carry a load.

here's the first "hybrid" which has a better hand position for upright riding than the ubiquitous straight bars used in hybrids.

Your history is a little off. Hybrids were an attempt to capitalize on the mountain bike fad of the late 80s by offering a more upright bike that 'could do it all!'. Almost all of them were designed around 700C wheels to begin with which was part of the problem. You couldn't get wide 700C tires and the bikes were geared way too high for climbing off-road. It made them harder to ride especially before the advent of suspension.

There were some 26" hybrids...the Specialized Rock Combo was one...that were more 'mountain bike-like'. I owned a Rock Combo and it was a very capable mountain bike with flat bars. I swapped the drops for flats before I bought it and I'm glad I did.

Hybrids quickly morphed away from the mountain bike side of the equation, however. They were really a 'do it all bike' but rather a bike that only did part of 'it' and usually did that part poorly.

I very happily ride my "abomination" every day, and I'd be hard pressed to think of a better all-round bike. It's lighter and quicker than an MTB, livelier and more nimble than a touring bike, and far more durable and all-road capable than a road bike. Sure, I'd love to have one of each -- or at least be able to afford such a stable of steeds -- but in the real world, a drop-bar hybrid is tough to beat. It tours, it commutes, it hauls loads of groceries, it runs easy trails. It tracks straight and true, and it goes fast enough for me on the open road. A cyclocross bike, equipped with touring tires, would come close, but at much greater expense. Are touring bikes hybrids? Well, mine is.