So I would like to purchase a new bike. With direction from my LBS they have steered me in the direction of looking at touring frames. It's not that I currently do any touring, or plan on doing any significant touring in the near future, but they think that due to my stature (6' 360lbs) it is the most appropriate style of road frame for myself at present. I tend to agree.

So I've started looking around and I really like the LHT. It seems that's the #1 frame people recommend for touring. However, since the LHT is nearly unanimously recommended, I'm having trouble determining what other frames are available. I would hate to simply choose the LHT without even looking at others. I know there's a Trek 520 available but they don't seem to offer just the frame so I will probably not consider that. I will be extensively customizing the bike to my preferences, so I would like to just buy a frame.

As far as customization goes I'll probably end up going with a 10 speed setup, road triple crank (replace the granny with the smallest chainring I can find, 26t I believe) and a mountain cassette (probably 11-34), with STI's. Haven't decided on 26" vs 700C yet. I know 26" is more common world-wide, but honestly I don't really plan on doing much world-wide touring. I suppose if I ever reach that point in my cycling, I would simply purchase a new bike specifically for that. 700C seems much more common here in the states and Europe (which, if I were to tour, I would choose Europe; thinking possibly a week tour of The Netherlands in 2 years). I think I would prefer 700C.

Another feature I haven't decided on yet are Disc brakes; I used to just dismiss them but I've recently begun cycling in all sorts of inclement weather and it's becoming increasingly obvious that the worse the conditions are, the worse my V-brakes perform. Disc can possibly alleviate that but I don't know if they're worth the increased complexity.


So... what are the popular touring frames that are available, and which ones have which features?

Thanks!

Thorn club tour (700c)
van Nicholas.
Terry Dolan( probably the best builder in the world. )
spa cycles have a new ti frame at a very good price.
my dream bike would be Paul villiers tourist frameset. class .
btw all these are English but i do live this side of the pond Ireland.
hope you get what your looking for choose carefully and good luck.

If you want just the frame, your options may be limited. I bought the Nashbar Double-Butted Aluminum Touring Frame for 1/4th the price of a LHT. Love it! The Soma Saga and Salsa Vaya are available frame-only. Co-motion also sells frames, but they cost more than most complete touring bikes. Most of the other popular choices are available only as complete bikes (Trek 520, Fuji Touring, Novara Safari, Jamis Aurora, etc). You might check the sticky post by Tentacle Master at the top of this forum for more ideas...

Personally, I wouldn't rule out a bike with 26" wheels. If you think toe overlap is a problem on a road bike with 700x25 tires, wait until you upgrade to 700x35 then add fenders! My next touring bike will have 26" tires, if only to avoid toe overlap issues.

sstorkel gives excellent advice there , i also would recommend 26 wheels i bought the thorn sherpa as frame plus fork and built it up ,i now have a bike that will tour any part of the world in a snap .pity about the pilot though.lol.

I have a few that I touring frames that I like, since you didn't mention price range, here you go

1. Bruce Gordon Rock n Roll
2. Waterford
3 Gunnar Grand Tour (made by Waterford)
4. Bruce Gordon BLT (Taiwanese spec of Rock n Roll)

One of the stickies has a nice list of touring bikes available.

im building a LHT right now. im 300lbs and went with 26 inch wheels, the way i see it is mountain bikes have 26 inch wheels with a 135 rear and its going to be a whole lot easier finding a sturdy 26 inch wheel in a pinch on a loaded tour than finding a 700c that is built strong.

I am one of these guys that used to have a major weightproblem. I am 6’2”, formerly 345 lbs, now 255 lbs. I have been riding for over40 yrs. and touring for over 20. 26” wheels may be available with tractortires, but I prefer 700c in fairly wide sizes. I ride 700x37c on several of mybikes and use 135mm rear hubs. In the “good old days” people of our weight went to wheel builders whobuilt tandem wheels. The depth of the available rims wasn’t that great (Superchampion 58s) and they could really only be controlled with 48 spoke. Now rimshave greater section depth (the Velocity Dyad is one I like), consequently greater stiffness, and can be controlledwith fewer spokes, although I still stick with 40 myself, even now. Yourgearing is fine. I use mtb cranks with 20-32-42 rings, although 22-32-44 wouldwork fine too. I prefer steel for frames, partially because I have built a fewframes myself and I still have a torch and have been known to burn paint andmodify a frame. Over the years I have had reasonable luck with rim brakes, butthe last bike I built up I got a Salsa Vaya frame and built it up with BB7disks. When I finally figured out how to set them up properly, they work great.So with your weight, and anticipated use in adverse weather, you might considergoing with the disks. Several frames are available with disks, the Vaya and anew version of the LHT among them.

If you're looking for frames you don't find everywhere, there's the Marinoni Turismo (they sell the frame) https://www.marinoni.qc.ca/html/Turismo.html Intec Trekking T6 (also T7 step-thru) https://www.bike-x-perts.com/en/produ...ucts_id/461663 and I think Civia also sells a variety of frames.

Wait a minute, can we name them all? Surly, Salsa, Soma, Civia, Nashbar (also random ones on their website)...?

Wait, there's also the Polyvalent MKII frameset at Velo Orange. But, it has a threaded headset. It also has 650b wheels. Some people say 650b wheels which is between 26 inch and 700c is the best of both worlds. But, finding tires and tubes for these might be an adventure.

Also, I beleive I saw a few sites that had wheels with 26 inch Sun Rhynolite rims and Shimano Deore LX hubs. Only thing is, some people recommend to have machine-built wheels rebuilt. I don't know if loosening all the nipples and re-tightening them to the correct tension would be the solution.

There are also a bunch of random frames at Chainreactioncyles.

At that weight I'd say broken spokes are a worry. 26" wheels are a little stronger than 700, aren't they? However, lots of people (me included) choose a 36-spoke wheel for more strength. Are there 36-spoke wheels available in 26"? I don't know. As far as discs go, I built my first bike this summer with discs. I was surprised to find out that the wheels had more dishing to make room for the discs. More dishing equals weaker spokes; that's why you always break spokes on the drive side in back. My discs worked great, especially in the rain and I didn't break any spokes, but I weigh 195.

Are you aware that building a bike up from a frame is a lot more expensive than buying a complete? It's what I usually do and I enjoy it for several reasons, but I pay a price.

mithrandir, If you haven't built a bike from scratch before, start off with a complete bike and change it to suit you.

Brad

36 hole wheels are a dime a dozen. And if you bought a Nashbar frameset (from Nashbar), Handspun wheels with Velocity Dyad rims and Shimano Deore LX hubs (from lots of places like niagaracycle) and a Shimano M590 trekking V-brake groupset (from bike24), it would cost you what? Maybe $720 with shipping in Canada. The cost might cost you $300 to $400 or more depending on what you want. I saw a Trek 520 in a store in Canada for $1700.

Fact is, I think if he knows enough about bikes he already knows you can customize a bike way better if it's built from the ground up. I calculated once I could spend $800 to customize a $400 bike and it would be a waste in a way because I wouldn't use the wheels, crankset etc. So, in the end, I'd get exactly what I want with a custom build instead of putting parts aside and trying to find a way to sell them.

Personally, I think that rear spokes break due to the higher tension they're under. You can keep spoke tension more even if your dished wheel uses a rim with off-center drilling. I used Velocity's Synergy O/C rim for my rear wheel and disc brake-equipped front wheel and was very pleased with the results. Spoke tension was far more even across both sides of the wheel than I've come to expect from a dished wheel...

That said, none of my mountain bikes use off-center rims, they all have disc brakes, and I've never had wheel problems. Kinda surprising given some of the stupid stuff I did while learning how to ride off-road!

Nashbar touring frame 60cm (I'm 6'3" 240 give or take a few). NAshbar Carbon fiber cyclocross fork with disc brake tabs. (a cx fork is beefier by design for the stresses that CX would put on a bike, this makes a great carbon fork for a heavier rider.) Avid BB7 front brake, v brake rear. I loved this bike and apparently someone in my bldg did too because it got stolen!

nashbar is always having deals, right now they have a buyy 5 items get 20% off your order sale. The frame sells for $100, the fork usually $120, but 3 more items and you will get that frame and fork for $180. This frame is plenty strong and, don't let people fool you into thinking aluminum won't be able to handle it. Its also 132.5mm in the rear so you can easily use road or MTB hubs. PM if you would like and I can give you all the details of the build but the bike you see pictured was built complete from scratch for about $1000 and that includes gettting the rear Mavic A719 36hole rear wheel handbuilt.

The bb7 brake comes in a road model so if you want drop bars, you can do it. Honestly, another great option is to buy the Nashbar steel touring frame(i have that now to replace the stolen bike) but also get the toruing frame and cx fork and swap parts. Not everything will swap over because the steel touring bike is 1" headset and quill stem but most everything will. The steel frame bike comes with 105 components and at sale prices I paid $550 for it so it was a steal. I don't like the Nashbar steel bike that much, for whatever reason, it's just flat out slow. It may just be the heavy wheels and tires so i'm going to swap them out but it just doesn't ride nearly as good as my custom built ride.