New Touring bike (not released yet)
 

Just when I had decided on a LHT I find out that Trek is going to release a new touring bike in January. It's the Trek 920. (it's not on their site yet) The dealer showed it to me on his website. I don't have all the details yet but do know it has an aluminum frame and looks rugged. The retail price is $1900.

Well if you know you want a steel touring bike, there is no reason to wait. If you don't want a steel touring bike, why are you thinking of buying the LHT?

Here is some info on the 920, http://www.bikerumor.com/2014/08/04/...-bikes-coming/

http://www.bikeradar.com/us/mtb/news...-part-i-42029/

Looks interesting aluminum 29er, 10-speed (11-36), double chain-ring (42-28), tubeless. We'll see :)

Looks like a 29er based touring bike with drop bars and fat tires:

http://cdn.mos.bikeradar.com/images/...ad-960-540.jpg

Too cool - actually - the Trek 920 is a versatile beast of burden. :thumb:

Another look at this new Trek touring bike is here:

http://www.buckinghambikes.com/media...set_250035.jpg


I'm falling in love - somehow Trek has managed to mate the best of the 29er and traditional touring bike into a do anything, go anywhere adventure bike. :love:

The disc brakes and double racks convey impressive utility and the fat tires just beg to be ridden only limited by your imagination.

Now you have more than the classic Trek 520 to hit the roads with when the touring bug calls you far and yonder.

you might also be interested in the Specialized AWOL x POLER, but both of those bikes are way more expensive than the LHT and seem to serve a pretty different purpose.

Not sure of the attraction of aluminum for a touring bike.

I have an alloy commuter bike and its tough and robust. Not a 29er... its built more along traditional touring bike specs and can't take fat tires.

If I had a quibble with the new Trek 920 I'd switch out the knobbies for fast rolling Schwalbe Big Ben tires which are more at home on it.

This is Specialized's answer to the new Trek 920:

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/021...g?v=1409929912

Both seem to aim at a similar market but Specialized's version has a decidedly more traditional aesthetic, to those care about it. :thumb:

It reminds me of the Salsa Fargo, and looks to be similarly versatile.

The Salsa Fargo is built on the 26" MTB platform. The new Trek 920 and Specialized AWOL X Pooler are built on the 29er platform.

The Salsa Fargo has been out for a while; it's a 29er:

Fargo | Bikes | Salsa Cycles

Neither Specialized nor Trek is pioneering anything particularly new with these bikes.

I'm hoping bikes direct copies this idea, :)

Looks like they moved it over to the 29er platform which is a good choice and now they offer suspension models, too. A drop bar MTB first created a lot of startled looks when it came out but now its mainstream.

It's always been 29er.

aluminum works fine, not an issue.

I guess there are different models of this thing, some with doubles, some with triples, some with fairly small spoke count wheels, hopefully some with more (at least 32)

all that said, neat to see some other bikes that will work well for reasonable loads and can also put on fatter tires for goofing around on trails and gravel.

Trek warrantees the frame - Original owners' lifetime. why worry?

Bar end shifters...no thanks.

That's excatly what the owner of the bike shop told me. If they are confident enough to warranty it for life it must be built strong.

While were on the subject, Has anyone here ever had an alum/alloy frame break or crack?

Not my own bike but I've seen a Trek 7.3 (7.Something at least) with a catastrophic frame failure at the bottom bracket. It was fixed under warranty to the owner who sold it shortly thereafter.

Even seeing that, an aluminium frame wouldn't put me off any more than any other material since frame failures are still rare.

not a welded one , just a 80's Italian 'screwed and glued' AlAn .. (just small cracks , i stopped using it and went to a steel replacement..)

Guarantees are nice to have, a bike that doesn't break in the first place is a lot better. I'm not worried about Al, but the guarantee isn't the reason why. In fact marketing stuff that breaks, but has a guarantee can e a good strategy. If only a tiny portion of the users are in the class that will break it, it comes out ahead. If the return rate is too high, not a good strategy.

I like the look of the front rack well enough, but I don't see the upside to it being forward like that, if anything I prefer a rack that is towards the rear of the wheel. A lot less fussy to load.

I've been looking at what pictures are available. some show two crank gears and some show three. Also the picture on my background show the shifters up in the brake levers. (I'm not sure that would be good for a long range touring bike) I'd have to know a lot more before I shell out that much money, however I do have to admit .... I want one. :lol:

457

This was my Cannondale T1000 in 2001 and I was riding a trip around Australia. When I got close to Broome, I noticed a bunch of stress cracks in my rear rim. Thinking "better safe than sorry", I decided to replace the rear wheel. Broome is pretty far from anywhere and the local shop there had the wheel built in Perth and then sent up by truck. I was there when the bike shop installed the wheel, but was taking apart my old wheel to send the hub home. What I didn't realize was that the hub width was too wide (MB width instead of touring bike width).

The bike shop forced open the frame to install the wheel. That both stressed the frame and placed the wheel closer to the left chainstay where sand and grit could get thrown along. I didn't notice it, but ~2000 km later I discovered the crack above that went ~75% around the chainstay tube. I was still 360km from the nearest town with bike shop, so put duct tape on the tube and cycled from there. The duct tape held and I made it to Geraldton where the bike shop looked at the frame and diagnosed the cause.

Looked through my options and decided best one was to fly back to SFO and pick up a replacement Cannondale T1000 bike that I had. Took the bus to Perth, plane to SFO, picked up the bike after staying five days, flew back to Perth [not long before 9/11 and the Australia Ansett airlines bankruptcy would have otherwise interrupted plans], cycled back to Geraldton and continued my cycle trip.

With that said, I would still cycle tour including remote bits of Australia on bike with AL frame - as don't think circumstances of failure were that usual.

Just a complete copy of the Salsa Fargo, which has been out since 2009 (I have the original first gen). Only Trek did it in Aluminum. I see only 2 water bottle mounts in the triangle and can't see mounts on the bottom of the down tube. No bottle mounts on the front fork either. For the price, I'd go with the Salsa Fargo or the Surly Ogre/Troll. QBP has been perfecting this genre of bikes for 6 years, the Trek just is a me-too