Yo appreciate this reply! Given the lack of off the shelf road/touring bikes with long stays (no one but Riv essentially) I’m very curious about how they ride.
I’ve had the same experience regarding over weighted fork (pics below). Even with low trail you need to adjust to the handling. It’s a less than optimal setup in my experience. A balanced/centralized load is the way to go!
Get get a framebag and move the water bottles elsewhere if needed. I prefer a wedgie shape framie with a seat tube bottle if space allows. I find it’s the easier bottle to reach and less chance of leg rub when you inevitably over-stuff the bag haha. Fork bags for light things like sleeping mats, bags and puffer are good too.
If you can get away going rack-less then that’s the way to go, however I’ve had good luck lately running a lightweight rear rack and small (8L) panniers on bikes that have a dropper post. Below is a light(ish) touring setup I used recently. 1 month/2000 km trip in Tasmania/luruwita, AU. Yes it’s a hardtail but I was mostly riding gravel roads (stopping to unload and ride park/trail every week or so). First time I’ve had a setup that I would 100% run again.
This! Bikes with already slack STA’s can become very difficult to fit for long legged folks. I’m 183cm (6’-0") with a 90cm (35") inseam and find a STA’s around 74deg works best at the moment. And I’d be curious to try steeper if anything!
There needs to be a bike touring report thread somewhere here. That trip sounds amazing and I need details!
This thread is actually rather timely as I’ve been thinking about doing some touring with the missus. For me the bike design bifurcation at the “paved” vs “off-road” split is huge, and most gravel bikes I’d put into the paved category. Knowing what I want to do will drive this choice. I think I’ll try to plan an exemplar route that would be the ideal tour and then design something accordingly.
I found this video inspiring to think about what I want to ride. The two cyclists in this video stitched their route together from graveltracks and MTB trails.
The route network that was developed which this video is a promotion for https://www.arcticbycycle.com/ contains gravel tracks which lean more in the road + hardpack direction but also graded MTB tracks and I imagined myself going somewhere between hardpack and MTB Blue with maybe a small bit of Red.
Easy. Pretty much followed the Tassie Gift Route but added in about a weeks worth of trail riding in Hobart (Mt. Wellington, Meehan, Glenorchy), (Blue) Derby and Zeehan (Silver City). Map below (showing a few camps, not all) and some pics on Instagram if you scroll back a bit. AssNats was down there this year hence the lack of gears. 36,000 m vert total. Probably not the best time of year to do it though. Frozen water bottles, etc. Keen to hear what ya got cooking!
Couldn’t agree more. The people marketing gravel have really targeted the roadie end of the market and what we’ve mostly ended up with so far are fat tyre road bikes. I think adventure bikes / ATB is an interesting term for the small number of bikes that sit outside of that while still not being full on MTB’s. I felt like I overbiked a lot on my hardtail but I don’t regret it one bit as I was also able to ride Enduro World Cup level trail on the same bike. Although I guess I was under-biking that on a 130 forked hardtail. Any touring bike is a going to be a compromise in one way or another so you just have to decide which way to lean.
Just watched the video. Beautiful country up there for riding! Personally I couldn’t imagine covering that sort of terrain on drop bars any more. Rarely am I going fast enough while touring to need the aero gains you get from running drops and flat bars offer so much more control when it gets rough. Also you’ll see with the style of seat-pack they’re using, the larger/over-packed one was bouncing all over the place at times. Those kinda of bags can be difficult to pack correctly, especially if being opened and closed many times a day.
For me drop-bar is actually more comfortable than flat-bar, aero gains appreciated though for the strong headwinds in scandinavia. (mucking around here is quite interesting: https://www.gribble.org/cycling/power_v_speed.html)
I wonder where do you put your tent in your balanced setup? More often than not, mine is dripping wet in the morning and putting it on top of the rear rack doesn’t get anything else wet.
Tent goes is the framebag. With a 2L water bladder, tools and spares. Heavy stuff and nothing that can’t get a little wet if the tent it still damp. Front handlebar bag has my rain jacket, and snacks. On the fork are sleeping mat and bag and merino thermal layers. Light stuff so doesn’t affect handling. Rear panniers are the rest of my food, change of clothes, etc.
So, if I make the seat angle steeper (bigger number right?) I would need to move the saddle further back on the rails. From my last fit, Saddle nose behind BB should be 58mm with a 275mm saddle. Which puts the middle of the saddle aproximately ~195.5mm behind the BB. However the “seating position” on the saddle seems to vary a bit from model to model.
More bits and bobs:
BB: Thinking about going T47IB as I want to route everything inside the frame and having cabeling exit the frame just before the BB and then reenter the chainstays seems… messy? But it seems the availability of BBs for Hollowtech2 is a bit limited/very expensive. For the rear brake hose I don’t mind routing outside past the BB but rear light and Di2 cabeling I’d like to route through. Since I have to go into the seat-stay for the di2 battery anyway.
Tubing: Current ride has Reynolds 725 tubing, If I remember correctly the higher numbers add tensile strength but don’t change the stiffness so going to higher numbers allows for a more flexible frame by allowing thinner tubing.
Mountpoints: I thought about adding mounting points for a frame bag but with steel I guess it doesn’t matter if the frame get’s a bit scuffed up. But Bags without straps look a bit neater and are probably less wobbly. Definitly thinking about some kind of mount where I can put my U-lock for the day to day stuff.
I looked for european based framebuilders, but don’t know if it is rude discussing who I am considering. However no choice has been made and I’m open to suggestions if someone can recommend themsleves/someone
I always use set back set posts. That way you can run the seat tube centerline right up throught the centre of the saddle and then have the clamp behind the center of the seat rail. This does two things for me. Aesthetically I can not stand a saddle that is not centered on the seat tube. It looks horrible. Second, the rails fair better when the clamp is behind rail center. Weight distribution on the saddle is rearward biased and having the clamp too far foreward means the rails are more prone to failure over time.
So using a set back seat post means the bikes I build naturally have a slightly steeper seat angle…
Wheels MFG do nice T47 BB’s with replaceable bearings. Expensive to buy up front but very cheap ongoing costs. For a touring bike I’d keep everything external in case you need to do a service when ya on the road. Last thing I’d want is to have to find a BB tool to change a wire mid tour. But then again I wouldn’t run Di2 on a touring bike
I also wouldn’t bother worrying too much about tubing spec until you have a builder. At the end of the day it will be up to them as they’re the ones who will need guarantee the structural integrity of your frame.
U-lock in the frambag makes a lot of sense. Bolt on frame bags work but I like strap on ones for ease of on/off, roll-top too if possible. As far as paint goes I just accept the fact a steel touring bike is gonna look beat to shit and probably need a new paint job every 5 or so years.
Don’t know many EU builders (hopefully someone here can chime in) but maybe have a scroll through the Concours de Machines and see if anyone has a style that strikes you. This year I really liked the below bikes from Roubam and Baptiste (pics stolen from Bikepacking.com). Cheers!
In Germany I would go with Gebla (near Würzburg). The guy has a mech engineering degree, welds bikes for a while and has a hint of perfectionism which would be a must have characteristic for someone welding up my frame. And prices are reasonable as well.
For wider Europe Suba (Spain) is worth mentioning. Prices are even more reasonable.
Some more research into tire sizes: So for this article from the cyclingabout comfort lab, 43mm and 50mm Tires were tested on the amount of vibration that reaches the frame at two points. The (suprising) result of this was as such:
After conducting these tests, I thought about the science behind why the wider tires might have been less comfortable.
It turns out a bigger tire requires a lower pressure to achieve the same tire casing tension (Laplace’s law states that the casing tension = internal pressure x tire’s radius). So when you use the same pressure between the 43mm and 50mm tires, the latter isn’t as eager to flex and absorb bumps.
In another article there is discussion about a sweet spot in tire width as the lower pressure that is “required” in wider tires will at some point start to influence handling negatively.
So the ‘U-curve’ of comfort and probably rolling resistance apparently has a minimum in tire size as well. This article states in the summary that a 60mm(2.4")/650B tire would need around ~18 Psi to achieve the same casing tension as a 42mm/700C tire at 25 Psi.
Just wondering how niche the use of something as 2.4" Tires on a monstercross actually is. At some point the general usefulness of wider tires surly comes to a limit before suspension becomes necessary. Unless underbiking is the goal? Hmm…
…totally depends on the terrain. If you don’t have a suspension fork or even a full suspension bike and ride off-road wider is almost always faster. Dylan Johnson (he talks about why he does that on his YouTube channel) and some other nerdy gravel racers race gravel races on 2.2 or 2.4 tires because those tires allow low pressures and therefore roll faster in this terrain (your bike rolls over obstacles, not bouncing off of them). But on the road it’s a totally different story. I think my conclusion from above holds: “…get a tire that is just wide enough to give you the bottom out protection you need for the tire pressure that is ideal for your terrain.”
Personally I ride 32mm rear and 30mm front on pavement when I want to be fast (with a rim on the front that match those tires aerodynamically). If I didn’t care that much about speed I would probably ride 32 front and rear on pavement (with and without touring luggage). If the vast majority of the terrain on a tour is off-road I use the widest tire that fits (50mm read and 2.4 front). If it’s a mix between off road and pavement then it’s a trade off…
What’s the general consensus for going with two wheelsets in 28" 32-38mm / 27.5" 47-55mm for versatility anyway?
Maybe I’m overthinking it? For Standover 27.5" is definitely nicer and selecting a rim that can run anything from 32mm to 55mm should be possible too.
I’ve tried this in the past and quickly realised I’d rather two bikes than one bike I swap wheels on. Between brake rotors and gears it’s never as quick as you think. Same logic applies for me with rigid/suss forks too.
Tire Choice: Since so much of the experience seems to be connected to tire choice, I think I can safely set the design goal of running 2.25"/27.5" tires. 2.25" Seems to open up options to a huge range of MTB tires.
Without the need to run dual wheelsets, i25 rims will work work from 32mm to 2.25" according to most manufacturers.
Chainstay length: From all the researching, longer chainstays seem to offer a lot of benefits for my application. Added stability for long days in the saddle, less impact on handling from the rear load, comfortable seated climbing. Clearance for 1x40T chainring. 445mm is the length of choice.
Head angle: slackened to 70.5° gives toe clearance for 2.25", and probably clears something smaller with fenders. With a 70mm stem this shouldn’t slow steering too much and still give stability for long days at ~71mm trail.
BB drop: BB height of 270mm for all terrain (with 165mm cranks) as recommended, gives a significant drop. Maybe going to 74mm is a bit safer, not sure if 5 or 10mm makes a difference for riding.
Paint: Chromacoat looks pretty nice but gives off a certain show-bike vibe. Also I like to be-sticker the frame. Could make for an interesting contrast though…
Bags: Yes, OK, I’ll try framebags already, jeez I think I’ll go for a half-frame-bag and some fork-bags with a drybag on the rear rack to keep costs down for a first try.
Ok so front/rear balance, what do I need to look out for? Going through my bulk compare list, most bikes I considered are around 1.4 to 1.5 in Front-center to Rear-center ratio. The one above lands at 1.43.
For me, the front-rear ratio is a metric to compare between two designs, not a number to aim for. I also think it is more applicable to mountain biking because you are pushing the limits of traction and doing wheel lifts all the time.
Overall proportions of the bike look great. The spacers under the stem are critical in this design, otherwise you start to get standover issues and the bike looks real goofy.
The rear end looks great to me. Meriwether has a well-received bike with 80mm bb drop and 29x2.1 tires.
For the front end, the toe overlap concerns me a bit. What fork and fork offset are you using?
And prices are reasonable as well.
