What's The Best Touring Bike? And so it’s only natural that amongst the many questions I get asked about planning a cycle tour, the most frequent is “what’s the best touring bike?”Trouble is, it’s a question with no simple answer. Let’s begin by putting some context around it.

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ON SALE: Western Legends Round-Up 2017 tickets! Don't miss the events, food, fun, and performances. It's an experience of a lifetime! A complete round-up of the best touring bikes on the market in 2017, whether you're going round the block, round the country, or round the world.

Asking two basic questions will make choosing your touring bike much easier.(Now might be a good time to put the kettle on.)1. What kind of cycle tour are you actually going on?

Your ride should dictate your bike. Resist the temptation to get bogged down with bicycle choice until you’ve clarified what your priorities for cycle touring are, and what kind of trip you want to make. What different kinds of bike trip are there? Well, styles of touring vary along these axes: Fast vs slow. Lightweight vs heavyweight. On road (paved) vs off road (unpaved)Short term vs long term.

High budget vs low budget. These are the factors that will feed into your choice of touring bike. If you’re not clear on each of them, it’s time to go back to first principles and figure them out. Most tours fall somewhere in the middle.

That’s why mainstream off- the- peg touring bikes are often a good place to start, as manufacturers want to cover as broad a range of customers as they can. Later in this article we’ll look at some of these bikes, as well as budget options and more specialised .

What’s your budget? Strapped for cash? It is perfectly possible to use any old bike for touring — as long as it’s about the right size.

You will (eventually) get from A to B on the rusty heap that’s been sat in the garage for the last decade. I know, I know; this kind of rhetoric gets chucked around a lot, usually by people doing tours on absurdly expensive bikes. So here’s how I put together a complete touring bike (plus gear and luggage) for precisely ? Good quality second- hand touring bikes (or mountain/hybrid bikes adaptable for touring) can be had for a few hundred pounds. In the long term, expect to spend more time/money on maintenance and repairs than someone making the same journey on a new bicycle. Got a budget for a decent bike?

Common touring wisdom is to get the best quality bike you can afford, as it’ll pay off in the long term. Let’s have a closer look at some commercially- available bikes throughout the budget spectrum. Best Cheap Touring Bikes. If you’re just getting started there are several good- quality touring bikes, luggage enabled and ready to roll, that can be had for just a few hundred pounds.

Here are some of the most often recommended options. Adventure Flat White 2. It’s a relative newcomer to the market, but Bike. Radar. com and my bike building expert- in- residence both seem to like it. Men’s only, sadly. Revolution Country 1 (. It’s sibling, the Country 2, features disc brakes and other upgrades for just a little more.

Ridgeback Tour 2. Ridgeback bikes are widely available from UK high- street dealers, including Evans Cycles*, making it a bike you’ll easily be able to test ride. Dawes Galaxy AL 2. Similarly to the Ridgeback Tour above, it’s built on the same design principles as the rest of the range but with an aluminium frame and budget drivetrain components. Like Ridgeback’s World range, the Dawes Galaxy range is one of the most popular touring bike lines in British bike stores, including at Evans Cycles* stores nationwide.

Best Premium Touring Bikes. Most cycle tourists are not breaking records, but they do want to feel like they’ve got somewhere at the end of a day. They’ll carry the bare essentials but pack a few personal luxuries too. Roads will comprise the majority of their trip, but they might find themselves on a dirt track every now and then.

They’ll usually travel for a few weeks, make a few shorter trips closer to home, and occasionally go for a Big Ride. This broad space is the domain of the premium road touring bike. Almost all cycle tourists could conduct their travels successfully on any of the following bikes. They’re all mature, capable machines, tried and tested and with sensible price- tags, in need of nothing more than a Brooks B1. Expect to spend between . As well as all of the usual considerations, the Sutra is progressively- minded too with powerful disc brakes and plenty of scope for non- touring use.

The nimble and sporty cyclocross- inspired steel frameset is a highlight. Again, you’ll find them at Evans Cycles*, among others. Ridgeback Panorama 2. This is another steel- framed mid- range touring bike with a sensible, durable selection of components drawn from both road- and mountain- biking disciplines. Its road- influenced frameset places it well for long- term road touring. Download Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017) Movies. Read Tim & Laura’s detailed review on this blog of the Panorama after a 6,0. They’re widely available in UK bike stores, including – you’ve guessed it – Evans Cycles*.

Surly Long Haul Trucker 2. It’s a supremely versatile and well- balanced on- and off- road adventure touring bike at a price affordable to many, also available in a 2. You’re left to choose your own racks and mudguards. Distributed in the UK by Ison, any local bike shop worth its salt will be able to get you one of these. Surly Disc Trucker 2. Everything else about it is the same as the LHT — tried, true, and one of the most versatile touring bikes on the planet. Read my full review here.

More Premium Road Touring Bikes. The following models have been recommended by readers as fitting this category. Some of them are on the budget end, some straying into the top end, but I’ve listed them for the sake of completeness: A side note on top- end touring bikes.

What I’m hoping is fairly clear is that the touring bikes above are pretty much the same bike. They’re all priced within a couple of hundred pounds of each other. They all have steel frames, wide gearing, drop bars but with non- aggressive riding positions, pannier racks or at least rack mounts, hybrid drivetrains cut from the middle of Shimano’s mountain- bike and road- bike ranges, and boring saddles (because they know you’ll swap the saddle for your favourite but can’t sell a bike without one). They’re all built primarily for paved roads, but could handle a dirt track or two if need be. So which to choose is largely a matter of taste. How will you know, though?

Simple: enough with the online research — go down to your local bike shop and take a few for a test ride. You’ll soon know what’s right for you. Best Expedition Touring Bikes. I’d like to draw attention to a distinct category of what you might call . It’s by no means an industry standard term, but it’s a distinction that needs to be made.

The majority of cycle touring takes place relatively close to home, in the developed world, and for limited periods of time (a few weeks at most). But occasionally a bike will need to survive for months on end in parts of the world where Western- style parts, spares and mechanical help are simply unavailable. This is the domain of the . These bikes are usually characterised by having 2. V- brakes rather than rim brakes, etc, and having steel frames built for even heavier duty service in the long haul. They don’t necessarily cost more than a top- end touring bike, but they have a slightly different focus in mind. Does this apply to you?

Ridgeback Expedition 2. Last year Ridgeback knocked another . The best price I can find, as usual, is from Evans Cycles*. Surly Long Haul Trucker 2. Disc Trucker 2. 01. Surly have shown their versatility by producing an expedition- ready 2.

Long Haul Trucker and Disc Trucker models — near- perfect expedition bikes by all accounts. All the same praise goes here as for the 7. Again, you’ll need to add your own racks and mudguards. Thorn Sherpa (from . You’ll need to book an appointment with St John’s Street Cycles in Bridgewater to get yours specified and fitted to your needs. There are a great many more bikes available in the expedition touring bike category. I’ve compiled a massive list of them for you in a separate blog post entitled “A Massive List Of Touring Bikes For Worldwide Cycling Expeditions” (featuring 5.

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