thorn touring bike

david12656

going to buy a new touring bike either a thorn club tour or a sherpa.cant make my mind up about 26 inch wheels anyone got a sherpa if so what do you think about it

Cunobelin

Not quite the answer you want, but.................

I have recently bought a Thorn Raven Tour for my wife and Nomad for myself.

The wheels are part of the package, and accepted as such. Tio be quite honest if you get the gearing right you will not notice a difference, and the aded tougness shows in reliability rather than in the performance or the ride.

Thorn are well set up bikes, it is worth visiting and trying out as they are suportive and the advice is good.

alfablue

There is some logic to selecting 26 inch wheels if touring overseas as (apparently) replacement 700c tyres or wheels are unavailable in many places.

JoeLonghair

Well I got a Thorn Club Tour and I can not go on about how good the bike is. Fully loaded its a dream and empty aswell. I did alot of research before I bought it and its a bike for life really. Very comfortable to ride and it feels and is solid. The company SJS are very friendly, helpful and teched up to their eyeballs with knowledge of cycles. When I had a problem with my mavic open pros cracking up after doing 1000 miles, they simply said I should not have had these rims if I was going touring fully loaded. When I explaind I asked for a cycle I could ride to China and back fully loaded, there was no chit chat about it, they simply asked me to parcel back the 2 mavics and week later I had sun touring rims. As I said I can not go on enough about how good the bike and the company are.Rarely do you get the two combination right. 8)

ANTHONY KELLY

i bought the sherpa frameset,,class frame.i also got sjs to build me the wheels,sun rhyno on xt hubs,schwalbe marathon plus tyres great wheels.sjs are brilliant to deal with they will answer any query you have ,i cant sing there prases highly enough.
i got the gun metal colour( cool) best of luck .

culverwood

They are not the prettiest bikes in the world though, are they?

Cunobelin

I didn't want "pretty" - I wanted strong, robust, stable and indestructible!

jibi

I ride the Thorn Raven Catalyst, pretty it ain't. but sure is robust.

The geometry suits me perfectly


george

Cunobelin

jibi wrote:

I ride the Thorn Raven Catalyst, pretty it ain't. but sure is robust.

The geometry suits me perfectly


george

I looked at that one, and the new Sterling.

Decided on the longer chain stays and greater weight capacity of the Nomad though.

pneumatic

Whatever you get, big thumbs up for the Schwalbe marathon tyres. I've been on these all over Europe. Much more reliable and long lasting than anything else I've tried. I even have a "just in case" replacement pair hanging from the rafters in my garage against the day when the current pair fail. They've been up there for nearly 3 years!

daviddd

Big vote for the Thorn Raven Tour from me too - I'm hauling 25kg on 2" tyres and it's very stable - needs to be out here in Oz where you have to jump off the road occasionally onto pea gravel when road trains are around.
The bike is not that pretty but VERY functional, and oozes confidence.