Which bike?! road bike and touring

ijc1g09

Hi,

I've got a budget of around £1000 to buy a road bike (would be nice to save a bit but if I find the right bike wouldn't mind spending a bit more either) that I can use for my main source of fitness (I can no longer run) so to take out every day for a couple of hours, and then at the weekends go on long distance rides and join my uni's road cycling club.

The trouble is I also want to do some touring every now and then for example round Ireland so it would be nice if the frame could stick having a couple of panniers on the back, attached to the seat post if it doesn't have fitting points. This would be for a couple of days and I would pack light. I've been told to stay away from carbon not only because my budget will only get me a low grade carbon frame but also because it wouldn't be strong enough so I should stick to aluminium or steel (steel seems out of my price range starting at £2000?).

Someone recommended the Cannondale CAAD 10 at £1400 but another shop owner said due to it being purely for road biking the handling would be completely skewed by a pannier. Does anyone have any recommendations? As you can probably tell I'm new to road biking and don't want to make an expensive mistake and want to choose something that will hopefully last me years and that I can have lots of fun on! Thanks!

rolf_f

£980 for a Dawes Super Galaxy from Spa Cycles - http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m1b1s21p0

Proper steel touring bike - the Galaxy has been a classic touring choice for decades. Talk to Spa whatever as they really do know tourers. If you can go up to £1500 or so, you might be able to run to one of Spa cycles own titanium touring bikes. They are rather nice.

The Caad 10 seems a slightly bizarre suggestion......

CarlosDSanchez

Ribble winter trainer (or Dolan Preffiso) racing geometry with mounting points for mud guards and a rack. You could get one pretty well spec'd for £1k.

iPete

Oh Hai!

CAAD 10 was probably suggested because its not carbon.

The Allez did a great job of getting me 1,400 miles to Rome @ 80+ miles a day. The only thing I'd have changed is the range of the rear cassette for lower gears. The best bit is that I'm still using it as a roadie. Didn't need to buy and sell a tourer.

g00se

Try looking at an Audax bike - half way between a road bike and a tourer. Check out the various CK7 models: http://www.chickencycles.co.uk/index.php?cat=1&sub=119

Monty Dog

Agree that the Ribble / Dolan / Tifosi / Kinesis all make models eminently suitable to this task - you can also get pannier racks (e.g. Tubus) that don't need frame mounts. It really depends on where your priorities lie and what compromises you're prepared to make. Most touring bikes are designed for durability (heavier) and stability under load so you might find them a bit sluggish if you fancy doing some fast road work.

unixnerd

I have an Edinburgh Country tourer and it's been great over the last ten years. I use it as a training bike when I'm in Aberdeen for half the week and it's not slow - until I compare it to my Cannondale CAAD5 road bike that is!

The CAAD5 accelerates a lot quicker because I've put much lighter wheels on it and it's not carrying my work clothes in a pannier. But the tourer has mudguards and I'll use it in all weathers, the road bike only comes out when it's dry.

The problem with my tourer (until I modified it) and the Dawes is that they have big strong wheels and something like 32mm tyres to allow the bike to take heavy loads over rough roads. They will make the bike feel sluggish. For light touring 25 or 28mm tyres are fine, so are lighter wheels.

I'd look at the Ribble winter trainer or something like that, what used to be called an Audax bike.

MichaelW

For occasional light touring, an Audax or winter trainer style is good.
Make sure you have rear pannier eyelets, there is no point buying a bike for touring without them.

Long drop calliper brakes have clearance for 28mm tyres + mudguards , which is enough for light touring, winter training, commuting and you can switch to thinner tyres for fast training.
Touring style cantilever brakes give you more tyre clearance but are a PITA to adjust and never quite have the bite and control of callipers, esp with Shimano STI levers.

Pick your chainset size with care.

ijc1g09

Thanks all for your replies, chose to post this at the wrong time to reply properly to all as I was mainly procrastinating from writing my dissertation as the idea of buying a road bike which I've been trying to do for ages is much more exciting! So anymore suggestions will be greatly appreciated although the ones suggested are food for thought and I will look into them properly when I've finished so thanks again.

thegibdog

MichaelW wrote:

For occasional light touring, an Audax or winter trainer style is good.
Make sure you have rear pannier eyelets, there is no point buying a bike for touring without them.

If it's only for occasional light touring then I don't think you necessarily need pannier eyelets,as iPete's picture above shows. Obviously they're good to have but I don't think they're worth restricting your bike choice for.

I was looking for something along similar lines and went for the Genesis Equilibrium which doesn't have pannier mounts but suited my needs in every other way.

andrewjoseph

just be aware that seat post mounts have a weight limit and are not suitable for carbon seat posts. This may not be an issue depending on what you are carrying and what seat post you get.

Also be aware that the weight of the bag/s you attach to seat post rack will count towards total weight. So a rack with e.g. 15 lb limit and bag and panniers weighing 5lb will only take an additional 10lb of load.

Most frame mounted racks will take something like 25kg. i have tubus racks on our touring bikes and take about 10kg on my bike.