Touring Bikes are NOT Gravel Bikes
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- Are touring bikes low trail? Are gravel bikes remarketed touring bikes? Answering questions and debunking myths and misconceptions about touring bikes.
Book a #BikeWhisperer Session: bit.ly/2PccFmu
Help support independent reviews: / pathlesspedaled
www.paypal.me/...
SUPPLE PATCHES pathlesspedale...
PATREON: / pathlesspedaled
SUPPLE SHIRTS: pathlesspedaled...
**NEW ROUTE GUIDE** www.pathlessped...
INSTAGRAM: pathlesspedaled #thesupplelife #gravelbike #biketouring #bikepacking
![FendiDa Rappa - Clock Dat ft. Shamar Marco [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3NBU8KHdxYY/mqdefault.jpg)
Great video, Russ! We're really excited to have the PLP fam using Bike Insights. Gravel bikes, in particular, are such an interesting new category of bike. We've watched them grow from an oddball offshoot of touring/cyclocross/monstercross into the #1 most-popular category on our site by a good margin.
Fun fact: bikes on our site are assigned a category manually and periodically we analyze a range of attributes to validate those choices. Lots of gray areas but some of the attributes you talk about in the vid are precisely that we use to make a final determination. It always pays to check the geometry as well as the bike company's marketing, especially when considering how these figures can change based on the size of bike!
Eli The Iceman I know the feeling. A lot of questionable purchases lead us to make this website 😂
Just came here to say the bikeinsights site is great. Been pushing it on all my bike friends.
Thanks for introducing me to this very good new site. This will help me to choose which bike to get as I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out which frame will work for me.
@@sethm.5666 Thanks Seth! We really appreciate the word of mouth.
@@VietnamEliThanks for the feedback, Eli. We think it depends on what you're trying to compare. If your primary concern is comparing size and fit (before components are added), aligning by bottom bracket is ideal. If you want to look at bottom bracket height, play with different wheel options, and eyeball standover, we like aligning by the ground.
If there's enough demand maybe we could give you the option of choosing your default setting in the bike-on-bike compare. Let us know what you think.
Is there a touring test?
I see what you did there 😂
Lmao. Nice
Haaa
People need to stop getting so caught up in “is my bike a gravel this, allroad that, touring the next thing, etc”
Just ride bikes, it’s the simplest thing.
Find a bike, go ride. Wanna go camping as well? Cool strap your bag on... wanna go racing? F*ck it! Go for it.
It's about a li'l bit better performance for each kind of bike design.
The differences are quite obvious when compared.
Yes, any bike can do everything but it is less good compared to the specific kind. Customization it is.
Just scored a LHT ( I think Surly is discontinuing) and pick it up Wednesday. I'm 51 now and I'm no longer interested in speed or smashing trails. I was looking for a do-it-all, go-anywhere, ride long and be comfortable while doing it bike. The LHT seemed to check all the boxes for me needs. Cheers - love your channel PLP.
You will love it. I am 72 and do everything from a Sprint Triathlon to local rail trails and grassy paths and trails on mine.
This is getting to be way too much. When I was a kid I had a bike my dad got for me, and I used it for everything. Now theres gravel, cx, touring, adventure, etc etc. Granted it is intersting to see the chainstay is longer, etc.
Life is about variety and nuance :)
Interesting stuff and great to know too! Thanks for your insight, this helps translate numbers I don't know much about.
Can a x bike be y bike? This reminds me of another question: Is everything art? To which, in my art school days, I used to answer, "yes-but not all art is good art."
Interesting comparison. Take a look at the Kona Sutra and Sutra LTD, it really blurs this line.
Love this Bike Whisperer format. 👌🏼
Have you thought about broadcasting some of your 45 minute sessions Russ....with the other end’s permission of course?
A great discussion. I've bookmarked Bike Insights.
Surly ruined the disc trucker with their new model, it's basically just another damn gravel bike, i'm so sick of these companies chasing these fads.
Personally I don't have the means or justification to have another bike in my garage. No doubt, a gravel bike would be a better choice in some instances. However, I ride on gravel all the time with my trucker. It all depends on how well packed the road is. For rough roads and single track I grab my mountain bike.
Around here the comparison is between cyclo-cross bikes and gravel bikes. Some years ago we had a CX boom (before the fat bike boom which is almost over now). People bought cyclo-cross bikes for commuting and all-road cycling because there wasn't a better all-rounder option available. I believe over 99.99% of those cyclo-cross bikes have never been in a cyclo-cross race as we have hardly any CX races... I think gravel bikes could be defined as cyclo-cross bikes that are optimized for everything other than racing CX.
Thanks for these videos , I have been confused by the geometry measurements of bikes but content like yours is helping me become a more informed bike shopper. As a person with a really tall PBH I find bikes often feel really unstable for me and I feel very perched atop them so I am hoping to pick up a tourer with a low BB height / large BB drop number to sink me down into the bike more and then use this for all types of riding. Ive found putting a smaller wheel size like a 26 into a 27.5 frame really helps this too although pedal strike can become an issue depending where you ride. Its funny that the longest wheelbase bike I have , a hardtail is in fact the most maneuverable by far even though it is much longer by 10cm than the other bikes but its chainstays are very short so I reckon shorter chainstays influence handling way more than wheelbase lenght.
I suspect that the long chainstays on a touring bike are actually to bring the rear wheel further out so that the panniers can be mounted more in front of the rear wheel to ensure stability, but still give enough heel clearance. It's certainly possible to mount panniers on a road bike with short chainstays behind the rear wheel to give adequate heel clearance but this will make the bike unstable.
My trucker with the schwalbe marathon mondials can handle pretty much any gravel or trail.
Mondials are very slow
@@jpangmar Since when do you race a touring bike?
@@phxrsx not race but save energy and make the bike more fun, the Marathon Mondials sucks the life out of you if you run lower pressures and is hard as a rock if you run it with high pressure,it might be very durable and bullet proof but in my experience is too slow and hard.
I use my LHT for touring as well as gravel road riding
Same
Can we download the flavor wheel somewhere?
Take a screenshot.
Love the nerdy format! I have a touring bike and a gravel bike in my living room as I write, and I agree that they're not the same. But they're not opposites, either. If you put all bikes on a spectrum, with fully suspended mountain bikes on one end, and crazy lightweight racing road bikes on the other end, both gravel and touring bikes would fall pretty close to dead center. (They're both the bicycling equivalent of cross-country skiing, with gravel biking being more akin to telemarking, and touring bikes more akin to, well, touring hut to hut.) The big difference is what you want to do: go kind of fast on varied terrain on a day trip, or bring all your stuff with you while you go on a three-week-long sightseeing ride? I love both.
Yes, the differences between a World Cup DH bike and a bike from the TDF peloton are huge and make either bike impractical in the others discipline. However, touring, gravel and ‘cross bikes are very versatile and are capable of a far greater range of activities and with decent competence than the more tightly focused bikes. Issues like the riders height and weight, wheel and tyre size and bottom bracket height all make differences to how a bike rides, but riders can compensate for many compromises.
I ride a Trucker and a Topstone and would happily use either in the others role. Unless riding gravel competitively, stop worrying and ride.
Us touring bike owners need stickers that say not a gravel bike haha
To complete the trifecta: rando bikes have low trail (
I’m a total geek on this stuff. Thanks
Shhhh my LHT is totally a gravel bike until I can get a job that pays me enough to buy an actual gravel bike haha
My Salsa Marrakesh has adjustable dropouts that let it get long when loaded up and nice and tight when you're gravel grinding. 700c 45mm riddler's (barely) fit under fenders too!
Clearly a bike that can easily accommodate 30kgs (60lbs) of camping equipment and food and water is a completely different animal than a competition bike doing half day gravel bike race, and in that there is no argument. Surly truckers have that name for a reason and people shouldn't criticize its geometry for that reason. It's like saying to an NBL player 'You're too tall for the team' or a high diver, 'You're too slow at swimming.'
“Clearly” you don’t run a RUclips channel :) The amount of touring bikes are the same as gravel bike comments is mind numbingly numerous.
I have a Bianchi Volpe touring bike would you recommend it. I had a couple heart issues so not sure touring is in the cards but dreaming again.
Rail trails on touring bikes with hybrid tires is awesome. I am 72 and did 15 miles on a rail trail. Winding through car free tree lined venues is very relaxing. Plus: No challenging hills on rail trails because trains like flat routes.
I've tried gravel bikes, the bottom bracket height is the most obvious difference for me.
Touring bikes are much lower to the ground, making standing astride the cross bar much less painful!
Good vid. But maybe we should split here between road and off-road touring bikes. The surly LHT is clearly a road bike, designed for months on the saddle. Off-road touring bikes are much more similar to gravel bikes, and I think that's where people get lost. Like are the AWOL, Sutras etc gravel or touring? Their makers even do different versions with the same frame with really different purpose
Sure. Next topic might be gravel race vs gravel adventure bikes.
I own an Surly LHT and a Salsa Fargo I can say that they are 2 completely different bikes, I love them both but the Surly LHT in my believe is the best bike ever made if you can only have one bike, if you can afford to have more bikes, well lucky you!
The Marin Lombard I have is a bit confusing. It was part of their "Urban" line up. So I guess its a commuter bike, but with cyclocross-ish geometry, but also kinda a hybrid with drop bars. I guess thats why Marin just calls some of theirs "Beyond Road" since its not a gravel bike right now as I have gatorskin tires on it. Would changing the tires make it gravel? Urban adventure bike? IDK! Whatever, its just a bike, it gets me where I need to go, its fun.
Thinking of doing a video that looks beyond categories and more geometries vs use types. Easy to get hung up on the names.
Hi Russ great videos you have,I have the SCOTT sub 10 Gates belt drive 8 speed bike great bike for riding around town,I thinks it`s good for lite touring but it doesn`t have a place for a front rack,all in all it`s a great bike to ride.Do you like the Gates carbon belts for touring bikes?
I appreciate the video and I think it led me to what I would like is not a gravel race or event bike. I want a touring bike with components on it that can handle gravel two track roads. Adventure bike? Versatile touring bike? Not sure what to call it.... the Disc Trucker rebuild continues!
Surly seems to think so looking at their latest abomination that is the updated disc trucker, talk about ruining a legend, now the Trek 500 series looks like the closest thing we have...
Just tell them racks are the true messia! What is this bikepacking superlightweight trendy rubbish. Racks people, racks!
Mmm this popcorn is good! Always fun to see facts crush the bitterness in the world. Yum!
What's that website you used again?
BikeInsights
Who cares a bike is a bike. Use it however your heart desires
Could you explain the “overall” section of your wheel? How does that work?
Would recommend watching this video. Bike Geometry Explained: The Bicycle Flavor Wheel! ruclips.net/video/l7D1XhoZ90E/видео.html
So here's a question: Are gravel bikes the ultimate do it all bike, or the best possible compromise? I have a Battaglin and Pinerallo road bike, a Dawes Galaxy Ultra touring bike with 853 frame and XTR derailiers + XT hubs, and a 'retro' hard tail mountain bike with fairly fast rolling tyres (Schwalbe land cruiser 2"). My friend is trying to encourage me to sell them all and get a gravel bike with two different wheelsets, road and off road. A good idea in theory. But I like touring and I like to do my grocery shopping every weekend on the touring bike, sometimes it is loaded heavy. I cannot see the skinny aluminium seat stays of a gravel bike putting up with this? I find that for 80% off road riding my mountainbike, though heavier, is a dream, it glides over terrain, and again is built a lot stronger - I only have to see my friends arms being vibrated to kingdom come to question why I'd get rid of my front suspension! Furthermore, Gravel bikes are beautiful, if I went and spent a load of money on a bike (they look like beautiful road bikes), the last thing I want to do is ride it through mud and sand, I'd put 25mm tyres on and keep it for road riding, and of course keep all my other bikes too.
So I'm not convinced. I think I might get an offroad wheel set for my touring bike for light 50:50 off road riding - the mudguards are easily removable. Keep the built for purpose mountain bike. Stick with the Battaglin and Pinerello for the road. And a proper 853 touring bike for load carrying. Am I wrong?
I have the Specialized AWOL Comp. I bought it as a touring bike...it does that job well....but I have started to use it for my bicycle courier work, its 10/52 cassette 1x11set-up makes it a zip-along a bike. I can't get over how versatile this bike is
I'm going to say you are a bit of a Salsa fanboy.. :) that's OK we'll are fanboys at some level. Cool video, I'm just surprised at all the geo, I prefer ride/review reports. As always love your channel.
I live in Vermont and can tell you my Trek 520 touring bike is not a gravel bike in anyway shape or form. If I'm doing a lot of gravel I would much be more likely to take my mountain bike. Only because I just have the two bikes in my stable. Thanks for a very informative video. Just for a side note. Just road from Richford to St Albans on the Missisquoi Valley Railtrail. Always an enjoyable ride. Take care and safe cycling, Al
Thanks Russ. Nice video and it’s easy to see how much you truly enjoy this stuff. I pretty well understand how different geometries relate but I’m not getting using the “overall” category on the flavor wheel . If it is jumpy rear and stable front I don’t see how the wheel guides you to where on the overall. Help me out here please. Thanks again for another great video.
I just can’t wrap my mind around the notion of some people to resist a super diverse bike industry. This is a blessing, embrace it. Or not. Great video!
Outstanding video!
Nice video, great information.
Why does 'Gravel' always seem to equal 'race'... how about gravel bikepacking (non race), any differences? I think LHT vs. Gravel Race is an apples/Oranges comparison...
Why does racing even come up in a discussion of bikes designed for long distance riding on non-paved surfaces. I mean isn't a gravel bike essentially a touring bike designed for non-asphalt riding longer distances,? Who the heck wants to race touring bikes?
Thank you, I own a Diverge and I'm using it to tour the California coast
If you can get a Dutch Gazelle Popular Touring bike for review, it would be awesome!
Really enjoying the bike whisperer format, please keep it up!
Isn't everybike that use to ride gravel a gravelbike, or at least it is for the people who ride it, who cares what other people think, this shouldn't be a video!
Just for you at 6:50
Path Less Pedaled Haha, couldn’t have set this up any better, great video
@@PathLessPedaledTV totally not the same as a touring bike comes very close to a Gravel bike and alot of people use touringbikes for gravel and gravelbikes for touring/bikepacking. A MTB is alot different than a roadbike. To easy answer.
I have a 26 LHT and a 700c soma saga as well as a claris salsa Vaya= the Vaya is most nimbel and the LHT the toughest but by far the Saga is the prettyest.
I think the most important component on a bicycle is the rider. How that rider handles any terrain, on any bike will make the difference.
Where did you get these software guides from? I want to measure my bike to see how it is with my custom build road come to be.
this is the bike nerdiest thing I have ever watched. well played sir.
I recently rode the 2021 LA Tourist Race # 1 (an underground gravel race-- 75 miles, 10k feet of climbing) on a Surly Long Haul Trucker. I can attest FIRST HAND that this is not a gravel bike. The hardest obstacle in the event was 4k foot sand / gravel climb over 13 miles. I spent most of that climb in my lowest gear, and still was S I N K I N G into every patch of sand. Impossible to get any momentum. To contrast this, every other (gravel) bike was FLYING through that sand, no prob. Legolas and Gimli might both scale the mountain, but Legolas doesn't leave any footprints in the snow!!
Is that in any way relevant to the average schmuck like me looking to hit the local fire roads or rail trails to get away from cars? What percent of gravel bike riders do you think are looking to do that kind of riding? If you want to say "racing" gravel bike that's fine. But t take a niche corner of a bike type and then disqualify the mainstream use of the bike style can mislead potential buyers.
I rode my Surly LHT 30 miles on a beautiful tree lined rail trail and it was perfect. Friend on a mountain bike couldn't settle in and glide like my Surly and a traditional lighter weight street bike would have gotten hammered. As a Surly rider you know how forgiving they are of less tha ideal road conditions.
"You could ride a mountain bike in the Tour de France." I just spent a few days on a mountain bike as my daily driver when my "real" bike was in for repair. Horrible. The idea of even one day on the Tour on such a bike is genuinely painful.
Cobblestones.
Bike insight is great resource. Thanks for sharing.
i know you haven't tested tested the Kona Sutra LTD but would you consider that an off road tourer/gravel bike?
bikepacking.com did a full article on that bike so I'd check that out!
Call it an off road gravel tourer. Problem solved! 😄Personally i'd call that thing a do everything bike.
Very informative video. Got me curious on the geometry of my 29er MTB. Current trail is vey high at 77mm. Based on my computations, if I use a 650b wheels with 38c tires, trail will decrease from 77mm to 66mm. This bike should be a good hybrid MTB/ touring/ "gravel bike" by just having three sets of wheels and switching to a rigid fork. Seat stay is 44.5cm. What do you think?
what type of bike is best suited for urban commuting? (that has flat handlebars, fenders and racks)
Hi, i have the giant escape 2, just changed all the drivetrain to alivio and put on the redshift stem and seatpost, feels great. Thanks to the video i now know it is stable and chill.
Surly Long haul trucker
Trek Dual Sport Gen5 or Bombtrack Munroe AL (oops, noticed you asked for fenders and racks but you can add those).
i want a gravel bmx bike.
Every bmx bike is a gravel bike.
Can I use a Touring bike, eg. Trek 520 disc, but with a bikepacking setup.. removing the racks
I am looking to do the same thing and would love to hear a someone’s response with experience on the topic...
So where’s the line between gravel bikes and bikepacking bikes? Personally ‘racing’ is just one aspect of gravel bikes. The Surly Pack Rat, where does that stand? Is it a ‘grando’ (did you see what I did there?) 😃
Maybe a topic for the next #bikewhisperer episode.
Thanks for your reply 👍
I feel like the LHT is on the ultra stable end of the touring bike spectrum to begin with and was maybe a bad comparison bike especially to a Diverge. But if you compared some of those shorter stay touring bikes to the longer stay gravel bikes, the differences get super slim. Especially if you are a novice rider; it would take a long time to discern the difference in ride.
It is on the ultra stable end but has been the benchmark touring bike and one of the most popular touring bikes of the last decade.
This taught me a lot, thank you.
That wheel is super cool.
Very cool software.
Great video, what happened on the Surly trail going from 67 to 64 in the comparison
I have to double check but it might have been diff model years.
@@PathLessPedaledTV The first one was a 2016, then the comparison page you were on 2018
I'm going to be wearing out this Bike Insights web site
LOL the server is smoking!
I love your color wheel!
Great deep dive.
What do you think 🤔 of an Italian road bike like mines that has approximate front trail of 76.2”mm (High Trail) and an approximate chain stay measurement of 355.6mm (Very Short)???? It’s a Debernardi bike.
Sounds fun. Not a touring bike or gravel bike in terms of geometry.
@@PathLessPedaledTV Besides a gravel or touring bike, how would you perceive it as what type of bike is it really? A Racing Bike??? It’s designed for in terms of custom built from scratch for the long haul with a 3x10 setup (30 Speed). I want to be able to climb with ease, it has good speed, comfortable with less shock. It has a Specialized Cobble Gobbler seat post with a builtin one inch travel elastomer. Under the drop bar tape are gels for shock absorption towards my hands and arms. Tires are Continental 4 Seasons for wet and dry conditions. Comfortable saddle by WTB Rocket Titanium. It weighs around 21 pounds minus the accessories. Front and rear lights for night time rides. I have done about 38 miles in one day with this bike.
evelasq1 I guess it’s a road bike? Hard to say without seeing it. The chainstay measurement seems really extreme. Usually it is 4xx. The wheel would be right under the saddle.
Path Less Pedaled The axle is not under the saddle. It’s a 56cm Center to Center Italian Road Bike. The seat stay does go all the way up to the top seat tube. If you have an email than I could shoot some photos of it. The materials used to build this bike frame from the De Bernardi bike factory is a Columbus 7000 Zonal Aluminum with a Carbon Fiber seat stay and Carbon Fiber/Aluminum Steering fork. Let me know your email 📧.
Great analysis!
Great info! I didn't know about those websites! I've been looking for an around town (city) bike that I can take on some mild bike packing trips. I was thinking along the lines of a Surly Straggler or Midnight Special. Any input? My daily pavement bike is a Gary Fisher Triton track frame single speed.
What? I was pleasantly surprised how close the geometries and features were. Comparing a race gravel bike? The whole point of a gravel bikes is opening up new places to ride. Why do you "experts" always have to put racing into everything about biking. Carbon on gravel? Insane. I have an older Cannondale race bike and it is horrible to ride compared to my 10 year old Disc LHT.
I did a Sprint triathlon on the Surly. The other racers on their skinny tire Tri bikes were getting brutalized by the broken pavement. I floated along on my LHT with its Brooks saddle and wide slick tires. Only a handful of the scores of riders were truly competitive. The rest, like me, were competing against themselves. I was competing against me riding a bike that is a pleasure to ride. The others have fallen prey to the industry message that bicycling should be about being a pretend Tour rider. Group rides pretty much set a pace that discourages comfort bike riders while discomfort and injury destines $5,000 carbon bikes to the garage before long.
What you didn't mention: My Surly is a robust steel framed bike ready to handle the punishing nature of gravel roads. Let's look at that carbon or even aluminium bike after a few thousand miles on gravel. My wheels and tires are wider with high spoke counts for durability. I even have spare spokes that an incident on a long gravel ride in the boonies my be nice to have. I have a sturdy, comfortable Brooks saddle to make a long rough road much more comfortable. Due to its need to get up hills when loaded the lower gearing is ideal for gravel roads and trails.
Even the longer chainstay has its benefits when riding on the faster end of the spectrum. The sure footed stability of the geometry makes it less jittery and more comfortable to handle when going faster on a less predictable surface.
I know. I have taken my Surly on gravel and grass and even mild root strewn trails and it is a pleasure to ride. I have no worries about its sturdiness which is paramount. It handles like a dream at both low and higher speeds and the gearing feels ideal for both slow and faster demands.
I am not a small piggy carbon bike wannabe racing clown decked out like NASCAR driver. I am just a helmetless smuck in a pair of shorts, t-shirt and sneakers who wants to wind comfortably through the beautiful tree lined dirt Rockingham rail trail that goes 30 miles from Newfields to Manchester NH. Did it last week on my Surly and it was awesome. How fast did I go? I don't know and I don't care. I was there to relax and enjoy the experience of gliding silently through nature. If I want to fast I have a touring motorcycle. The fastest cyclist in the world couldn't beat me so what's the point of making a vehicle designed to go slow comfortably and then destroy the experience by making go "faster"?
Just saying.
I’m very glad you like your bike.
Zzzz🥱
That was awesome! I had no idea you did consulting and I wish I’d known that before I just picked up my new Ogre. Not that it’s bad or anything but I might have found something better...
This is pure genius! I’ve never understood bicycle geometry very well. The flavor wheel really makes it easy to understand. One question, you don’t get into stack or reach much. Wouldn’t a touring bike be more upright and a gravel race bike be less so? Those matter to me because I’m more of an endurance rider than a racer so I like to sit more upright. I guess some of that you can alter with spacers and your stem choices though.
What are your thoughts on the specialized Awol?
Great touring bike. On the heavy side. No longer made.
Good video. A useful comparison for me would be between touring bikes and gravel bikes designed more for bikepacking than gravel racing. I built up a Lynskey Backroad (touring frame) to be suitable for both touring and gravel riding, as well as commuting and all purpose fun riding (46/30 crankset, 11-34 cassette, Jones H-Loop handlebar, Rodeo Labs Spork fork, 40 mm Donnelly X'Plor tires). I used it recently on the ACA Black Hills tour and it performed well, and I enjoy commuting to work on it (23 miles round trip, bike paths and roads) but it's still an experiment.
Great video! One perspective I've recently started favoring is the inverse - that gravel bikes can (potentially) make excellent touring bikes. Especially the more stable, less race focused gravel bikes. Wider tire clearance, more all road oriented, stable wheelbase - all of this lends pretty well to touring, especially mixed terrain touring.
Really enjoyed that. Just bought a Diverge 1x, so particularly interesting. Thx!
Very interesting. I've got 2 beloved bikes, steel road bike, and aluminum track. Steel has generous fork rake and fairly steep head angle. Track bike has steep head angle, 50mm fork offset, and much longer top tube. They handle the same- nervous! Curious how you could arrive at the same handling with such different approaches. The smoothness of ride is night and day though. That 40 year old steel classic was a stiff bike in it's era but the aluminum track gets up and moves when you stand on the cranks!
What does "trail" mean in the context of this video? How is it measured?
ruclips.net/video/L0Kt-c8fG3M/видео.html
Awesome video to explain bike geometry to a newbie like me. 😀 Can I ask what would be a baseline model/geometry for a climbing bike?
I would love a comparison between a Kona Sutra and a Trek 520.
So is this kind of a "Subaru Outback vs. WRX STI" kind of deal?
My Thorn Sherpa has 445 chainstays and 46 trail I’ve not compared it to any other tourer
Yes.
also if gravel bikes are retooled touring bikes...are hybrid bikes retooled touring bikes?
Everything is a retooled penny farthing.
Woah, that looks like a cool site!
Great explanation. Thank you.
Excuse me sir my english skills are not the best, especially when it comes to understund tecnical discussions. I was about to buy a gravel bike for touring: the marin nicasio+. I understood that there is a big difference between the two types but I didnt get if you say that gravel bikes are not good for touring. Do you suggest me to root for other bikes?
If you want to do 4 pannier touring, get a touring bike. If you want to do lightweight rackless touring, gravel bikes can do that.
Superb analysis! Learned so much!
Great video, really good content. The warbird is marketed as a gravel racing bike, not touring like the Surley LHT. I don’t think you can put a rear rack on the Warbird. A Vaya, Journeyman or even the Felt Broam would be a cool comparison to the LHT. But again, love the content of your videos.
I know it's a gravel race bike. Just trying to respond to the "gravel bikes are just touring bikes" people. That said, you CAN put a rear rack and front low riders on a Warbird.
True that!! Thanks for the response!!
My all around riding bike is a salsa vaya gravel bike. My friend wants to do some bike packing down the coast. Will my gravel bike do the job, or should I look at a touring bike?
Should be fine. We tour on “gravel” bikes all the time.
Hey Aaron. I've only ridden the Vaya for half a mile, but I always thought it was launched and marketed as a touring bike. Though to me, all bikes are for touring on. It's just a question of whether they can carry the load you need. And from what you say, I think the Vaya will have no trouble for what you describe...
Great stuff Russ!! Thanks.
If it doesn't rattle you to death unloaded, and break your back lifting it, it's not a touring bike :P
Why some videos don´t have subtitles?
Don't know. Waiting for YT to auto create them?
For me reliability is the name of the game for touring bikes, they can't have fancy components, only sturdy, widely available parts that you would be able to find in any bike shop along the route in case something fails. No hydros, no electronic, and no flimsy carbon anorexic parts.
@RollinRat What frame did you use for this bike?