There's a review here:
http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/touring/product/touring-ultra-9973
Well it looks like a decent bike with quality kit, but even at £1299 (down from £1499) it looks expensive to me. I'd do some shopping around and see whether you could get a similarly-specced bike from say Dawes or Surly or
Condor for less.
My main comment would be about the Magura hydraulic v-brakes. I suspect these have added quite a lot to the cost of the overall bike, so you might want to consider whether you're prepared to pay a premium for them. I'm sure they work very well and hydraulic brakes don't often go wrong, but when they do they are more difficult to fix than cable brakes - you can fix a v-brake by the side of the road, you definitely can't do that with hydraulic brakes). And to be honest, I really can't see the point of hydraulic
rim brakes - they seem to be the worst of both worlds the disadvantages of hydraulic brakes and the disadvantages of rim brakes (rim wear etc).
Anyway, looking at the spec on the
Evans website, it would have 27 gears.
You say this would be your main bike: one point to bear in mind is that the Cannondale looks to be positioned as more of a trekking/expedition bike. It's not necessarily the best choice if you want a general-purpose bike capable of road-touring mixed with a bit of canal towpath and bridleway and commuting. You
might want to get something that is a bit more road-oriented, but still tough in enough to cope with off-road.
Oh and a lot of people swear by the Schwalbe Marathon tyres - I'm not sure there's that much benefit replacing them with Armadillos straight out of the box - you might just as well get some use out of them.
