thinking of touring

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mikeruss

Active Member
Location
Teesside
Any sites or advice on starting out. I have a road bike but am thinking of getting a tourer I am looking at spending about £1000.
 

tournut

Active Member
Location
altrincham
Any sites or advice on starting out. I have a road bike but am thinking of getting a tourer I am looking at spending about £1000.
Dawes karakum. And it will last. Not build for speed but to tour with gear. And you get change out of grand to bye the gear to go with it. Good luck.
 

Shut Up Legs

Down Under Member
Vivente World Randonneur. I've had one for 6 years and done 80,000km on it, and it's reliable and easy to ride.
 

Soltydog

Legendary Member
Location
near Hornsea
My first few tours were done on a £300 specialized hybrid, I found I really enjoyed it & then bought a full on tourer, so as others have said buy something cheapish to see if you like, unless you can find a decent touring bike for a knock down price :thumbsup:
 

andym

Über Member
I think it's best to start with the bike you have (unless of course you want to do a 1,000 mile off-road epic carrying a tent, food and water).

There are ways you can adapt a road bike to take a pannier rack (assuming it doesn't already have mudguard lugs). Not ideal in the long term, but fine for shorter/lightly-loaded tours. Or you could get a biggish saddlebag.

Don't get the impression that cycle touring always means independent cycle-camping. If you want to dip your toe in the water why not consider a supported tour with an operator like Saddle Skedaddle. Equally there's nothing in the Book of Rules that says you have to camp if you don't want to. If you've never camped before it might be best to see how you like the cycle touring thing before you then start investing in a load of camping kit (which could end up costing as much as your bike).
 

mcshroom

Bionic Subsonic
The stuff about not having to camp is a useful one. I've done a mixture of camping/YHA/B&B tours over the years, and each has their own positives and negatives.

Do you have an idea of what sort of touring you want to do? If it's out and out rough tracks off road stuff then you may want to consider a mountain bike. If it's road touring and staying in hotels every night then your road bike will probably be fine.

For specific tourers, especially if you are looking for drop bars, then the Revolution Country Explorer looks good, and it's cheaper Aluminium framed Country Traveller are both well regarded bikes.

The Dawes range has been muddied by all being renamed as some sort of Galaxy, but all of them are decent at different price points.

Otherwise if you want a european style bike then look for trekking hybrids, which are probably a bit cheaper. I'd keep some budget back on those for bar ends or even fitting butterfly bars for the hand positions, but there are a number out there that make very capable tourers.

Look for 36 spoke wheels if possible, and I would probably recommend disc brakes (even though I tour fully loaded up using canti brakes on my horizon) for the extra stopping power, but with your sort of budget you should be able to get a nice bike, whatever your specification you decide you require.
 

xilios

Veteran
Location
Maastricht, NL
Our hybrid bikes cost €300 each, mine was used bought in 2005 my wife's bike was new and bought in 2006. We just had to change the gearing a bit.
Pics on our page.
 

tournut

Active Member
Location
altrincham
The stuff about not having to camp is a useful one. I've done a mixture of camping/YHA/B&B tours over the years, and each has their own positives and negatives.

Do you have an idea of what sort of touring you want to do? If it's out and out rough tracks off road stuff then you may want to consider a mountain bike. If it's road touring and staying in hotels every night then your road bike will probably be fine.

For specific tourers, especially if you are looking for drop bars, then the Revolution Country Explorer looks good, and it's cheaper Aluminium framed Country Traveller are both well regarded bikes.

The Dawes range has been muddied by all being renamed as some sort of Galaxy, but all of them are decent at different price points.

Otherwise if you want a european style bike then look for trekking hybrids, which are probably a bit cheaper. I'd keep some budget back on those for bar ends or even fitting butterfly bars for the hand positions, but there are a number out there that make very capable tourers.

Look for 36 spoke wheels if possible, and I would probably recommend disc brakes (even though I tour fully loaded up using canti brakes on my horizon) for the extra stopping power, but with your sort of budget you should be able to get a nice bike, whatever your specification you decide you require.
Carnt beat butterfly bars for distance touring, dont cost alot, great for stoping sore wrists.
 
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