I live in the USA so I looked at all the touring bikes available here, plus a few in the UK that could ship bikes to America, My price for this bike had to be under $2,000.
Of all the bikes I looked at one eventually popped to the surface that checked all my boxes and that was the Masi Giramondo 700c. The Masi came with the lowest gear range of all the bikes which meant I didn't have to change the gearing after I got the bike, and since I will be touring the US which means a couple of mountain ranges I have to climb; it came with TRP Spyre-C Dual Piston Mechanical Disc, 180mm Front, 160mm Rear Rotors brakes and the reviews on the newer version the Masi is using has been very favorable for the price, plus it was the only one to come with the larger rotor in the front, the others came with 160mm front and rear, and from what I read these brakes were the easiest to field service; it had fender, pannier rack, and two sets of water bottle mounts on the fork which most bikes didn't have; it comes with very good and expensive Tubas chromoly racks front and rear with the rear capacity at 88 pounds which means at 45 to 50 pound load I plan on carrying these racks won't ever fail.
The only questions I have concerning the bike were the same questions I had with all the other bikes and that was the wheels and hubs, not sure what quality they are, so I have to wait until I get the bike to decide if I want to use them to tour on or replace them as a whole or just replace the hubs or do nothing at all if they are decent enough. The other issue is the headset, all headsets I saw on all the bikes were either no name brand, bike company branded, or a low quality name brand unit, the one on the Masi is a low quality name brand, so I might upgrade it a Cane Creek 110. The other iffy thing is the rear Deore derailleur, my last new bike I upgraded from 105 to Ultegra on the rear, so I "might" upgrade to XT on the Masi but that's a big if. And lastly the Masi site doesn't give a clue as to what bottom bracket their using just says Shimano, so I will have to email them to find out before I slate it for replacement, none of the bikes I looked at said what bottom bracket they used. So that's if for component swapping, all the other bikes had all of those changes I mentioned plus a few others.
The other changes are not component but more stuff most people would probably change anyways, like: all the bikes, except for one, use a cheap saddle, one used a Brooks B17 but that one didn't check off as many boxes and besides I have a B17 I'm going to use on it, so the Masi saddle will be swapped out for my B17. Tires on the Masi Kenda Quick Drumin 700 x 45 will probably get swapped for a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Greenguard 700 x 38 when I take off on tours (use the Kenda when commuting to work) bit narrower than the stock 45's but I was using 32's on my old touring bike and had zero issues as far as load handling and traction so 38 should be more than good enough if they will fit on the rims.
Long story short, take a look at the Masi.
