Cycling UK Forum

I'm planning a several-month long touring trip round South America starting early Feb, and have no previous knowledge of touring. Literally no knowledge. For the last few weeks I have read website upon website on the subject and to be quite honest I find it all a bit overwhelming, not to mention contradicting.

So, if you will humour my ignorance and naivety I have a few questions which I would be most grateful if you could answer. I suspect some of them would be better suited to more technological fora, if so, apologies.

The first is regarding the bike, I have a budget of about £750 and have been looking at the Orbea trekking range. They are not straight tourers but hybrids, which I prefer, and do them in smaller sizes than most tourers (apparently short people need not even turn up when it comes to touring). The only problem is then one I am looking at has a suspension fork, to which you can't attach panniers (although there is conflicting info about this...). Can anyone suggest good pannier-friendly forks?

Alternatively, can anyone suggest any other hybrids in that price range that are good for touring/trekking?

I have decided on Ortlieb panniers, which apparently fit racks with up to 10mm diameter tubing. A lot of racks seem to be 10.2mm in diameter, does a fifth of a millimetre really make all that difference?

What's the difference between front racks and low-riders anyway?

I literally have hundreds of other questions but I'll leave them for now. If any of you are thinking: Why doesn't he just go into a shop and ask? Well, the problem is that I live in the Falkland Islands so I'm having to do all of this by the internet, including the bike-buying (yes, I know, see above re: humouring my naivety).

Anyway, hope you can help