Cycling UK Forum

Work has been done on this very topic:


https://atechnologymarket.com/global-to ... -analysis/

You have to buy this and it doesn't interest me that much!

The most popular tourer I have come across outside of Europe is the Koga Miyata/World Traveller. I’ve no doubt it is LHT in UK.

clearly the 1-Down. I see lots of them around

I used to look at this site

https://pbase.com/canyonlands/fullyloaded


I'm not sure if people are still submitting their pictures but its a vast collection of fully loaded touring bikes. Surly LHTs and Trek 520's used to pop up quite a bit. All of the usual suspects are there including many I've never heard of.

That aside if you're a complete saddo like me who likes looking at fully loaded touring bikes you might enjoy the link. If you have time you might draw a conclusion as to whats the most popular.

some very nice pictures there.I liked the one taken in South Dakota with all the pimply hills/mts

and this strangeone

https://pbase.com/canyonlands/image/149283317

got a carpet on the back?

Thanks for the replies and sorry that some found the post unclear.

I was using the word popular to mean the most commonly used and possibly admired/desired - much like someone might ask what is the most popular flavour of ice cream.

As to being asked to define Touring and Touring Bike - wow.

I would have a pretty wide definition for touring which would be any multi day trip on a bike, or alternatively just travelling by bike (NB travelling as from traveller, not as in travelling to work).

As for defining what a touring bike is, I would leave this to the manufacturers and shops who label such things. While we all know you can tour on any bike, a visit to somewhere like Spa, or Thorn or Surly will show a range of bikes, some of which are clearly designated as tourers. It was these sort of touring bikes I was thinking of.

Not sure I agree that a bike can only be called by its name if it is a standard stock model. Both my Surlys are custom built with flat bars - but I definitely think of them as Surlys. I wonder where you would draw the line - change the tyres on a stock bike and it ceases to be that bike - seems a bit odd to me.

I am surprised at people who haven't seen any LHTs while on tour. Even in my little corner of Essex I have seen a few. However I mostly spot them out in the world. On a recent trip to Burma, I booked into a small GH and there in the yard was an LHT ridden by a Korean guy. A few days later a young English guy from Sheffield rolled up to another GH on his LHT complete with full set of Super Cs. There weren't many cyclists in Burma, but if you include mine, I think LHTs made up over 30% of the foreign bikes I saw. Americans cyclists are often astride a Surly, and I have also seen some locals riding them.

There may be Chinese or Indian badged touring bikes, but I have rarely seen them. In fact the only ones I can remember were a French couple with Surly alike bikes that they had bought in Kunming. I suspect these weren't mass produced models, but made for the niche market of foreign tourists and maybe a few rich Chinese.

I agree that Galaxies are a very popular UK bike and there must be tens of thousands out there. Although given the huge difference between an early model and some of the current ones, calling them a single model is somewhat questionable. Personally, I don't see many Galaxies nowadays in the UK and the only one I have seen abroad, was my mate's - although that was only a frame he had built into a flat bar bike.

Likewise, the Croix de Fer is often recommended on this forum but I only saw my first one of those this summer on a ferry home from France. I wonder how may CdF's are on the road.

I realise that because I ride a Surly I am far more likely to remember other Surlys I meet on the road. This was partly why I asked what other people's views are. In my original post I asked if any of the regular readers of blogs, etc had any idea. It wasn't meant to be an empirical exercise, but a feeling of what is popular worldwide. It seems that no one has taken note of what people ride, nonetheless it is interesting to hear everyone's views.

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that when touring in the East where there will be a pretty international crowd of cyclists you will see s bike which, perhaps more than others, is capable on tough terrain.

Back home there is less need for such and more modest equipment will do the job. Here it might be difficult to highlight a particular brand.

I figure any touring bike is going to from stock build to custom,
by the end of its' 2nd tour. Ye olde Touring@Phred list always had long
threads on which bits on the Trek 520 needed to be changed,
to make it usable.

IIRC the Trek 520 bits that didn't need to be changed, included the seatpin,
headset, shifters and rear mech, everything else went to the parts bin.

I see a lot Fuji Tourings in the states, cheap and widely available.

I was going to let this post fade away, but coincidentally, I saw this posted on the LP Forum by a KIwi who is travelling extensively in the Americas. Its part of a longer post about an LHT build. https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/ ... t_23171337


The LHT is a popular frame for touring.....probably the one bike I’ve seen the most of this past year riding through The America’s......not many flat bars....mostly drop bars with bar end shifters.

I just had a look on the Crazy Guy site, someone on there has extracted pictures of loaded touring bikes from within people's journals and collated them by make ! I did a quick count of the number of pages of some well known makes. Too many variables to be at all accurate but may give an idea, it's hard to see past the Trucker as most popular on the basis of this snaphot.

Raleigh 3 pages
Koga 3
Kona 5
Dawes 5
Giant 6
Specialised 9
Cannondale 12
Trek 25 (12 pages of Trek 520, 13 of other models.
Surly 40 (36 pages of LHT's and 4 of other models ).
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o= ... 8000&v=4jy
Edit, Cannondale added.
Edit,Trek figure amended.

mercalia wrote:some very nice pictures there.I liked the one taken in South Dakota with all the pimply hills/mts

and this strangeone

https://pbase.com/canyonlands/image/149283317

got a carpet on the back?

I thought it was a bagette

If you're doing it by weight the LHT will certainly win by a mile. If you're doing it by individual units sold maybe not...

reohn2 wrote:

mercalia wrote:some very nice pictures there.I liked the one taken in South Dakota with all the pimply hills/mts

and this strangeone

https://pbase.com/canyonlands/image/149283317

got a carpet on the back?

I thought it was a bagette

Aero, innit.

hufty wrote:If you're doing it by weight the LHT will certainly win by a mile. If you're doing it by individual units sold maybe not...

Exceeded by what though?

Has this discussion become a bit anglophone? There are an awful lot of German and Dutch tourers out there, what are they riding??