Cycling as a whole; losing the plot...?

[MikeDee]

Not really. Apparently touring bikes don't sell well. They don't even make a proper touring group.

Suggest you visit the SPA Cycles website

For those of us who find most of our bike wants fall into the "touring" category, a worryingly small range of retailers provide for our needs. Spa, SJS/Thorn and...erm...... I try to order from them when possible, even if I can get the same item a bit cheaper elsewhere, just to help them stay afloat.

Also, Bruce Gordon is going out of business. He arguably made the best touring bikes and racks on this side of the pond.

Since I can remember, touring bikes had to use mountain bike drivetrains since the component manufacturers don't make a touring specific group. They even make cyclocross components, as if that isn't a niche type of bicycle. Shimano never made STI shifters or drop bar brake levers that work with full sized V-brake (I'm glad Tektro does).

[mig]

would a standard, well thought out touring bike sell well even to inexperienced cyclists if the marketing people and magazines managed to re-brand them as something more 'modern'??

[meic]

Possibly in a couple of years we could have retro adventure bikes which save weight and increase simplicity by replacing expensive, heavy, complicated disc brakes with cheap, light,simple rim brakes.
Triple crankset to help you up those difficult hills.
They could be all the rage with a bit of marketing hype, just dont call them a tourer.

[Brucey]

would a standard, well thought out touring bike sell well even to inexperienced cyclists if the marketing people and magazines managed to re-brand them as something more 'modern'??

maybe...

Things will presumably go full circle at some point and it may happen.

Mike is correct and for the last 30-odd years good touring bikes have basically been built by pinching bits that are really meant for some other use, mainly mountain bikes. Dedicated touring components (for touring bikes in the classic mould) are simply not made in any volumes and those parts that are made are not considered 'cutting edge'.

Apparently there is a market that is large enough to support the ugly cousin of the touring bike, 'the trekking bike' and shimano have made XT groupsets for this purpose. But these bikes have flat bars and still run 'orrible MTB chainlines etc. They are really like rigid (or hardtail) MTBs with slightly different wheel size I suppose.

In the days of square taper cranksets in shimano MTB groupsets (late 80s and early 90s), you could paper over the cracks to some extent; an MTB triple could be fitted at a sensible chainline (using a shorter spindle in the BB) and would still work OK because the front shifting wasn't indexed and the front mech hadn't been hamstrung so badly that it would not function at a tighter chainline. Bar end shifters or DT shifters could be used. The MTB canti brakes could be made to work with brake levers that were meant for dropped bars. The net result was a pretty passable touring bike.

Barring the addition of a few extra cogs (which may or may not give you extra useful gears) current touring bikes are often not much different. I don't really mind this (I don't see the need for a lot of 'improvements' in components used in a touring bike) but others don't feel likewise and it is good to have a choice.

Currently if you try to build a touring bike using contemporary shimano components you can use (say)

a) a tiagra triple groupset, and struggle to get the gears low enough. Canti brakes BR-CX50/70 will (if the straddle is set low enough, and the bosses are not too low on the frame) just about work with the STIs.

b) an MTB groupset, which leaves you with a duff chainline, front mech vs STI problems, rear mech vs STI problems, and a dilemma regarding brakes (that a mini-V might solve)

You can use disc brakes but whether you use through-axles or QR there are ongoing changes, compromises and it looks as if shimano are quietly giving up on disc hubs with 36 drilling. I don't expect parts that are available now to still be available in ten year's time, or perhaps any that fit and work correctly in some cases.

Campag resolutely refuse to acknowledge that anyone might want tyres over 28mm and mudguards with their caliper brakes (and so do shimano, recently; their deeper drop (medium in fact) calipers are hangovers from a previous generation, and do not give stellar braking with current STIs...) and Campag also blow hot and cold on triples. Those they do make are not intended to run very low gears, and in recent times the shifters have been crap. So you can make an audaxy-bike with a campag triple but not so easily a full-on touring bike. In recent years both campag and shimano have been busy revising their road triple chainsets so that they will not accept chainrings smaller than 30T any more.

All of which leaves you with relatively few options for constructing a touring bike easily if you want a triple chainset and STIs for example. Yes there are (and hopefully always will be) custom/specialist options but if you try to buy something from a major manufacturer it'll probably be aimed at a niche market and won't do everything that you want. It will probably have 32 spoke wheels, too.

Maybe the concept of the touring bike as we know it is more or less confined to a proportion of the UK and US markets and simply isn't big enough. Maybe no-one else really 'gets it'...?. Maybe, just maybe, it'll eventually become a niche that someone will want to fill properly...

cheers

[mig]

i'd like to see what would happen if a tour or olympics winner said they used a touring type bike in the winter say on which to train. especially if articles in the cycling press were done about it. i wonder if such as that, plus some marketing $, would gradually get manufacturers to take the bike style seriously again and maybe even produce good components for them. with a little bit of a tailwind them maybe they'd be bought for 'normal' riding and found to hit the spot for that endeavour too and possibly used for longer periods than over geared 'racing' bikes seem to be.
a long shot no doubt but ......

[Samuel D]

I think the reason Tony Oliver style touring bikes are hard to find today is that touring cyclists are hard to find.

Today, hardcore cyclists get to their destination by car or plane. They’ll climb a few cols when they get there, but always striking out from a hotel base and returning before nightfall – therefore requiring no luggage on the bicycle. I have talked with many cyclists in the Paris area in the last couple of years, and I can think of only one who has toured in the traditional sense (a Swiss-Pakistani adventurer who has ridden from Paris to Turkey among other grand expeditions). It’s a lost art.

The German-trekker sort of cyclist is alive and well, and thrives beyond the German border. But they do 60 km a day on big days and aren’t into it for the cycling. They have no use for a high-performance British touring bicycle, or at least that’s what they think.

That a drop-bar touring bike is more versatile than perhaps any other design is a weak selling point when customers have the money to buy four to eight bicycles fine-tuned to every niche.

[pete75]

Providing widgets provided sufficient profits.

If you had ever run a business you would understand the concept and motivation that drives the situation that the bicycle manufacturing industry is now in. Incremental benefits get smaller which is where marketing of cachets comes in. Think watches...

Al

I have and certainly don't need patronising comments from such as yourself.

[PH]

would a standard, well thought out touring bike sell well even to inexperienced cyclists if the marketing people and magazines managed to re-brand them as something more 'modern'??

Isn't that exactly what the Surly LHT is?

[PhilD28]

I think the reason Tony Oliver style touring bikes are hard to find today is that touring cyclists are hard to find.

Today, hardcore cyclists get to their destination by car or plane. They’ll climb a few cols when they get there, but always striking out from a hotel base and returning before nightfall – therefore requiring no luggage on the bicycle. I have talked with many cyclists in the Paris area in the last couple of years, and I can think of only one who has toured in the traditional sense (a Swiss-Pakistani adventurer who has ridden from Paris to Turkey among other grand expeditions). It’s a lost art.

The German-trekker sort of cyclist is alive and well, and thrives beyond the German border. But they do 60 km a day on big days and aren’t into it for the cycling. They have no use for a high-performance British touring bicycle, or at least that’s what they think.

That a drop-bar touring bike is more versatile than perhaps any other design is a weak selling point when customers have the money to buy four to eight bicycles fine-tuned to every niche.

This isn't my experience at all in Europe. I spend a couple of months most summers touring/camping in France/Spain/Italy etc. and meet lots of cyclists camping on drop bar touring bikes(not trekking bikes although lots of those too), often custom built in France/UK/Germany/USA even Japan. Most are well thought out, often but not always with 26" wheels. There are lots of people out there doing this. It does seem that people like to travel where it's dry and warm, I certainly do, but in my experience touring bikes are still pretty widely used, maybe we all just go to remote places on them and avoid the lousy aggresive Brit driver.

[pwa]

On a bike designed primarily for touring STI levers are a mistake. Perhaps driven by marketing. The right lever is fine, as with the correct mech it will shift across a wide range cassette nicely. But these days the left levers are indexed and therefore compromised. If you are lucky you will have one designed to work with a triple mech, but that triple mech will be intended to go down to a 30T ring and no lower. And all this so that you don't have to take your hands off the brakes for a second. Even though sore hands benefit from being taken off the brakes once in a while. Touring is not racing and we can spare a second to change with bar end levers of down tube levers. You don't even have to sacrifice control of steering to do it, as with bar end levers part of the hand can still be steadying the bar end while the lever is being operated. And ditching the STIs allows you complete freedom with the brake lever choice and, therefore, the brakes.

[reohn2]

I agree with Brucey for the most part however there are a couple of things that can be circumnavigated quite easily.
A S/Taper MTB chainset with 44/32/22 rings works well on one of my Vayas with 118mm UN 55 BB which gives a 47.5mm c/line,and has the same Q factor as the S/light Impact triple on my other Vaya.
I know some people arent impressed with discs for touring bikes,claiming the rotors damage easily,not something I've found to be the case TBH.Cable discs(BB7'S) aren't complicated,easily set up and maintained,sintered pads last a looonnngggg time,rotors are cheap and light and a spare can be carried or bought at ay mtb shop,thet stop better than cantis and better than v's in wet and muck,and they work with STI's or other brake levers,of course if you tour on 25mm tyres you'll have a stiff fork to deal with,but the sensible large section touring tyres will deal with that anomaly.discs don't wear out rims either.
AFAIK Deore hubs are still available in 36hole and cheap enough to stock up on.

[reohn2]

would a standard, well thought out touring bike sell well even to inexperienced cyclists if the marketing people and magazines managed to re-brand them as something more 'modern'??

Isn't that exactly what the Surly LHT is?

Yep,and with a choice of braking systems.
And as others have posted there's always Spa or SJS for semi customised touring bikes

[reohn2]

On a bike designed primarily for touring STI levers are a mistake. Perhaps driven by marketing. The right lever is fine, as with the correct mech it will shift across a wide range cassette nicely. But these days the left levers are indexed and therefore compromised. If you are lucky you will have one designed to work with a triple mech, but that triple mech will be intended to go down to a 30T ring and no lower. And all this so that you don't have to take your hands off the brakes for a second. Even though sore hands benefit from being taken off the brakes once in a while. Touring is not racing and we can spare a second to change with bar end levers of down tube levers. You don't even have to sacrifice control of steering to do it, as with bar end levers part of the hand can still be steadying the bar end while the lever is being operated. And ditching the STIs allows you complete freedom with the brake lever choice and, therefore, the brakes.

Fitting Kelly Take Off brackets is even better,and as good if not better than STI's in a lot of respects.

[mig]

would a standard, well thought out touring bike sell well even to inexperienced cyclists if the marketing people and magazines managed to re-brand them as something more 'modern'??

Isn't that exactly what the Surly LHT is?

aye maybe but one against the throngs of carbon specials isn't going to have that much impact. surly are known for being a little off the wall too so not really the mainstream punch i was thinking about.

[Gattonero]

This is a slightly different angle to Brucey's original point, but perhaps part of the reason this "progress" is frustrating, is that so much effort is going on things which are relatively unimportant (e.g. adding another sprocket), when there are other areas with significant potential for improvement. If bike design was already nearly perfect in every other way, then we wouldn't be so bothered about all this faff for just one more sprocket.

This hits what I've said before.
too many parts that are copied over and over for something that does the same simple function, like a seat collar!
And then you have stems or bars or other fixtures with under-engineered bolts or the always in fashion "it's a standard but it doesn't fit"