Out with the old or - Which Touring Bike now?

[donnieban]

Work have decided to allow access to the Cycle scheme so Im looking for some advice on a new £1000 + Touring bike in Steel or Titanium.

To avoid divorce, the supposedly spare room needs to be cleared of my 2008 - 58cm TREK 520 and a similarly sized 1994 Dawes Galaxy which I never got round to sorting out....

The black TREK 520 has a Stronglight impact triple 46,36 24. with A touring cassette and new bb. Trekking bars and new 9 speed shifters. New cables throughout. Full length Touring mud guards.
Only gripe it that the lower bottle cage bosses are spinning on the underside off the frame.
Bike will be supplied with new Touring wheels from one of Scotlands top wheel builders - Big Al...New wheels and drivetrain have covered 300 miles only.

The Dawes Galaxy requires a new chainset but is otherwise a good bike. Spent previous 15 years wrapped up in loft in Ireland. The frame is 531 st in BRG. Nice bike just never found the time to do it justice.

Looking for a guide price valuation on both bikes. The Trek was bought at £320 2 years back with about £120 spent on the drive train and £150 on the new wheels. I accept that I probably paid over the odds for the Galaxy (£340.00) but its the last of the British built ones and the frame is a Super Galaxy.

Happy to upload or e-mail photos on request. Bikes are located on Isle of Skye, I will not post but may be able to help with delivery.

donnieban@hotmail.co.uk

[Valbrona]

Bikes are located on Isle of Skye, I will not post but may be able to help with delivery.

Well that's handy.

[donnieban]

Well that's handy.

I realise that not posting narrows the market somewhat but I do travel. I went down to York for my last road bike and a couple of bags of spuds

donnieban

[Malaconotus]

Work have decided to allow access to the Cycle scheme so Im looking for some advice on a new £1000 + Touring bike in Steel or Titanium.

Does your employer have a credit license to allow you to spend over £1000? Be aware that it is not legally possible to 'top up' and pay the difference.

[donnieban]

I am aware of the scheme restriction, but am hopeful that keen pricing will allow an advantage e.g. £1300 bike reduced/ discounted to £1000.

donnieban

[531colin]

I am aware of the scheme restriction, but am hopeful that keen pricing will allow an advantage e.g. £1300 bike reduced/ discounted to £1000.

donnieban

You do know that the people who run these schemes charge the retailer around 12% for the privilege of dealing with them, don't you?
Any half-way competent bookkeeper can do a "salary sacrifice scheme" where they give the retailer a cheque....its the employer who fronts up the money, in any event.

[CJ]

The scheme's cut reduces the retailer's profit so bikes sold this way are rarely discounted. And bike prices have inflated greatly over the last few years. So I doubt you'll get anything significantly better by this means, than the two tourers you already have.

I'm reviewing a couple of £1200 tourers right now and struggling to find anything nice to say about them. They're heavier than tourers I reviewed ten years ago, have an inferior range of gears and less reliability. There's been no dedicated touring bike componentry since the 1990s. Since then, if you've wanted dropped bars with low gears and sensible tyres you've had to mix road and off-road racing equipment. At first these systems still had similar parameters, but over the years they've become more specialised and the gaps are showing in today's tourers.

Slightly older bikes are worth hanging onto.

[fatboy]

You can now buy bits on the scheme without buying a bike. Don't know the details of this aspect but you might be able to make what you've got better this way. I really don't believe that you'll get anything better within the scheme. A work colleague of mine looked into improving his old Claud Butler but has opted to get it resprayed as he couldn't find anything better.

As for getting a titanium tourer on the scheme I reaaly don't think that's realistic at all.

[CJ]

As for getting a titanium router on the scheme I reaaly don't think that's realistic at all.

Agreed, titanium is a totally unrealistic material for routers. Anything softer than tool-steel or tungsten-carbide just doesn't cut it.

[fatboy]

As for getting a titanium router on the scheme I reaaly don't think that's realistic at all.

Agreed, titanium is a totally unrealistic material for routers. Anything softer than tool-steel or tungsten-carbide just doesn't cut it.

Ruddy auto correcting spell checker on my phone!

I am interested in your upcoming review and am doing my own speculation as to which bikes they will be.

[fatboy]

Back to the value of the bikes I would try and sell the Galaxy on eBay as they seem to command silly money. However because of your location your value will likely be reduced by the price to courier it.

If you really are set on a new bike I would forget the cycle scheme, realise as much as you can on the old bikes and buy a Spa Ti tourer. If you can't run to that I'd sell the Galaxy (since you don't ride it. Why not? On paper it should be the better bike) and keep on with the Trek

[donnieban]

Back to the value of the bikes I would try and sell the Galaxy on eBay as they seem to command silly money. However because of your location your value will likely be reduced by the price to courier it.

If you really are set on a new bike I would forget the cycle scheme, realise as much as you can on the old bikes and buy a Spa Ti tourer. If you can't run to that I'd sell the Galaxy (since you don't ride it. Why not? On paper it should be the better bike) and keep on with the Trek

I have been looking at whats available and I cannot see anything better out there, newer sure. To be honest a new frame seems the most obvious upgrade. Time to research a ti frame. Anyone done the sums on ti frame options?

donnieban

[niggle]

Transfer Trek components to Galaxy, sell on Trek frame and forks (cheaper to post as well) and anything else left over that you don't want to keep as spares?

[honesty]

On ti frames, there are a few British brands that do ti frames (Kinesis, Spa, Sabbath, Enigma, Genesis) and some American ones (Salsa and Lynskey). Dawes also did one in 2009 - 2010 if you can still find its probably a good deal. There are others but these are the ones I can come up with off the top of my head. Price ranges from sub £1k to over £2k (And more!).

All the manufacturers do audax style ti frames but only Spa, Sabbath and Lynskey do touring frames off the rack (and Salsa, but its a slightly different proposition). Kinesis will have one out in the next few months, the tripster ATR and I'd expect the price to be around £1.5k. You are basically looking at the following:
Spa Cycles tourer or roughstuff - £900
Sabbath cycles Silk route - £1200 ish
Lynskey Backroad - £1700 ish
(And Enigma will do you a custom ti frame for £1550...)
Salsa's slightly different offering is the Fargo ti frameset, basically a touring 29er with drop bars - which is around £2k

[meic]

You appear to have forgotten Van Nicholas who offer the Pioneer and Amazon both of which I would class as touring frames.