Commuter for touring or tourer for commuting?

[Tangled Metal]

There's been a comparison between isn't tourers and commuters interchangeably. What about using road based bikes off road?

My "super commuter" is great with moderately nobbly tyres off road. Makes it fun IMHO. Anyone else use road bikes or hybrids or tourers off road as a compromise to do minor cycling activities? Cross functional uses off road that is.! Partner is using a hardtail mtb as her road use bike (1.75" cityjet tyres) seems to be ok but for no front rack and fork attachment bolts.

[PH]

30 lb? Quick cover app and that's about 13.6kg.got you. 9.5kg for my PX bike in the largest size. Same as my 25+year old steel road bike. That was in Reynolds gas pipe steel butted tubing. 501!

A weight comparison doesn't mean much unless vantage were to build up his tourer like your PX, or you do the opposite, I'd be surprised if there was a kg in it.

[Jamesh]

My ideal tourer / would be a cheap 501 / 531 or more expensive 525 / 725 frame.
Dual pivot brakes or canti or disk brakes
No more than 8 or perhaps 9 speed.
2 pairs of wheels one lighter rs11 / askium
And a heavier 319 / 719 etc pair for touring and winter commuting.

Gearing I wouldn't mind trying 1x as I haven't really used 50 x11 on tour.above 20mph I tend to freewheel.

Cheers James

[pwa]

I don't see the need for a 50t or more chain ring on a tourer, unless you have had enough and you are desperately trying to put distance between yourself and your family.

[Brucey]

I don't see the need for a 50t or more chain ring on a tourer, unless you have had enough and you are desperately trying to put distance between yourself and your family.

Everyone wants (thinks they need) different gear ratios. I'm not right fussed about having ratios over 90" on a touring bike myself but I still have a 50T chainring on my touring bike, because that allows me to use a cassette that doesn't need a stupid 11T sprocket to give me a reasonable high gear; 13T or 14T is plenty.

The net result of this is that I have more useful gears with good chainlines that I will use, and these gears use larger chainrings and sprockets to give any given gear ratio. This in turn means that the transmission is

- smoother running
- more efficient
- longer lasting

cheers

[pwa]

I think I have caved in and accepted that unwanted 11t sprocket because it is hard to avoid when you go shopping for a cassette. If cassettes regularly started with 13t I would be happier.

[Brucey]

I think I have caved in and accepted that unwanted 11t sprocket because it is hard to avoid when you go shopping for a cassette. If cassettes regularly started with 13t I would be happier.

I think that this is commonly the case.

However many (most?) cassettes have serrations (for a lockring) on the second smallest sprocket as well as the smallest. It is almost as if they want you to remove the smallest sprocket and fit one more large one instead! Of course life isn't quite that simple; between sprockets in clusters, dished #1 sprockets and different sized lockrings there is potential for some complication.

cheers

[Jamesh]

I don't see the need for a 50t or more chain ring on a tourer, unless you have had enough and you are desperately trying to put distance between yourself and your family.

Classic

Is that what I've been doing this last week!
Sitting in a thurso restaurant!!

[Tangled Metal]

30 lb? Quick cover app and that's about 13.6kg.got you. 9.5kg for my PX bike in the largest size. Same as my 25+year old steel road bike. That was in Reynolds gas pipe steel butted tubing. 501!

A weight comparison doesn't mean much unless vantage were to build up his tourer like your PX, or you do the opposite, I'd be surprised if there was a kg in it.

Of course! Usually frame and forks weight doesn't vary that much between the budget end of road type of bike and half decent tourer. Mine will be lighter, Al and carbon not steel (assuming same sizes of course which is unlikely since XL sized bikes tend not to sell as much as medium or even large).

Just as an idea, tour de fer frameset typical list weight 3.90kg compared to 2.32kg for my bike frameset. I have no idea of the spa tourer frameset. Surly LHT 3.2 to 3.6kg for frameset, the fork is about 1.2kg alone apparently.

The other point is vantage probably had a light rear rack on at 13.6kg I'm guessing (didn't vantage say he swaps to lighter forks and I think something about taking off/changing to a lighter fork). My bike weight revers to the weight of my bike with only pedals added, ie minimum to ride it. I actually run with rear guard and rack plus two cages and other brackets. Will all add to that.

Another comment, I was only talking about weights in that post because it was given in pounds. I thought most into bikes in the UK use metric these days. No problem but I've never really used pounds only kg or grammes. Looking online and it seems only surly really uses pounds even for the UK.

[pwa]

30 lb? Quick cover app and that's about 13.6kg.got you. 9.5kg for my PX bike in the largest size. Same as my 25+year old steel road bike. That was in Reynolds gas pipe steel butted tubing. 501!

A weight comparison doesn't mean much unless vantage were to build up his tourer like your PX, or you do the opposite, I'd be surprised if there was a kg in it.

Of course! Usually frame and forks weight doesn't vary that much between the budget end of road type of bike and half decent tourer. Mine will be lighter, Al and carbon not steel (assuming same sizes of course which is unlikely since XL sized bikes tend not to sell as much as medium or even large).

Just as an idea, tour de fer frameset typical list weight 3.90kg compared to 2.32kg for my bike frameset. I have no idea of the spa tourer frameset. Surly LHT 3.2 to 3.6kg for frameset, the fork is about 1.2kg alone apparently.

The other point is vantage probably had a light rear rack on at 13.6kg I'm guessing (didn't vantage say he swaps to lighter forks and I think something about taking off/changing to a lighter fork). My bike weight revers to the weight of my bike with only pedals added, ie minimum to ride it. I actually run with rear guard and rack plus two cages and other brackets. Will all add to that.

Another comment, I was only talking about weights in that post because it was given in pounds. I thought most into bikes in the UK use metric these days. No problem but I've never really used pounds only kg or grammes. Looking online and it seems only surly really uses pounds even for the UK.

Just on a point of nomenclature, it seems to me that you are leaning towards what I would consider an Audax style bike ( which has sometimes been called a Light Tourer) rather than a full-on Tourer for taking four panniers. That is fair enough if you don't want the four pannier capacity. But for commuting purposes, my full-on Tourer (Thorn Club Tour in 725) has had a hard life since I bought it about 18 years ago. It has been on the deck a few times and once finished up under the front of a white van. Without any real damage. I suspect that if I had bought an alloy frame with carbon forks for that job it would have been in a skip a decade ago. As it is, apart from the frameset the rest of the bike is a Trigger's Broom, with parts being replaced as they wear out.

[Tangled Metal]

Don't be so sure. Whilst I'm quite happy not to match your case if going under a van it's not been accident free. First off the usual big pothole incident that had me off. The numerous times I've hit the deck on icy patch.

Or the time my rear wheel came out of the rear of the frame and was dragged along behind me as I slowed to a stop on a mixture of frame and large chainring. I actually laughed when I spotted the chain jammed into the rear derailleur and on the wheel cassette bouncing along after me. I suspect someone loosened it so I didn't notice I'd anyway had one incident of loose qr and had a suspicion someone was loosening it as a joke. There's a couple of unhinged people at work who would do such a thing and not realise the risks if causing harm.

Anyway, I can say my aluminium frame bike with carbon forks has taken a beating despite my usual care and attention. That's commuting for you!

[Cugel]

This is currently the shopping bike - but it's been the fast road bike, the "gravel" (off-road) bike and the tourer. It can be an AUdax bike too. It just requires a bit of reconfiguration to be almost any bike other than a pure racing bike.

It's a 2009 Specialized Tricross cyclocross bike that came with mudguard and pannier mounts, as well as the cantilever brakes allowing tyres up to about 40mm width to go in, although it currently has 36mm studded Schwalbe Marathons and mudguards. It's main frame triangle is aluminium with CF forks and rear triangle.

The panniers and racks were highly discounted items from PlanetX, as I recall. They're very tough and the bags are waterproof. They unclip with a quick-release system and have shoulder straps and handles for carting into a shop.

If you swap the tyres for light slicks, remove the panniers & guards, flip the stem and maybe change the chainset, you have a fast road bike. Put on cyclo-cross tyres and you have a gravel bike. As it's set up in the pic, only a change of tyres is required to make it a touring bike.

These days you could get something similar with disc brakes. They're highly reconfigurable, as long as you don't want your <function name> bike to be a pure >function name> bike. I confess, I also have a dedicated winter bike and a dedicated summer bike that are more pure Audax and racing style,respectively, than a reconfigured cyclo-cross bike.

You could have a dyno front wheel rather than Lion lights. I keep thinking I might but I ride too little in the dark to justify that.

In practice I have two of these bikes (one used to be the ladywife's) configured differently; as well as four wheelsets, since changing tyres is tedious. Lazy spoilt me, eh?

Cugel

[Brucey]

PD-M525 pedals are lasting well, I see!

cheers

[Tangled Metal]

I looked at getting a tricross once. Lot of my price bracket at the time so got the PX bike. It was sold as entry CX then like tricross was. But IMHO they're too between bikes. Most bike shops round here used to say they were mostly intended for touring and commuting by the people buying them. I think that's the crux of them (crux iirc was the spesh CX range afterall), they're mid use if that makes sense. Great for all round bike.

Personally that's what I prefer something that will do most things. However I feel a bias towards one thing over another creeps in with me. There can be a bias in design for even these general types of bikes. Tbh tricross could be a type of drop bar hybrid.

[Vantage]

The other point is vantage probably had a light rear rack on at 13.6kg I'm guessing (didn't vantage say he swaps to lighter forks and I think something about taking off/changing to a lighter fork). My bike weight revers to the weight of my bike with only pedals added, ie minimum to ride it. I actually run with rear guard and rack plus two cages and other brackets. Will all add to that.

Afraid not. The weight I gave includes dyno lights and hub, bottle cage, twin leg stand, accessory extension bar and bell and GPS bracket. No rack though.
She's a bit of a lump and been built to take a hammering. 36 spoke sputniks are no lightweight rims.