Are touring bikes old fashioned?

[rareposter]

With internal cables! Yuck!

It’s like a lot of that bike: a bit too fancy for the intended purpose, or indeed any intended purpose, IMO. Its an expensive purchase, and it looks expensive to maintain for several reasons.

In short, I was highlighting it out of interest, rather than getting excited about it.

Where internal cabling wins out big time is for hydraulic brakes and Di2. Once installed, it should never need to come out other than for a complete total strip down. It means that hoses and wires are tucked away from harm, can't get snagged etc and the actual routing of them is immaterial since (unlike mechanical wires that require straight, taut runs) hydro and electric can curve around anything, bend through all sorts of unlikely angles and it won't have the slightest detrimental effect on shifting or braking.

Everyone says "ooh but what about repairing it?!" in much the same way as everyone says "what about spares in [insert random far-away place]?!". For 99% of users 99% of the time, it won't be an issue.

[pwa]

With internal cables! Yuck!

It’s like a lot of that bike: a bit too fancy for the intended purpose, or indeed any intended purpose, IMO. Its an expensive purchase, and it looks expensive to maintain for several reasons.

In short, I was highlighting it out of interest, rather than getting excited about it.

I took it that way.

[pwa]

With internal cables! Yuck!

It’s like a lot of that bike: a bit too fancy for the intended purpose, or indeed any intended purpose, IMO. Its an expensive purchase, and it looks expensive to maintain for several reasons.

In short, I was highlighting it out of interest, rather than getting excited about it.

Where internal cabling wins out big time is for hydraulic brakes and Di2. Once installed, it should never need to come out other than for a complete total strip down. It means that hoses and wires are tucked away from harm, can't get snagged etc and the actual routing of them is immaterial since (unlike mechanical wires that require straight, taut runs) hydro and electric can curve around anything, bend through all sorts of unlikely angles and it won't have the slightest detrimental effect on shifting or braking.

Everyone says "ooh but what about repairing it?!" in much the same way as everyone says "what about spares in [insert random far-away place]?!". For 99% of users 99% of the time, it won't be an issue.

It isn't the cabling itself that bothers me. It is having extra holes in the steel tubes to accommodate it.

[djb]

It isn't the cabling itself that bothers me. It is having extra holes in the steel tubes to accommodate it.
[/quote]

Exactly, water getting in, and for a tourer, having the possibility of full length housing is a nice bonus, for wet gunky environments.
With touring, the aero aspect is always going to be a non issue, and generally, cables are protected by panniers, rear anyway.

[Bice]

One consideration not addressed here unless I have missed is: do you actually want a fancy touring bike?

Being a Londoner, I don't want to leave around a flashy, expensive bike with expensive components, and I would feel a bit the same about a tourer. After all, the purpose of touring (for me), is to see things, which means getting off the bike and leaving it somewhere.

My cheapest bike on which I have commuted in London for years cost £27 for the frame; the most expensive was the Trek 1.7 10-speed at £750.

I rode a fancy Woho Wildcard gravel / tourer around Denmark for a week in the summer: lightweight steel with carbon forks and disks, 11-speed. It was nice, but not that nice: certainly not worth $2,000 - $2,500, at least to me. (And I did not think disk brakes performed brilliantly, either: noisy and worse modulation than all my caliper brakes).

I can't say that the bike was that light: the owner, reasonably enough, made me take one of those very heavy fold-up steel locks.

My Diamant, ladies frame steel racer / tourer, 8-speed, triple, caliper brakes cost around £500 to make up including frame and it is just as much fun; way easier to maintain and actually better for touring (ie racks).

Re frame breakages, even though I am only 72kg I have managed to break two steel frames commuting (probably not helped by a bit of hopping up kerbs); one steel frame fork; and, club riding, cracked a pair of carbon forks.

I don't dislike carbon, but I don't trust it much either: had my carbon forks broken coming down the South Downs at 40mph, I would have suffered; whereas my steel ones on the commuter broke, stayed in place and still got me 6 miles home.

Until one of my existing bikes expires, I won't be getting a carbon road bike. Even then, I might just go for retro steel again because they ride beautifully and look so much better.

I don't feel that warmly about the hardcore touring bikes, because they look ungainly. But they also will do the job. I made up something very similar with my steel 26 inch Marin MTB: another bike I would not fret about chaining up in a city. (I paid a full £85 for it, although Sputnik wheels I made up for it cost double that.)

Don't understand the grousing about internal cable routing on steel frames.

I have had internal brake rear brake cabling on this bike and it has caused no issue in 12 years of riding it. It is from 1996, so nearly 30 years old, although I made it up unused. The cable routing and holes in the cross tube do not bother me in the slightest.



Unfortunately, no use as a tourer, as no lugs for racks and only a 23mmtyre fits in the front.

This is a great comment:

You have to have this, you shouldn't have that, X is better than Y, the latest tech Vs the oldest standard, none of it matters anything like as much as some would have us believe. Any bike built as a touring bike, and a good few that aren't, will be more than adequate, If you don't have your own experience to rely on, you may as well base your choice on the frame colour.

[GideonReade]

cables are protected by panniers, rear anyway.

I'm not convinced. Protected in a crash, maybe. But surely, delicate protrusions like cables are most vulnerable when the bike is unridden and unloaded? In the alleyway, lobby, hall, road where you leave it. Or in the bus, under Senor X's bag, or chucked into a pickup, etc. Although with modern under bar tape routing, it's only the RD cable's last bit that's much vulnerable, innit?

Not that I've ever had or wanted internal cables. Some of the instructions make them sound quite fiddly to use, although I take the point about being more suited to hydraulics and electrics.

Going on day rides with folks on Di2, they do seem to have more issues, usually with batteries, than "normal" folks. I suppose it's manageable. Maybe it depends on the type of person more than anything? I can see the point with tri bars for sure. I guess hydraulic brakes also lend themselves to multiple operating positions.

[rareposter]

Going on day rides with folks on Di2, they do seem to have more issues, usually with batteries, than "normal" folks. I suppose it's manageable. Maybe it depends on the type of person more than anything?

I think there's an element of that but I wouldn't put it that far past the analogy of cars. Back In The Day, if your car had a fault, you/your Dad would whack bits with a hammer and tighten bits with a spanner and it'd work again.
Now, you can't do that, it needs a laptop to work out what is wrong with it.

It's not dissimilar with bikes.

That said, (same as cars) as bikes and technology have evolved, they've got better as well so they're less likely to break in the first place.

FWIW, I've found Di2 pretty faultless but it's a different set of skills to adjust it than it is to work on mechanical gears. It's no more *difficult* - just different. Same with things like GPS vs paper maps.

[GideonReade]

How do you adjust a paper map?

[Bmblbzzz]

Unfortunately, no use as a tourer, as no lugs for racks and only a 23mmtyre fits in the front.

Nice looking bike! But like you say, definitely no use as a tourer.

[fossala]

With internal cables! Yuck!

It’s like a lot of that bike: a bit too fancy for the intended purpose, or indeed any intended purpose, IMO. Its an expensive purchase, and it looks expensive to maintain for several reasons.

In short, I was highlighting it out of interest, rather than getting excited about it.

Where internal cabling wins out big time is for hydraulic brakes and Di2. Once installed, it should never need to come out other than for a complete total strip down. It means that hoses and wires are tucked away from harm, can't get snagged etc and the actual routing of them is immaterial since (unlike mechanical wires that require straight, taut runs) hydro and electric can curve around anything, bend through all sorts of unlikely angles and it won't have the slightest detrimental effect on shifting or braking.

Everyone says "ooh but what about repairing it?!" in much the same way as everyone says "what about spares in [insert random far-away place]?!". For 99% of users 99% of the time, it won't be an issue.

Have you ever worked on di2? It’s not for a forget, battery drain issues are more common than you think (component or junction not sleeping). That’s not to mention everything now goes through the headset so you need to replace one hose, re route both, and rebleed the system when you need a headset bearing change.

[rareposter]

Have you ever worked on di2? It’s not for a forget, battery drain issues are more common than you think (component or junction not sleeping). That’s not to mention everything now goes through the headset so you need to replace one hose, re route both, and rebleed the system when you need a headset bearing change.

Yes, many times both in the workstand and out on the road - usual one on the road being that the system has gone into crash mode and the rider doesn't know the fix.
Cable routing - depends a lot on the frame. Some manufacturers have got things like split headset spacers or routing down the outside or integration at the bars, exposed routing then integration within the frame which negates the headset issues. Some solutions are certainly more practical than others but it depends on how much of your own maintenance you want to do, where you'll be travelling, costs, spare parts...

[fossala]

Have you ever worked on di2? It’s not for a forget, battery drain issues are more common than you think (component or junction not sleeping). That’s not to mention everything now goes through the headset so you need to replace one hose, re route both, and rebleed the system when you need a headset bearing change.

Yes, many times both in the workstand and out on the road - usual one on the road being that the system has gone into crash mode and the rider doesn't know the fix.
Cable routing - depends a lot on the frame. Some manufacturers have got things like split headset spacers or routing down the outside or integration at the bars, exposed routing then integration within the frame which negates the headset issues. Some solutions are certainly more practical than others but it depends on how much of your own maintenance you want to do, where you'll be travelling, costs, spare parts...

It’s not the spacers that are the problem, it’s removing the headset bearings. The biggest issue isn’t crash mode, most people have YouTube. What they don’t have is diagnostic software and proprietary hardware to match. Even then it can only track down issues 50% of the time and then it is just swap components for ones held in stock until you find what is causing the battery drain.

[djb]

cables are protected by panniers, rear anyway.

I'm not convinced. Protected in a crash, maybe. But surely, delicate protrusions like cables are most vulnerable when the bike is unridden and unloaded? In the alleyway, lobby, hall, road where you leave it. Or in the bus, under Senor X's bag, or chucked into a pickup, etc. Although with modern under bar tape routing, it's only the RD cable's last bit that's much vulnerable, innit?

Not that I've ever had or wanted internal cables. Some of the instructions make them sound quite fiddly to use, although I take the point about being more suited to hydraulics and electrics.

Going on day rides with folks on Di2, they do seem to have more issues, usually with batteries, than "normal" folks. I suppose it's manageable. Maybe it depends on the type of person more than anything? I can see the point with tri bars for sure. I guess hydraulic brakes also lend themselves to multiple operating positions.

About exposed cables, I certainly don't worry about it, and luckily haven't had any issues yet, so that's good enough for me.
I guess the main thing is that it works, is reliable, and I have the experience to muck about with stuff and get things working.

[GideonReade]

Plus, if you're stuck on a long trip, the other passing tourist will quite likely have an old fashioned spare gear* and even spare brake cable.

Especially if it's me on my Roughstuff as my BES & high set bars mean I just can't quite use a solo RD cable and so carry a tandem one. Aka a hen's tooth. Next overhaul that cable's getting rerouted.

[fossala]

Plus, if you're stuck on a long trip, the other passing tourist will quite likely have an old fashioned spare gear* and even spare brake cable.

Especially if it's me on my Roughstuff as my BES & high set bars mean I just can't quite use a solo RD cable and so carry a tandem one. Aka a hen's tooth. Next overhaul that cable's getting rerouted.

Roberts roughstuff?