Liz,

My **inexperienced** 2 cents....

If you truly want to go across country, Ii'm wondering if you'd be better served by a touring specific bike.

While I do love the Volpe as a "do it all" bike, I wonder if because it was designed as a "do it all" bike if they didn't compromise a bit on the various applications. This might be fine as a couple day "light" touring or credit card touring but for the long haul of a loaded tourer...??

I dunno. Just offering my 2 cents with nothing to back it up except my observation that when any product tries to be a "do it all" it necessarily must make compromises.

I'm not sure who amongst us is an experienced multi-day tourer.. The only ones I know of are perhaps Denise, Triskeliongirl and it sounds like debW is looking into touring as well from this thread: http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=13096