Touring Bike Recommendation

[JaneE]

We've had our LHTs for a little while now and love them.

We took to heart what we had read somewhere: on a touring bike you will rarely or never wish you had higher gears but you'll frequently find yourself wishing you had lower gears. We had the Surly stock rings (48-36-26) swapped out for 46-34-24 (which our LBS did for free during the build and set-up).

We love our bikes! The ride is very smooth and solid. Won't be breaking any land-speed records, though.

I don't think you can go wrong with this bike.

[tulip]

I really like Jamis bikes. I don't have the Aurora, but I do have the Coda and would love to put drop bars on it and make it into a touring bike. But that's not going to happen.

I've done light touring on my Bike Friday and it's been great. They make models specifically for loaded touring (mine is not but it's wonderful for light touring). It's also very handy to be able to put it in a suitcase for traveling.

You might also want to consider getting a frame with couplers to facilitate traveling to touring places. Waterford and many other framebuilders will do this.

CA- I had trouble with my Dahon Matrix (sold it) that had disk brakes. It was a commuting bike and getting a rack on was not easy. I ended up using alot of duct tape.