Touring Bike Recommendation

[mtkitchn]

Sorry I'm jumping into this discussion a bit late, but if you're still looking for opinions I just got back from a month-long tour of Nova Scotia on a Trek 520. Overall I LOVE the bike, but I do have 2 complaints. One is that the top tube on that bike is pretty long. I had to swap out to a shorter/higher stem to bring my handlebars closer. That might just be me, but I have the typical female build of short torso/long leg. The second thing is the gearing. I had heard before going on the tour that the stock gearing on the Trek 520 was pretty high for loaded touring, but opted not to pay for lower gearing. That was a mistake- I had to walk up a few hills b/c the gearing was just too high.
Besides those things though- both of them fixable- I think the Trek 520 is an awesome bike. Good luck!

I'm looking for a touring bike and the long top tube thing concerns me. Are there touring bikes made specifically for women that aren't too spendy? Or is it easy enough to find a stem to fix the problem on most bikes?

[NadiaMac]

Old Man Mountain and Axiom make racks for mounting to bike lacking eyelets and other mounting hardware. For my recent loaded tour on a road bike with no mounting hardware (no eyelets, etc.), I put an OMM front rack on my carbon fork -- in mounted onto the quickrelease and braced onto the carbon form. Used an axiom rear rack that mounted through the quick release and caliper brake mount. For folks with disc brakes, OMM has quite a few racks for mounting onto bikes with disc brakes. The mounting systems are very clever, and OMM was very helpful through email in helping me select and mount the proper rack.