My new touring bike!

[emily_in_nc]

From what I've read, it's actually better to put some weight up front when you are touring with a heavy load. I guess it balances everything out or something. I don't have any personal experience with loaded touring yet, so I can't say for sure whether it's true or not.

This is very true. In preparation for a long self-supported tour, DH and I did a two-day shakedown tour with our equipment. I had purchased a set of large rear panniers (Arkel), and filled them with the approximate weight of what I'd need to carry on the long tour. My bike handled really poorly b/c all that weight was on the back. I did have a front handlebar bag, but that wasn't enough to balance the back weight. There were times when I was going up climbs that my front wheel wanted to lift right off the road -- definitely unsettling! And there were other handling issues I don't really recall now (this was in 2004).

In any event, I sent back the large panniers and ordered two sets of smaller panniers, along with a front rack. This was a much, much better setup, though more expensive. In fact, the research I did after our shakedown indicated that if you are only going to use one set of panniers, they should be on the front (not huge ones, of course). I wish I still had the web page, b/c it showed all sorts of pannier configurations and made recommendations based on how much gear you needed to carry.

[anaphase]

That is a sweet bike. Enjoy it, and have fun on your tour!

We are going to start touring a bit this summer, so we're researching everything related to bags & racks. We already have bikes & most of the ultra-lightweight camping gear already, which makes it a lot more affordable.