Surly Bikes for Touring?

Meisele

Hi,

I'm looking into getting a touring worthy bike this summer. I've toured on serious touring bikes in the past on more recently on a moutain bike equipped with slicks. My next bike needs to be more efficicent and lighter than my MTB but also versatile enough to handle dirt roads one might encounter in less fortunate countries than Canada and the US.

I've been looking at Surly frames and I'm wondering if there are others who are using them.

My situation is thus:

I'm too vertically challenged to use the larger frames for the Long Haul Trucker. So I would have to use the smaller frame which only takes the 26" Wheels.

Any thoughts on the neverending debate/controversy of 26" versus 700c wheels?

The other option I've looked at is the Burly Cross Check frame. They can put a different fork on it for the front racks but the geometry is a bit different. With the Cross Check I'd be able to go to 700c wheels. I saw one all built up for a customer who was going touring in France.

Anyone out there who has toured on the Cross Check? If so what do you think of it? how did you outfit it? Flat bars? straight bars? what else?

Any advice on the Burly frames would be greatly appreciated.


...Thanks

rkokish

I ride a LHT with 700c wheels; my wife has a smaller Surly LHT with 26" wheels. A 26" wheel is less than 6% smaller than a 700c. How much difference does that make? If she and I are riding in the same gear and I'm spinning 80 RPM she has to put out 84-85 to ride at the same speed. Big deal! Or, unless we are buring up the road going downhill in tip gear, she can just move up a gear and ride a slightly slower cadence than me. Hers has an 11/34 cluster with 26/26/46 chainrings. (Mine is similar) Wheels have 36 spokes outfitted with 26x1.25 tires that inflate to 80 lbs.

Both our LHT's are excellent four touring. At around 24 lbs they are definitly not lightweights buut they are light enough to be fun and still handle bad pavement abd even gravel roads with aplomb. (You might further improve comfort in consistently bad conditions with a shock absorbing seatpost.) I highly recommend the LHT for the uses you cited. I am unfamiliar with the Burly and cannot give you advice about it. But as you can no doubt tell, I love our LHT's.