Is the Bridge Club for me?
 

Hi
I'll be visiting the US and was looking to take a touring bike while on my way back. Bikes are expensive back home and I don't visit the states often.

I hope to be touring all over the place, especially mountains and mountain passes, and definitely some road riding as well. The Surly website lists the Troll as the do-anything but of the comparison posts I read riders have raged more about the LHT doing whatever they throw at it and much more fun to ride loaded.
The Bridge Club comes into the picture by giving a Troll-like do-anything frame (apparently) and PLUS a much lower price for a disk brake complete bike as compared to the DT.

I would have ideally liked a 26" wheel setup with cantis, because I understand that, and the ability to add disc's in the future. But the Bridge Club's price makes it quite appealing.

Or should I just get a 26" LHT instead?

Very looking forward to hear your thoughts.. :)

Thanks

Bridge, the card game, does require 4 players, so you might need a few club members ..



You do not need a specific touring bike to go on a bike tour , but you need some kind of bike ..


Old pre suspension fork MTB make decent touring bikes
others like 700c wheels .. this is 650B, ("27.5") neither of those...

I got a 20" wheel Bike Friday , it's advantage is .. easier to cope with air travel
to get to your tour start, places because It fits in a suitcase...

Thousands of happy owners do that already.. As you can see, reading CGOAB ..


https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...4e&oe=5CDBED48





....

Do you prefer drop bars or flat bars?

When you take it home, will you have to pay customs duty on it? Don't forget to factor that cost into the calculation.

The Bridge Club, with it's flat bars and fat tires and lower gearing, will be slower on pavement than an LHT, but can handle rough terrain that an LHT couldn't.

It all depends on the terrain you want to traverse.

I wanted to get a BF too. But they have very long delivery time and expenses.. :/

Preferably drop bars I think, but I am not strongly biased towards either.

The customs duty is exempt upto about 7-800 USD and I pay some on the value above (unless its a used bike).

Don't know for sure, hence with the BC maybe that's one less thing to worry about (?)

how high are you valuing disc brakes?

I think disc brakes are fairly valuable on dirt. With rim brakes, you get moisture on your rims by crossing a stream or just morning dew, then dirt will stick to your rims, then it grinds when you brake. That grinding was very disturbing to me.

On long descents disc brakes are better because they take less hand pressure.

If riding on mostly dry pavement and not doing much long descents, then disc brakes aren't as important.

QBP uses Maxway TW,

Bike Friday is in Oregon FWIW their OSATA was batch made in the winter..

Those are ready made.. adjustable in length and height..


My Touring bike had rim brakes , since I toured in the northern Summers ,

the Rim brakes were fine.. 70's to 90's..


I only recently bought a disc brake wheeled bike ..

this one ..

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...4e&oe=5CDBED48










....

The LHT is a pretty versatile bike. I have been riding one for about 9 years. The LHT even does things that I would not have expected. Earlier this month I was taking pictures during a 400k brevet, and met 3 guys who were actually riding LHTs. A friend was riding it, and using start time, average speed, and route distances; it was not hard to figure out about where his group was on the route.

The guy on the left in the Oregon jersey is on a LHT. They are almost half way at this point, but could still smile for the camera.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...702c36fc_c.jpg

I had a nice LHT with 26" wheels, and the idiot inside me came out and made me sell it. Since then, I now have a Troll and an ECR. The ECR is a beast on anything non-paved, and the Troll fills in nicely for paved and light offroad. I love them both, but they are slow. My next endeavor is to build a 700c Disc trucker, or perhaps an Ogre. I have a Specialized Diverge that would be absolutely perfect as a touring bike, but it simply does not have all of the bits and bobs for attaching racks, fenders, cages, etc, that the Surly bikes have.

JackS, where are you from?
Have you done some touring, and if no or yes, what sort of touring are you imagining--panniers or just frame bags?
What sort of riding have you done? On what sort of bikes?

Actually riding a bike will always be better for getting an impression of how it rides, but dont forget, your riding experience plays a big part here, as well as tires on teh bike and tire pressures too--and of course, test rides dont have the weight of panniers and so thats a tricky thing to evaluate.

re "The Surly website lists the Troll as the do-anything but of the comparison posts I read riders have raged more about the LHT doing whatever they throw at it and much more fun to ride loaded."

I had always read the opposite, and was supported by my experience with a Troll--and it makes sense, the Troll is a kind of mountain bike, and mtb need to be nimble for riding on trails, whereas the LHT is specifically made to be "trucklike" and slower steering.
For me, faster steering is more "fun" , and I set up my Troll with dropbars and have toured on fairly heavily loaded and it handled great (lots of factors come into play though, one has to be realistic about that)
But I'm a light guy, and so this probably helps with me putting 50lbs on the bike, as me+load= 185lbs=a lot of average guys.

As others have brought up, duty fees etc as well as airplane bike fees have to be taken into account, so without knowing whre you are from, you could very well end up with extra fees that are not small....and you still come back to the fact that you are buying a bike with perhaps little or no test riding, and some bikes may not be in stores.

If I were buying a bike, I'd get the Bridge Club over the Troll and save $500. Note the BC has a double crank and narrower gear range, 16-90 gear-inches.

If I wanted to save more money, I'd buy a used LHT bike or frameset and build my own. Note that a "good deal" in the right size is usually difficult to find - you could be waiting a year or more. Most used LHT bikes on eBay go for $800-1100, plus shipping.

Finding one of these bikes in a store in the right size is unlikely, and the short, unloaded test ride doesn't tell you much. Experienced bicyclists tend to know what size bike they need, handlebar preference, etc, in which case they can simply order the desired bike/frameset and pick it up in a week or so. This would be your best bet if you happen to have that knowledge/information.