Originally Posted by
abshipp
Yes, a modern steel bike is definitely something I'm looking in to. I actually just looked into the Smoothie that you mentioned a while ago, the 60cm size would be very comparable to my Trek fit right now, and that light blue is so pretty. Limiting myself to 28mm tires max is something I would have to think about, though. The bigger question would be whether to go disc or not, I actually really like the idea of something like the
VO Pass Hunter or the
Crust Bikes Lightning Bolt, they would both work really well fit-wise and are both disc brake thru axle framesets. The stock fork on the VO is unbelievably fugly though, so that would need to change.
Yeah those are both a bit much towards utilitarian for my taste. The advantage of the Smoothie is it takes the same parts as the R2 (other than crank) so it's an easy swap if something happens to the frame. I doubt I'd get one under other circumstances, because another rim-brake road bike would be too similar. Better to get a disc brake all-road that brings something new to the table.