suncruiser

All Right, so I've been doing some light touring (grand canyon to phoenix, phoenix to Payson, phoenix to Sierra vista) on my vaya, and so far I've loved it, but I think I'm beginning to see what the hullabaloo is about having a full fledged touring bike. I feel like the hills could be easier with better gearing, and riding down the hills at higher speeds with all my gear could be less sketchy with a longer wheelbase. (55mph heading down from Jerome was fantastic but scary, I felt like one slight wrong twitch could have had bad results, and that was with about 15lbs on the front axle, 10lbs on the back)

I don't really want to change the gearing on my vaya, it's hilarious fun as it stands riding around home and on group rides, so a bike better set up for it is the way I'm running it.

I'm down to two bikes, and I can't decide between them. The salsa Marrakesh and the surly disc trucker in 56cm/26in. The Marrakesh is gorgeous in that dark blue and I'm not as much a fan of the gray color of the disc trucker but I've heard that 26" wheels are stronger overall. Tire choices for 700c also seem better, but the tires I'd be running come in both anyways.

What's y'alls opinions of these two? I try not to post too much in here, I don't feel like my little tours so far are really post material for this forum