RMTBaiden

Hello everybody I am new new here! I have been into cycling for a few months now and have really enjoyed it. In 10 years I plan on doing some long road bike trips. Does anyone have any bike recommendations for long cross country trips? Note that I am in the US when sending bike suggestions. Thank you!

indyfabz

What’s wrong with the bike you have now? And I certainly wouldn’t buy anything for a trip 10 years from now.

RMTBaiden

The problem with my bike is that it is a cheap bike from my local Walmart. I bought it for a quick solution until I buy a new bike. I am mostly looking for suggestions of a bike to get. Because I would like to buy a better durable bike.

Pratt

Read the relevant threads, here and in the Touring section, then buy what you like. What ever you buy will be wrong, because that bike will teach you and change you. As you Reid you will learn that you want a bike with wider tires to deal with the dirt roads and trails you like. No, nice, skinny 28mm tires so you can rack up century days credit card touring inn to inn, O, and it needs to be blue, or red, or maybe white...

BlazingPedals

This is really true. Moral of the story: buy a nice used bike that fits you, and use it to help decide what you really want. Get the new bike closer to your trip, so you can take advantage of whatever new technology is around by then.

RMTBaiden

Thanks for the feedback. Honestly my current bike will work until I am ready to actually travel, but why those colors specifically?

veganbikes

You really should provide some useful info about your plans. If you are planning on touring and carrying gear you have to figure out if you want more of a traditional touring bike or if you want to do more of a bike packing set up? Or are you going to be supported and maybe a lighter weight road bike makes sense or maybe a gravel bike or something different entirely.

You also need to figure your budget and hopefully something realistic so you can get a decent bike that will fit for your needs.

This would be my more touring specific rig:
https://www.pedalroom.com/bike/co-mo...ruckster-34060

Granted these days I would probably swap the drivetrain for a 2x11 set up probably 11-46 at the back and 48-30 at the front and I would probably swap the rear rack for the Tubus Logo which is the same rack with a lower strut for mounting panniers lower and I can run a rack top bag or something. Beyond that I would probably keep it pretty similar for touring. However 3X9 is probably pretty easy to find in many places.

ScottCommutes

Welcome to the forum. I think that your ten year time horizon is a bit long. It sounds like you are doing well with the Walmart bike. Ride that one into the ground and you will learn exactly what its deficiencies are and that will inform your next bike purchase. Run that next bike into the ground and you will learn exactly what its deficiencies are and that will inform your next purchase. I think you are a couple of bikes away from the one you will be touring on in ten years.

RMTBaiden

Thank you for your reply! I plan on doing thirty minute to an hour long bike rides to build my endurance. I have been browsing and found two bikes that caught my attention.

Steve B.

I would not be buying a touring bike yet. Get more cycling experience, get practiced at changing a flat, learn some maintenance, do a lot of riding. Dunno, maybe a year ?. Do a lot of reading and watching as to what other folks do and how. Figure out, as Vegan stated, what kind of touring you want to do. Self supported with camping is an investment in all the camping gear, plus the baggage to carry, plus the appropriate bike. Figuring that out takes time, spend it wisely.

ScottCommutes

The number one rule of building endurance is to keep those pedals turning! That means riding often.

It also means that when you do ride, keep power going to the pedals - don't sit and coast. When you can do an hour pedals turning nonstop, you are starting to get somewhere in cycling endurance. You will develop a preferred cadence (how fast your feet turn) You will have an average speed (how far you travel in an hour). You will also burn calories and get more comfortable on the bike and build the fitness and power that will eventually translate into endurance and speed.

Russ Roth

10 years is too far away to decide on something now for later. Helpful would be a budget for this bike. Although I replaced the wheels on my wife's, and built mine up as a frameset, at 750 you can pick yourself up a Poseidon. The bike is definitely hefty but durable, she loves the fit on hers but I hate the fit on mine, but that's a personal preference issue and there's no doubt from what I built out of the box that it'd be a fine long term bike for some touring unless heading into the mountains where it just wasn't geared low enough. I'm actively looking to replace mine this year with a State All Road frameset, right now they have some complete bikes on clearance for 1099.00 which would also be a halfway decent starter. In my view it is possible to buy a more basic touring bike and upgrade some as things start to wear or as you think they should be replaced. Either of the two above will have decent wheels that will last several years of touring but ultimately I would replace them with a reasonably priced custom wheelset that used XT or similar quality hubs, heavy duty butted spokes and a stronger but lighter rim for a solid build. Unlike road, mtb, track, cross where a performance oriented frame is needed, tech is changing fast, and upgrades don't always make for a faster bike; with touring the goal is a bike that has appropriate gearing, a reasonable weight, and the sturdiness to handle the loads and terrain.

No clue where you are but start touring this year, it isn't that hard. Get a bike rack and a basic set of panniers or some other bag system, find them used if you need. Pick out a campground 60-70 miles from you, another 60-70 miles from both the first camp ground and from you so you have a triangular trip of 120-140miles. my first tent was 30.00 at walmart, bought it years ago and still use it with the kids, weighs a lot more than my tarptent but strapped to the top of the rear rack it was good enough. Sleeping bag was 20.00 bought at Dicks, a little bulky and not good below 40 degrees or at dealing with 50+ degree temperature swings but for summer touring in general its warm enough and doesn't take a lot of space. make sure the campgrounds have fire pits, bring some fire starters, a lighter, a basic pan to cook in, a few paper plates and some plastic ware along with a couple changes of clothes, most of which you already have at home. A tour like this can be done for under 100 assuming you have a bike, rack, bags, tent and sleeping bag. Using ebay/craigslist you can get the rack and bags for well under 100 though you might get really nice low use ones for a little more. To get started, going the cheap route on the tent and sleeping bag can work with plans to upgrade the more you get into it. But don't wait 10 years to do what you want to do now, too often we waste time dreaming of the things we want to do with some vision of how it should ideally be done when we can just go do it and enjoy an experience that might not be perfect but we can learn and grow from it.

Polaris OBark

Your Reiding tew mutch in two it.

indyfabz

And those would be?

wheelreason

Speechless, but I procrastinate to the max, so maybe it's me...

wheelreason

Red is fastest, blue steadier, and white for when you give up...

indyfabz

ai.

10 Wheels

First:
Find a Saddle that likes your Butt on 100 Mile Rides.
Then get a bike that can carry all that you THINK you might Need.

GamblerGORD53

10 years?? LOL. It's impossible to predict where we will be the end of this crazy one.
Go look at all the tour bike photos. These will all be obsolete in 10 years. LOL. DeFAILeurs with crazy dish spokes are NOT the way to go on a heavyweight. Thru axles are NUTS. Pinion is getting popular. Rohloff serial numbers are getting over 300,000 I think.
This summer my custom with Rohloff14 will be ten years old. It's just getting nicely loosened up at 20,500 miles. And I finally got my chains and 1/8" cogs to last way longer.
My first front SA XL-FDD dyno drum brake hub has 32,000 miles, so it has about 6,000 miles left with my other new steel roadster. Already bought the next one. I built a new wheel for the tour bike, good for the rest of my riding days likely. It has Dyad rims and 35c tires, I guess I should have used 38s.
My disc pads went 5,300 miles.
Gravel riding should have 47c tires at least. 559 rims are soon obsolete.

mstateglfr 

Your first sentence was so good and then you just went right off the rails like usual. Just like a tiger cant change its stripes, a clown cant change its hair. Clown gonna clown every time, if given the chance.

Bikes for touring from 10 years ago can absolutely still be used now so declaring them obsolete simply due to time passing is absurd. Heck, bikes for touring that were made in the 80s can still very much be used, though components will have likely worn out and been replaced since, you know, consumables get consumed.
My current commute/tour bike is actually 10 years old, though I bought the frame new 9 years ago. It has a rear derailleur from the 90s, bar end shifters from the early 00s, and up until last year, had canti brakes from the 80s. Oh, the current crank is from the 80s. So it has components from the 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, and 20s on it and it works perfectly. I expect I will continue to be able to use it for the coming years too.
indyfabz has a touring bike that is 15-20 years old and has done countless thousands of miles. No reason to think he wont be able to continue to use the bike for the coming years, if he wants to. Consumables like brake pads, bar tape, cables and housing, tires, chain, and rims will all be available.



Look, I even found a gif without a 'defaileur', so it really is spot on.

indyfabz

My current LHT turns 13 around this month. Considering that it took last year off save 44 flat, unloaded trail miles, it's really only 12 years old.

How in the world did I ever log 10,000 miles in fewer than 2 years on my first touring bike (Cannondale T 700) which had "DeFAILeurs" without having any problems with them said equipment?

I have never broken a "crazy dish spoke" despite going heavy. Again, how do I do it?

I look skeptically at bloviators who have yet to provide proof if life of their derring-do.

In any event, good job by the OP.

phughes

I friend, I met him years ago on the GAP trail as he was finishing a cross country, began his first cross country trip by flying to California with his seat, and pedals, then bought a bike at Walmart, and a Burley trailer. He thought he would have to replace the bike along the way, but the bike was cheap, and the replacement would be as well. In the end, the bike worked well, and lasted the entire trip. He did have the cranks replaced in Ohio, to a triple, and he wished he had the triple going over the Rockies. He finished the ride, and gave the bike to someone who needed one. It was still in very good shape.

I'm not saying to use your current Walmart bike, but understand that you can used just about anything, provided you can carry the load, and of course maintain said bike.

That friend was 67 back in 2011 when I met him, and it was his first bike tour. He is still touring to this day. For his 70th year, he rode from Iowa to the Florida Keys, up to the tip of Maine, and back to Iowa, 7,000 miles for 70 years. That Walmart bike started his love for touring.

phughes

Hysterical. You should go into comedy, I can hook you up with a good agent if you need one. All those millions of miles done by people touring on "crazy dished rims" must be an anomaly. I bow to your superior wisdom. I shall go put a "DO NOT RIDE! MAY CAUSE DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY!" sticker on my LHT rim.

That rim, properly de-tensioned and then re-tensioned when new, is still true, after thousands of miles, loaded and unloaded, since 2011. No broken spokes either.

zandoval 

Welcome to the forum...

As someone who never toured and certainly can no longer tour my advice is Ride Now and Tour As Ya Go. My local rides pass through a State Park that is a layover for Bicycle Tour'ers passing through. I have seen many people touring on HUFFYs and even some touring on Walmart bikes.

Sure, many times it was not a pretty site but they were doing it!

Get on out there and learn as ya go. I lost my window of opportunity by thinking about it when I should have just done it...

Trek1100FeltZ5

Across Nebraska, you can do a 422.4 miles trip from Gurley to Manley, you know, when you think the time is right.