Squeezebox

I rode the LHT and did not like it!!

Squeezebox

Have you had any issues with the low spoke count? I'm working on pulling the money together for mine.

Squeezebox

Thanks for your opinion about the quality of the Al used. I'll check it out. Again I just did not like the LHT. Nothing sacred about steel.
Sounds like you are bashing the 920 without having ridden one, The same way I was bashing the LHT without having ridden one. Just maybe.

saddlesores

nah, don't need to ride it. not with over a quarter million touring miles.
i know pretty much what i like and don't like.

too many negatives to the 920..........i'd have to change
brakes and shifters and bottom bracket and gearing and
seat and bars and them ridikkalous 28-spoke wheels.
and don't forget the thru axels!
when i went through the specs, realized the only parts
i might keep were the stem and seatpost.
paying that much, i'd get a custom steel frame.
only ride aluminium now, as that's all i can get
in my size here in china. is good enough for now.

it's a great bike for the type who want that kind of bike.
i'm not much for posing in front of hooters in mauve
spandex with color coordinated sunscreen.
not for me, and not for real world touring.

Doug64

All of the above, and wait until he finds that the bars are too low and it only has a 20 mm stack height.

I posted this in another thread, but it fits right in with what you are saying.

Squeezebox

I rode the LHT and my assumption were confirmed. You may have a shrine built for your LHT. But not a bicycle I would want. I tried it did not like it.

elcruxio

Amazing how deeply you believe the lht is the only touring bike around. It's not. Even surly offers touring capable bikes towards either end of the spectrum from the lht. Straggler and ogre come to mind. Then there's salsa marrakesh, which should be the exact bike you're looking for. There is a huge variety out there, but you're just too lazy to do the research

chasm54

Well, that's not quite what you said, which was...

Seriously, just let it go. You're under no obligation to agree with those who love the LHT, and nor are they obliged to share your opinions. But it's understandable that they get irritated when you repeatedly attack their choice of bike without even having ridden it for more than a few minutes.

People like different bikes and different styles of riding. That's a good thing. There is no "best" bike. Chill, and stop thinking you have to find the right answer.

shelbyfv

I have no problem with 28 spoke wheels. I do have a problem with your lack of forum etiquette. You are abusing the helpful nature of folks who post here.

Squeezebox

I have looked at those, I'll go look again. That's for the pointer.

Squeezebox

The Ogre is out- flat bars. The Straggler; For a CC/ light tourer I'ld probably try to afford carbon. The Marrakesh is interesting 3 x 9 decent components. An LBS gave me a quote for brifter conversion, I'm not sure he realized it's a triple. I'll call back in the morning. But for the fairly small amount of extra $$ I'll probably stick with the 920. Lighter frame, and I'm assuming better components. I'm tired of the fight. Time to get a decent bicycle and go riding.
Thanks

elcruxio

Your lack of imagination is concerning. It would likely be easier and cheaper to get the ogre and convert it to drop bars than getting brifters for the 920.

And again, building from frame up lets you choose all the components so your bike won't be riddled with weaknesses.

Squeezebox

I did look at the ogre, I'll look at it again at your request. A swap on bars isn't that much more $$. But again I don't have a problem with an Al frame or 28* wheels. If the rear wheel goes bad easy enough to build a 32*. I'm not sure the ogre with drops and brifters would be much cheaper than the modified 920, and heavier, but I will check it out. Point taken but frame up is expensive. And for that I'm within range of off the shelf carbon. The thought of just getting used to bar ends comes to mind, but every cell of my cyclist self says no way. Thanks for your opinion I'll check it out.

elcruxio

It's not about frame material. The ogre could be aluminum as far as I'm concerned. Steel is better for touring than aluminum, but it doesn't mean aluminum doesn't work for touring just as well.

Concerning the modified 920, you're looking at dropping at least 2.5k, since if you want hydro brakes and brifters you'll need to convert the whole brake / brifter system, not just the levers. Brake calipers, the whole shebang. if you're keeping with Sram shifters you might not need to swap the whole shifting system as well, but that's still at least $600 extra, probably more since I'm using direct Euro values. Not going to delve any deeper into sram cable pulls, but I'm relatively certain you'll need to swap the derailleurs as well. So $600-1000 extra. $3000 is a lot of money for a fully rigid mid level aluminum hardtail....

Whereas you could build the ogre with drop bars and hydro shifters at well under 2k. I considered it and my budget was around 1.5k, although I wouldn't use hydraulics in a tour bike.

And that's not even considering the rear wheel that will go bad. It's a bontrager and their wheels are mediocre at best. Pure sucky out of the box, they need a seriously good retension and stress relief before they are good for anything. I could probably build a 28 spoke wheel that would last bikepacking, but I would have to have my choice of components and they would not be cheap. Might even have to go carbon rim on those to get enough spoke tension. Going 32 is already much better but still pushing the envelope a bit in my opinion (although my MTB wheels are 32, but then again, I'm not carrying much stuff on my MTB)

Squeezebox

The shop and I have talked all of this out, as well as an Ogre conversion possibility. Thanks for your concern. Good luck to you in building the proper wheels for yourself. And I'm happy for you that you know more than the Trek engineers. I wonder where you came up with all the fancy testing equipment.
Good day sir!

johnbort2

Lol, you are absolutely right. I figure if the wheels do fail, I will be the first to contact Trek, but I would be surprised if that happens. The amount of BS that comes from people on forums is amazing.....

johnbort2

No, I haven't . I have ridden some trails around here with it AND I am not a small guy...215 pounds. Rear wheel is still as true as the day I bought it. To be fair, I haven't had it fully loaded yet, I will in May. I see a lot of stupidity on this board and saying you can't tour on a 28 spoke wheels is case and point. I am not saying I wouldn't like to have more spokes if it would have come with it, but I don't feel insecure about riding it. IF I do have problems, I will be honest and post it on here. I will post either way after my tour. If a 215 pound guy with loaded panniers and trunk bag can do a tour without the rim failing miserably(as some seem to think) then I would be glad to provide some REAL LIFE DATA, not just theory.
For gods sake, I have seen people that biked great distances loaded on $99 XXXX<insert WalMart, whatever> brand bikes....

Squeezebox

And the shop said they would back up anything about the bicycle even if Trek would not. I have raised every stated concern with the shop. Looked at every suggested alternative bicycle several times over, the Trek 920 won the fight. I'm satisfied.

Thanks Johnbort that makes me feel even a little bit better with the decision. Let me know if you ever decide to do the Katy trail.

johnbort2

Glad to hear it! Keep in touch. I will let you know if I have any issues, you do the same. I have a good relationship with my shop here and they would do the same. I am going to be adding Jones H bars and diff shifters at some point

PhotoJoe 

MOD NOTE: I have gone through and deleted a lot of posts that violate the forum guidelines. Enough. @indyfabz and @shelbyfv - please do not return to this thread.

Happy Feet

So basically you are calling out peoples opinion without having ridden the bike with a load yourself.

Yes it is true that people have done tours on all sorts of bikes, including very cheap $99 whatever brand bikes, but then again they have only paid $99 dollars for the bike. However, when one is paying top dollar for an activity specific bike one should expect the build to be in line with what the activity requires. The 920 looks like it is billed as an "adventure" touring bike, so one would expect, if anything, beefier spokes that would take more abuse than traditional touring wheels. The Through Axle is probably a dependable system in itself (downhill bikes use them and take a lot of abuse) but the issue there is replacement on the road should a failure occur. Consider that, if you are located in a part of the country with no hills there probably won't be downhill parts stocked. If you always plan to tour near your shop of choice it's no problem but that is sort of limiting.

Will your wheels fail after one loaded tour? Let's certainly hope not! But probably neither would a $99 dollar bike. The test is really that, paying a premium price for a bike your should expect premium reliability so the wheels should last many many tours without failure or loss of true. That would be the test.

Not knocking the bike itself. Just noting two areas where the build decisions seem to based more on appeal to a certain genre of consumer than to real world touring needs.

johnbort2

Yes, I was trying to point out the fact that I
a) own the bike
b) haven't toured on it BUT
c) will be touring on it in the future and will report back.
Maybe the way I posted didn't reflect my true intent....I'm not very good with words. I would like to provide a data point when I can do so, until then , all I can say is that the rear wheel hasn't failed on me unloaded, with my rather large butt...lol
You are correct though, as it appeared that the pot was calling the kettle black and that wasn't my intent. Thanks for the feedback, as I can see how that appeared. Have a good one Happy Feet.

elcruxio

It's not quite as simple as that. I could easily ride 24 spoke wheels unloaded and I'm heavier than you are. But putting load on the bike changes things quite drastically. You can shift your weight, lighten the front and the back of the bike on bumps, maybe even lift the wheels when there's a really heavy hit. But the load you put on the bike can't. All of the gear you put on the bike is going to be hitting directly at the wheels on every bump, hole, ridge and unevenness you ride over. If you pack very lightly this might not be an issue, if you pack heavy it's going to be a problem. Also taking weight off the wheels becomes much, much harder to do when you have even a small load on the bike. All of that contributes to wheels wearing down and that's why more spokes on a tour bike is the consensus.

johnbort2

Well, I will be a guinea pig....if I have to push my bike miles and miles because of a wheel failure..you can say "I told you so". I will weigh my rear panniers and trunk bag and video tape it and post the stuff on this board. I had actually called TREK support a couple weeks ago and said I planned to ride my bike 600 plus miles in May and was there any concern for riding with loaded panniers on the 28 spoke rim. He said that as long as the weight of the rear rack wasn't exceeded(50 pounds), it would be fine.I know, they wouldn't probably tell me anything else, but what the heck. To be honest, I had considered doing a trailer with all the hubub about this 28 spoke wheel, but I am looking at it as an experiment at this point.

LeeG

Oh heck I'll beat that horse on its other side. I really don't care what folks pull together, some set ups are brilliant , some make do, some revel in coordinating colors and others like to stick out. Everyone gets to figure out what works for them.

My beef is marketing performance designs in in a non performance application. If the bike has 28 spoke wheels then have "adventure" gear appropriate for that. Maybe an integral medium sized frame bag for carrying "adventure" gear but still allow an over the shoulder carry. Or a minimalist front rack with monogrammed dry bags strapped down with monogrammed and Patented Adventure Gear Retention System. Once they included that big beefy front rack with the nice rear rack the implication is a four pannier carrying beast of a bicycle with a front rack capable of carrying firewood on top.
So instead of selling a bike with three pounds of racks and performance oriented low spoke count wheels sell it with 12oz. of "cool, a quick release gear bag for first aid, energy bars, SPOT, small tablet, sheath knife and bear spray!"
But build heavy duty wheels. It'll be lighter, "for performance!" with better profit/bike and for those who like to carry the kitchen sink it'll have a better margin of error.

Johnbort, the issue isn't so much that the wheels won't be up for your trip it's more along the lines of the wheels being up for multiple trips over multiple years.