RNT

After years of working, I finally retired! Over the years, I got into vintage touring bikes. I will be leaving St. Pete, FL and work my way to St. Augustine to begin the southern tier route. Once in San Diego, work my way to San Fran for a rest. Another bike will be sent to me for the trip back via blue roads to Nashville, then down the Natchez Trace, hit Biloxi and follow the southern tier & coastal roads home.
Here are the bikes to choose from: 83 Trek 720 (side pull brakes); 83 Trek 720 (canti's); 84 Specialized Expedition; 85 Trek 620; 92 Trek 520; 86 Bridgestone T-700. Whatever bikes are chosen, new 700cc wheels will be made. Thanks to all for your input.

DropBarFan

They all seem pretty decent; so you already own these? I'd pick one that has widest gear ratio spread & perhaps the most room for wider tires if route includes bumpy roads. Bikes with canti brakes perhaps preferable for the hills.

RNT

The Bridgestone T-700 27" wheels can't be changed out

jargo432

my vote would be the Trek 520

bradtx

RNT, The 720 with Tektro long reach dual pivots and the 520.

Brad

ironwood

Specialized Expedition.

Why do you want to change bikes?

MZilliox

expedition and 720 with cantis? did i win? cool stable of touring bikes...

staehpj1

I was wondering the same thing.

I don't have a specific suggestion other than to pick the one you most enjoy riding.

Tourist in MSN

Freehub rear wheel would be stronger than a freewheel type hub when it comes to the potential for an axle problem. I would would only consider one with a freehub type hub.

You want something with a wide range of gears.

Do any of the bikes have toe overlap while others don't? If so, is that important to you?

For touring I have a strong preference for indexed shifting, if any of the options are older than indexed gearing I would take them off the list.

Frame tubing diameter has gotten bigger over time. If any of these have noticeably smaller diameter tubing, I would be less enthusiastic about those.

A lot of older bikes had a very comfortable ride from a front fork with more bend to the rake. Do any of these offer a nicer ride and better handling from that?

Regardlous of what you choose, do you want to use an old cup and cone bottom bracket or a newer cartridge unit? And older drop bar bikes often had narrower handlebars than a lot of the newer bikes. Are the bars ones that you would like to ride with or do you want to go a bit wider with your bars?

McBTC

Which Trek road bike has a triple... that's my pick!

max5480

i rode 1k miles on the pacific coast on roughly the same year Specialized expedition. It was an amazing ride (with my relatively light load). I absolutely love the bike. That being said, that Bridgestone looks amazing too. IF you do indeed own all these bikes, then I think you're just showing off - I dont' think you could go wrong with any of them - especially if you've ridden them and know their characteristics.

RNT

Yes, they are all mine. The picture was taken a few days ago for insurance purposes. I’ve been divorced for years and decided to start commuting to work. I found a Trek 720 frame and built it up, liked what I was able to accomplish and got the Trek 620. Both great bikes. Things morphed from there. Rebuilding vintage bikes keep me off the streets, out of the bars and my sanity intact. The bikes were found either on CL, eBay or at swap meets. I rode them all as commuter bikes.The comment of showing off, well, you insult anyone on this forum that owns more than a few bikes. Now what you don’t know. My retirement was medical, came early and my days left on this planet, according to my Dr. are far less than most of you & I’m not even 60. Save your apology and don’t be so quick to judge. My bucket list changed dramatically. I need to tour on these bikes while I can, hence the change out. Tourist in MSN thanks for sage advice. Yes, I replaced all the BB with sealed ones, changed the handlebars to Nitto Noodles for a better fit, expanded the gear ratios to get me over the mountains. I’ll review your other recommendations as you stated some things I haven’t thought of. The Bstone would be great on Route 66 (once they figure it out) and the Expedition will be for Europe, should I be able to make the trip. That said, the Trek 720 going out & I think I’ll stick with the Trek 620 coming back. Looks like a Made in America tour! Thanks to all for your comments as they are much appreciated.

ironwood

On the C&V forum your collection would be considered normal. Which bike do you find most comfortable on long rides?

BigAura

If it was me I'd chose the 520 based on function. Replace the white bar-tape, which will end up grotty on tour, with black. When removing doing the tape, remove that hideous mirror and get a head-mounted mirror. Ride it back too.

Leebo

Best range of gears and rack/bag capability.

staehpj1

I don't think anyone was actually judging. I think the "showing off" comment was tongue in cheek and was probably intended as a complement, more about admiring your collection in a left handed way. The "why switch bikes in the middle" was a reasonable question given that it is a pretty unusual thing to do.

The following is intended as food for thought only, not as a criticism of your current choices. It is based on my preferences and my experiences on the ST, TA, PC, SC, and other routes. If you have already considered all this and decided on your current plan please ignore my suggestions.

It is purely a personal preference thing and timing is a factor as well, but I found the Trans America to be a far more interesting route than the Southern Tier. There were a few beautiful places, but overall the scenery was really pretty bland. Once away from the West coast on the ST I didn't see much of anything green until I was to about Del Rio TX. For me that was a serious negative. On the other hand the food and people were interesting, you can do it in the Winter, and it is one of the easiest routes to do high daily mileage. It is also probably the shortest and flattest coast to coast route.

Again personal preference, but I'd rather use plane, car, train, or bus a bit in order to get to and from a more interesting route, rather than insist on door to door.

Whatever choices you make, I hope you have a great tour.

Also, if you need a place to stay or any assistance when in or near Tallahassee, look me up. We have plenty of room and generally are happy to host cyclists.

RNT

Thanks. Your advice is appreciated and finally being able to tour with with the least difficulty at first was my prime consideration. I also have friends along the way that wanted to see me since once the news was given. Thanks for the offer for putting me up. Who knows, you just might have me asking to pitch my tent in your yard! Again, many thanks and, like Roy use to say, " happy trails to you".

bikemig 

What a great line up of bikes. I did a cross country on a 1983 trek 720 with cantilevers. The bike was great and handled the tour without a problem. The long wheelbase is a plus when carrying a lot of gear (which I did).

My feedback from that tour (and many others I have done) is to go with the bike that can take a fatter tire. You're just not going that fast on a loaded tour and wider tires will give you a plusher ride, handle different kinds of road surfaces well, and will generally hold up a bit better.

The Trek with cantilevers isn't going to take anything much larger than a 32 c with fenders. The Trek 720 with sidepulls can if you go the 650b route; that would make for a sweet set up.

My preference though is probably the XO-1 with drop bars. 26 inch tires are easy to find and a 26 x 1.5 tire would work well. In fact I'd opt for the schwalbe marathon supreme touring 26 x 1.6 tires; they're tough and are pretty light weight.

The one downside to the XO-1 is that the wheelbase is not as long as on the other bikes. That's not a huge deal but it is a consideration depending on how much stuff you take. The more you take, the more you'll need bigger bags in the rear. My vote is to go, within reason, lighter.

In any case, I really like my 1993 XO-2 for touring. The bike handles great and there is a lot to be said, when riding long distances, to a little wider tire run at a little lower pressure. I've made some changes to the bike since I took this picture but it will give you an idea. I have ridden this extensively and just finished a 4 day trip with it. I'm running a trekking crank with 44-32-22 chainrings and an 8 spd cassette (11-28). That gives me a super low gear of 19.5 inches. The 110/74 bcd crank you have on your XO-1 can go down to 24 teeth. I'd get a 24 steel chainring (for the small chainrings on a long tour you want steel not aluminum); they're getting hard to find but Rivendell has them:

fietsbob

I had a Specialized Expedition, but for reliable touring , as I was thinking at the time , 1985, I built myself an 88 spoke wheelset.

40 front 48 rear* .. over 10 years I Only needed 1 rear spoke , with 47 already in the wheel it was only a minor inconvenience.

*Hub used: Phil Wood freewheel , the original wheel was freewheel , just not the Beefy unbendable axle design Phil makes.

badger_biker 

RNT - you have accumulated quite a nice collection! As a fellow lover of touring bikes I am envious and can appreciate your drive to gather them. Given that I am a little older and still in the daily work force I have more touring bikes than I can possibly give adequate use to in the time I have left to tour. I applaud your actions on getting out and using them and wish you many safe miles of travel on your trips.

That being said - the best suggestion I can make is to remember you will have many long days in the saddle and be it the widest tire, widest gearing, or most pain free fit - you need to go with the one you feel the most comfortable on for 6-8 or more hours a day. Whichever bike you can modify for the most comfort and reliability is the one to use and you can never have too low of a gear :-)

max5480

Have a great trip!
My only recommendation is to go through the desert Southwest. Try to work the Grand Canyon into your trip, and Southern Utah is the most beautiful place on earth - Canyonlands, Capital Reef, Arches, Zion - all make great places to tour.

Cheers!

Tourist in MSN

One more quick note - since you have been rebuilding the bikes over the years, you obviously have the tools you need. But a friend of mine years ago had an early Trek touring bike. All the components on it were metric but the frame was made in WI and used a 3/16 inch allen wrench for the seatpost. It is easy to forget which bikes take the odd ball tools when you have several. So, before you embark on your trip, double check to make sure you have all the tools you expect to need for the specific bike. Each of my bikes has one or two odd ball tool requirements that I have trouble keeping straight.

And, one more quick note. I commented above that the freehub rear hubs are more robust that the older freewheel hubs. But I forgot to mention that an another advantage to the freehub type hubs is the ease of removing a cassette if you need to replace a drive side spoke. A lot of the newer bike shops might not even have an old Regina or Suntour or Normandy freewheel removal tool. That is another reason to consider a freehub type wheel.

I think that Trek had some odd non-Shimano freehubs years ago, but I am not familiar with them. Maybe they were Mallard? But I think they had a poor reputation. If you have such a hub, spend some quality time researching it before you take it across country.

Concur. On this forum if someone insults you, it is usually pretty blatant and hard to miss.

Good luck.

RNT

Ironwood, the 1985 Trek 620, 57cm, 27" wheels, is my favorite. Once I dialed in the sweet spot, all you see now are the dimples on the Brooks and with the wide Nitto Noodle handlebars, well, I can go for hours on it. That followed the 720s. Ironically, all vintage Treks. I did plan to hit the National parks on the way back as Max5480 pointed out. Figured I can't go wrong as my strength will be better on the way back.

axel8

RNT, I hope you have a great tour and that it's everything you hope it will be. Godspeed.

RNT

Thanks! I'll post pics of choices