Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
When you said you were looking for a touring bike frame, I assumed you wanted long chainstays. And that is why I assumed you were opposed to a hard tail mountain bike frame. Especially when you are not going to use front panniers, that means most of your weight is on the rear rack.
Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly do long chainstays do? I've never had a problem with my feet hitting the bags. I figured a touring geometry would be more comfortable and efficient, but I wasn't thinking of load balancing. Again, my kit is pretty damn small, for the trip in the picture both rear bags combined came to 15 lbs. There wasn't more than 4 lbs in the front either. Might I not be running into handling issues because the weight is so low?