Yan 

You can't convert a bike from disk brakes to rim brakes. Disk brake bikes don't have cantilever studs. You're stuck with disks. Don't try to stop your bike with a stick. You will probably seriously injure yourself. I did know a guy who decided to ride a brake-less fixed gear down a hill, tried to lock his knees to slow down, and had both his feet pop out of clipless pedals. Now out of control with no way to slow himself, he stood up on his downtube and stuck his other foot on top of the rear tire, behind the seat stay. Allegedly he managed to stop after melting through his sole. Crazy stuff.

Most bike components are made in Taiwan and China. Not India. I've done a lot of cycling in China and spare parts are absolutely no problem there. But then again, nowadays China is a very wealthy nation, so this is not a surprise.

I've biked across Asia twice. It's not as easy as you think to get spare parts in many regions. I can't force you to believe what I say, but I highly recommend it.

Steve B.

The OP didn't ask "I am biking across the Gobi Desert, what parts and bike would be the most reliable and have the fewest problems getting parts". I think in 99% of the world he would be fine on disc brakes and is unlikely to have any kind of issues you describe.

mev

Here is the way I approach this issue in my travels[see #1 below]
1. I don't expect to pick up spare parts in those small villages. I do carry some basics with me e.g. rotors, disk pads, quality tires, spokes. I have even carried a spare hub.
2. I've had reasonable success in larger cities even in less developed countries, e.g. Lima, Bangalore, Novosibirsk, Tegucigulpa - at least as far as skilled mechanics, overhauls are concerned. The harder part is sometimes locating these places. However if I were stuck in that small village my first exercise would be getting to a larger metro area in the same area. An example was when my hub broke in southern Thailand. I holed up in a small town in southern Thailand before getting myself and bicycle on a train to Kuala Lampur.
3. In the worst case, I've even flown back to the US to retrieve parts. An example was when my frame broke in northern Australia. I got a bus to Perth, flew to the US, retrieved a replacement bicycle and came back to where I stopped.
4. None of this applies in cases where one is truly in an outback situation where one can't get to a larger town without traveling under your own power.

Travels - I've cycled across Asia (Amsterdam to Vladivostok - so mostly Russia; Urumchi to Beijing, southern India ~1600km, Leh to Srinagar), Latin America (San Diego to Panama City, Cartagena to Ushuaia), Australia (one time around outside), Africa (Cairo to Capetown in a supported tour).

Yan 

You are way too optimistic about parts availability. Here (link) is someone who posted TODAY, saying they can't find a replacement wheel in Georgia (the country), and are having to ask their family to ship them a wheel from Holland. This person had a rim failure. He can't find wheel locally because nobody in Georgia has a thru-axle disk wheel. He can't even find a rim to build onto his existing hub, because nobody in Georgia has 28 hole rims. Are 28 hole rims a rare first world high end component? I didn't think so, but apparently it is...

Georgia is not a rich country but it is far from the worst. It is ranked #61 on the human development index. For reference Turkey is #54. Mexico is #74. Thailand is #79.

stardognine

I don't trust disc brakes either, but apparently, they're here to stay. 😟😉

mev

For what it is worth, I had some experience with Tbilisi bike shops. On a trip through Georgia and Armenia in 2014, I had the stupidity of accidentally mis-threading my pedals. I'll blame it on time-zone lack of sleep and bicycle upside down - but it was my fault. In any case I had to find a bike shop to replace the threaded cranks. Without too much difficulty (and a brother who was much more fluent in Russian than myself) had a car bring us and bicycle to the shop which had a set of cranks and were able to replace them. So yes in some cases, you might have someone to courier a replacement wheel. I had an instance similar to that in Russia near Baikal when my rim also developed a bulge. Fortunately my brother was coming to join in the trip in near future - so explicitly had him courier a replacement wheel when he visited. If he hadn't, Irkutsk is a cosmopolitan enough city with adventure seeking tourists that I suspect I would have found a replacement wheel.

I suspect the issue is more the through-axle wheel than anything about 28-spokes. I had a hub failure once in a more developed country (New Zealand) and wasn't able to find a replacement for my 48-spoke hub - at least in Napier or phoning around. Perhaps Auckland would have had something but in the end, simply swapped in a a different wheel (36-spokes) and continued on. So my guess is without a through axle and willingness to replace both hub and rim together this could be fixed in Tbilisi.

However, I'm not so sure these cases support the argument as much for a bent rotor and small villages dissuading someone someone from a mechanical disc brake. As necessary if I were going in a truly remote place I might carry an extra rotor and perhaps also a brake assembly, but then for many spots in the world - could still anticipate if I got to the capital or principal city may well find a shop to help things out. Places where that isn't true are becoming a smaller part of the world.

I would probably be a little more cautious on hydraulic disc brakes unless you bring an extra fill kit and have rehearsed how to refill the lines - and perhaps have some extra line if it gets cut (on a supported ride across Ethiopia we had one rider get a hydraulic line knocked out by a kid throwing a rock).

What I do think is true is postal systems can become unreliable/slow or very expensive in many places - particularly if you don't speak the language or don't have local expertise to get something through customs. In those cases having something explicitly couriered (or going back to pick it up yourself) might be costly but most reliable method.

phughes

It's funny, I'm usually the one talking about rim brakes. I use rim brakes, and love them. I would choose them again if I needed to, and could find a frame with bosses for cantis.

I would not be afraid of disc brakes though. It is very easy to carry extra pads, and they are easy to change. As for discs getting bent, they are easy to true. You can carry a disc truing tool, or simply use and adjustable wrench. I honestly haven't heard of too many people having them bent on tours though.

TravelVagabond

Thanks for the information, I'll keep that in mind.

TravelVagabond

I contacted several dealerships in my area and would be able to test drive the Kona Sutra SE in a couple of days. Hope the 54 fits. Do you think the SE model is superior to the Classic Sutra? I think the sti shifters of the Classic model would give me trouble since I'm not used to them, but the general components of it seem superior to the SE, any thoughts? Another dealership will have the Classic Sutra in a couple of weeks and ready for test riding, I wouldn't want to be left empty handed. The geometry is almost identical, the shifters and breaks and gears are different, there seems to be a hype around the SE model considering it is so hard to find right now, that and supply chain issues of course. Cheers

timdow

"I'm looking for the best value for price,"

If so, you might look at the Fuji touring. It retails for $1500, but I bought mine in the height of the pandemic at my LBS for $1230 OTD. The tires are fairly wide on this bike. I have had it on trails a good bit and it does really well.

TravelVagabond

Thanks for the recommendation, I read good things about this bike. Right now the Koga Worldtraveller and Kona Sutra SE are on my shortlist, the SE I might be able to test ride in a couple of days. Does your Fuji Touring has bar end shifters - if so, how do they handle?
Cheers

Tourist in MSN

Most of my bikes are rim brake. One bike has disc in rear, rim brake on front. And one has drum brakes front and rear.

I find a good well adjusted rim brake with Koolstop Salmon pads to be comparable to disc brakes in dry conditions. But, if I have a tall downhill of several hundred feet of elevation, my disc brake will overheat faster than the rim brake and braking starts to fade. But, if the hill is really high, you really do not want to overheat your rims and tires on a rim brake bike. (Going down Going to the Sun Road, I stopped twice to check my rims, one of those times I waited 5 or 10 min for the rims to cool.) In wet conditions, the disc is the clear winner. Those are my opinions.

I have never had a bent disc.

If you go back several years, it was commonly suggested that for touring a centerlock hub was preferred as faster and easier to remove a disc when packing a bike for shipping, but some six bolt disc owners argued that point. I do not recall hearing any arguments either way for the past few years. I have not had to pack up my disc brake bike for shipping, but the disc is on the rear wheel and if the wheel stayed in the frame I would leave the disc on the wheel.

If you have a Rohloff hub, you pay more for your disc because a four bolt disc is rare. (My Rohloff is a rim brake hub.)

More bikes are built now with a disc brake unit on a chainstay that does not interfere with rack mounting, that used to be a much bigger problem for disc brake users when the brake units were commonly installed on the seatstay and that caused rack mounting issues. I do not know if front disc brakes and racks still have the fit and spacer issues they used to have, maybe that has gotton better.

Good rim brake rims are getting harder to find.

I think those are the issues for disc and rim brakes for touring in developed countries where parts are readily available.

Tourist in MSN

I am not Tim, but I will give you my thoughts. Bar end shifters are one of the more controversial bike parts. Some people like them a lot. Some people hate them.

I have bar end shifters (Shimano) on two of my touring bikes and on my folding bike. For touring, I prefer bar end shifters but I might be in the minority. Some of the people that dislike them the most are the same people that are more uncomfortable leaning forward farther to reach down to them. I find it is easier to reach down to use the drops on my drop bars after I lost about 15 percent of my body weight, so I suspect some of the bar end haters are carrying a bit more weight about their mid-section. And people that learned how to bike with brifters generally want to stay with brifters. I started using bar end shifters in the 1980s, but I also have brifters on a couple bikes.

The reason that I prefer bar end shifters is that when I put my hand on the shifter, the position of the lever tells me about where my chain is on my cassette, so I rarely cross chain because I try to avoid cross chaining. But I do not get any feedback on my brifters, so I often find that I am cross chained when riding with brifters.

Microshift bar end shifters, I know two people that had trouble with them coming loose and shifting on their own. I have never had that problem with Shimano indexed bar end shifters.

I have known people that did not like their bar end shifters and they incurred the high cost to change to brifters. I only know one that changed from brifters to bar ends, and he did that after his rear brifter wore out and needed replacement.

I think bar end shifters got the reputation of being the touring shifter back in the days of downtube friction shifting, bar ends offered a way to be able to shift while you had your hands on the handlebars for better control.

Yan 

I've used brifters, bar ends, and downtube shifters. Right now my touring bike is set up with bar end for the rear and downtube for the front. I use bar end shifters for touring because they can be changed to friction mode. If my rear derailleur gets bent, or if I have to source a replacement cassette with a different number of cogs, bar ends let me carry on cycling.

phughes

The only thing I will add, is there are plenty of good rim brakes available still. Paul Components makes very good ones, and TRP has plenty of offerings as well.

I agree completely about brake fade on long hills. It seems to happen more with disc brakes than rim brakes on bicycles. The best course of action is to not ride the brakes down a long hills.

phughes

I think a lot of tourers have the same preference. I know I do. Just one less potential issue on the road. I finally switched to complete friction once my MicroShift bar ends indexing function quit working. I switched them over to friction, and liked it enough I bought friction only shifters from Rivendell. Of course I grew up with friction only, so it is something I am very well accustomed to.

Tourist in MSN

Yeah, you are supposed to only go up those types of hills, not down.

Tourist in MSN

You have used indexed and friction, prefer friction. I won't question that as you are a knowledgeable person that has used both.

But I must say, I hate friction for the rear. Front, most of my bikes are friction on the front and I can deal with that. But not rear.

My rando bike, brifter for rear, friction downtube front. The friction was intended to be temporary when I built it up six years ago, but it is still there so what was temporary is slowly becoming permanent. Photo below.

PDKL45

Why not have a look at Poison bikes, OP? They're German, so relatively close to you. Look at their Trekking/City (flat bar tourers) and Randonneurs (drop bar tourers; not traditional French randonneurs). I really like the look of the steel Cyanide "randonneur."

https://www.poison-bikes.de/Fahrraed...donneur_Reise/

phughes

I like going down so much more. I find wind resistance keeps the speed down to a comfortable rate, especially if you sit up.

phughes

There is a lot to be said for indexed shifting, it is definitely nice. For bar ends I am liking friction. Mine is a nine speed, anything more than that and I doubt I would l like it. Brifters I do like.

dvdwmth

I got a killer deal on my soma saga so thats what i went with, but that Kona Sutra sure looked like a great package and would likely have been on my final shortlist. I've never heard anything but positive about Kona.

As far as bikepacking vs panniers, I have chosen to stick with panniers, mostly because i cant figure out how I would pack my stuff into bikepacking bags. I get the feeling that these necessitate buying ultralight gear, which is pricey. This is just an untested opinion though. Bikepacking bags are also expensive. A trekking bike like the Kona Sutra (at least i assume this will apply) is designed to haul gear so I wouldn't worry about load affecting the ride negatively. My bike actually handles better with a load. A proper touring bike is really a great thing for hauling stuff.

timdow

Yes, the Fuji Touring has bar-end shifters, and I like them a lot. Took some getting used to, though. I also like STI's. Either works fine for me.

Kona Sutra SE is a good choice, as long as you think you can get used to the bar-ends. It has good mechanical brakes (TRP Spyre), Brooks B17, Deore group set, fenders and rack out of the box.

greatbasin

There are 10 bikes listed all of which will do the job. Remember Strongly-Held Beliefs, by Bob Lutz? Number 3 is, "There are no significant unfilled "Consumer Needs" in the U.S. car and truck market..." and number 5, "Much of today's content is useless in terms of triggering purchase decisions."

We could apply these same things to touring bicycles. You listed ten tourers that would meet your needs. Besides that, there are dozens more bicycles that will do the same even though they aren't marketed specifically towards touring. What you're missing is something that will trigger a purchase decision. It probably won't be a technical specification or feature since those things don't distinguish any particular model. They all have the illuminated vanity mirrors and cup-holders.

Look for something that turns you on. Remember that everything is a trade-off and whatever bike turns you on will be a package that comes with them. Some things you can change or upgrade, but only so much can be changed before the character of the thing that turned you on is also changed.

Don't overlook used and vintage bikes. They come with their own set of trade-offs but because "touring" in particular isn't demanding of the latest and greatest technology, carbon frames, electronic shifting, aerodynamics, suspension, grams of weight saved, or a subtlety that promises an advantage in competition like a celebrity athlete's name, image and likeness, touring is a purpose that allows for great value to come from bikes that have depreciated from brand new. Touring is also an opportunity to enjoy some vintage "cool" provided you're not hung-up on some features that might not be available from the past.

here hold my ha

Yeah, finding one to actually ride/try was my problem. Ended up buying a Salsa Marrakesh on FB Marketplace and having it shipped. My mom said, "you don't sound like you like your bike that much". I really don't know if I do or not, but it's the bike I have. No shop in town or a good wide radius carries actual touring bikes; don't know anyone with one to borrow for a test ride; not willing to order another without testing. I realize it's not an ideal condition for starting a tour, but supply is absolutely an issue.