Custom Tourer help!

[gray fox]

Hi everyone!

I'm looking to have a tourer put together, ideally I would love a Fuji Touring bike, but being in the UK they are seemingly impossible to get hold of. So I'm looking to approximate a decent tourer and I've put my preliminary specs below.

My main question is this: Would it be best to have a bike built with the following spec, or just go for something like the Surly LHT (assuming I purchased the components from a lbs that would build and properly fit the bike for me)? I know that a few years ago I would have gotten a bit more for money, so I'm trying to find a reasonable deal.

As I'm on a tight budget I'd like to keep costs down where possible, but of course am open to suggestions where a little price increase may make a significant difference in performance, or in the life of the component. Alternatively any recommendations would be great! I'm unsure about frames really, but with this set up as compared to the Surly I expect I should be able to get a pretty decent frame whichever I choose.




Frame Reynolds 631 Forks Reynolds 525 Headset FSA TH857 Front Mech Alivio M413 conv Rear Mech Alivio M410 rear Chainset Alivio M411 170 175 28/38/48 Bottom Bracket Shimano UN55 Brake Levers Tektro Gear Levers Ultegra 8 Speed Bar End Brake Calipers Shimano Altus F&R Hub Front Deore 36H Hub Rear Deore 36H Cassette/Freewheel hg51 11-32 Chain kmc x8.93 Rims Rigida Sputnik Spokes Tyres Continental Tour Ride Tubes Nutrac Rim Tapes Cloth Handlebars Deda RHM 01 Stem Deda Zero 1 Bar Tape Cork Saddle Madison Flux Seat Pin kalloy r type Pedals Accessories Tortec Tour Rear Pannier Rack Tortec 5mm Welded Cage SKS 45 Mudguards

Thanks!

 

[Froze]

You live in the UK, have you considered Mercian? I'm sure you could find those used too. There are other great UK brand bikes like Woodruf, and Thorn that should be in abundance on the used market if you don't want to pay the price of custom built bikes. I have a Mercian Vincitore I bought new while in Derby 4 years ago and they will build the bike with a tube set you want. But noting you said a tight budget, there is the Trek 520, Surly Long Haul Trucker; Kona Sutra; Dawes Horizon; Raleigh Sojourn; Jamis Aurora; and the Fuji you mentioned can all be found for less the $1,200. Find a few of those I listed in your are and test ride and buy the one you like the best. Right now is a good time to buy a bike because you could get a 2011 bike for $300 to $500 of to make room for the 2012 models.

 

[gray fox]

Hi Froze,

Thanks for the reply. I had looked at all of the suggestions you'd made before deciding on Fuji (then having to settle for Surly LHT) apart from Mercian which I had not come across, but are far above my budget. I hadn't really considered used apart from trying to get hold of a Fuji, so I'll start extending my search for sure.

Can you recommend any particular used bike websites (UK) as currently I have only been looking on ebay and gumtree and google searching.

Any thoughts on the spec below in either case?

 

[Froze]

I don't live in the UK, I live in America. In May of 07 I took a business/personal trip to London and from there made a side trip to Derby especially to see the Mercian shop, which wasn't much of a shop as my brain had imagined, but the people that worked there were wonderful. So I had one custom made to mine and their recommendations, and the bike was shipped to my home about 3 months later. So I don't know where in the UK you can get used bikes. Though another friend of mine went to London about the same time I did and he found a bike shop in London that sold new and old bikes and bought a 81 Holdsworth in near mint condition, but where or what the shops name is I couldn't tell you.

Of the bikes I mentioned earlier you're not going to go wrong with any of them. Personally I like the Jamis because it has an old school flair to it, the others look to modern, but my personal taste prefers the older more artistic old school looks.

As far as your specs goes, The frame material you choose is a great frame for touring, unfortunately lower end bikes do not go to that level of a frame, they either use Reynolds 520 which it the modern kin to the 531, or 4130 which is the Asian equal to the 520. The 531 was world renown for rugged reliable touring frames so the 520 won't be any worse-neither would the 4130. The fork, since 531 is no longer in production you would have to settle for whatever steel fork the factory puts on it, and that would be fine!

The most important derailleur is the rear, where I would like to see nothing but Deore, but when you buy a production bike it comes with what it comes with, sometimes an LBS will swap you components and give you credit for what came on the bike to what they put on but that will bring the price up. The very lowest lever I would settle on the rear is Tiagra. Then the front whatever because it doesn't do the exact shifting nor as much work as the rear has to do.

Headset? I don't sweat the head set stuff, their very reliable and next to the hubs the least likely component to fail. I've never had a headset fail not even on cheap Walmart kids bikes. I like Ritchy Logic, Cane Creek, Chris King (though I think those are way over priced), FSA! And others.

Chain; Shimano, SRAM, Wippermann, KMC, and Rigida

Bottom bracket; Shimano is fine, as is Chris King, SRAM, TruVative. some of the FSA's, RaceFace.

Your front hub is a great choice, you may or may not find those on a touring bike in your price range.

Rims again are a large open arena, but you need to look for double walled box shape rim with dual eyelets and at least 36 hole rim 40 is best, anything else and you compromise strength needed to carry touring loads.

Tires you choose are decent, but there are a few others like Schwalbe Plus. Tube? Anything goes

Saddle; I haven't heard of the saddle you mentioned, but the two most popular touring saddles are the Brooks B17 and the Terry Fly.

A lot of the stuff you mentioned is unique to the UK area and not found here, but I'm going to give you some web sites that will help you with your education on touring:
http://www.bicycletouring101.com/TableOfContents.htm
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/touring/
http://www.cyclocamping.com/Tips_Tricks/87-1-cat.aspx
http://www.struck.us/CheckList/Bicycle_Touring_Tips.html#NoiseDirectory
http://www.myra-simon.com/myra/bike/tips.html
There's a lot of reading, but these were done by people who have years of experience touring, so please take the time to read and learn as much as you can. Obviously do your own web searching too.