Which touring bike? More comedy from the Comic

[Karla]

Cycling Weekly group test: Best touring bikes for adventures on two wheels

No Kona Sutra
No Cinelli Hobo
No Surly Long Haul Effing Trucker


What are the Comic thinking?  Not much, it seems.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Long haul trucker is the modern standard that all others get compared to, these days.

At the budget end, Ridgeback tour

That's an effing joke of an article. Compare bikes mentioned to ones paying for advertising space.

[Karla]

Long haul trucker is the modern standard that all others get compared to, these days.

Quite.  On my recent Central Asian trip, it was quickly apparent that the LHT has basically achieved market dominance.

[Samuel D]

Well, the article starts from the assumption that the main advantage of a touring bike is “charisma”.

Magazine reviews are no longer worth reading. So I simply don’t, with rare exceptions where I know the author might have something to say.

[Andrij]

What a joke!

Skimmed the article - I'd give the Genesis a look. maybe, but a Fratello, really? 

Some of those might work for credit card touring, on the continent where they have decent cycle routes.

[Samuel D]

The Fratello has a 74-degree seat-tube angle in some sizes, I kid you not.

[Paul H]

No 26" wheel, flat bar bikes - that's most of the worlds touring bikes left out. But was anyone taking it seriously?

[Cudzoziemiec]

I thought Cycling Weekly was basically about racing; but I don't read it and never have so that's just an impression formed by other people's opinions and skimming through it occasionally at the stupormarket. On that basis I'm surprised to see a touring bike article at all. I guess there are some good things about the article. Rather than just reviewing particular bikes it describes what to look for in terms of frame, brakes, etc (but I didn't actually read these sections so they might be full of rubbish too).

Some of the bike choices are pretty sensible though: Genesis, AWOL, Ridgeback. Perhaps they threw in the Fratello to, erm, demonstrate that you can tour on a bike that's not a touring bike? But then as Paul H says they really ought to include flat bar bikes and 26" wheels (and yes MTBs).

[Cudzoziemiec]

Discovered a review of a Ridgeback World Horizon via this very forum! Alotronic otp's bike by bike blog:

With a budget of around £150 pounds I took to gumtree and tracked down something that would do from a person who was most likely not a thief. A light tourer, a Ridgeback ‘World Horizon’ fell out of the internet and into my back yard. The name was evocative, a statement of intent. It was also marketing bollocks - this bike was no better for riding around the world than the single speed mountain bike it had replaced. It did have lots of gears, 24 of them, and the best thing about the whole bike was the fact you could change gears from the handlebars. This innovation had been around for almost a decade but it was new to me. Other than that the bike was a collection of fairly poor parts - and dangerously bad brakes - on a soggy frame. So A bit rubbish then, but it was nice to be on a read bike again, to be able to put my head down and rocket up the bus lane in Euston Rood, changing gears higher and higher without having to take my hands away from the brakes.

http://bikeby.bike/bikes/17-world-horizon/

[Steph]

"Add in that many touring cyclists are carrying luggage"

I would never have guessed!

[mzjo]

No 26" wheel, flat bar bikes - that's most of the worlds touring bikes left out. But was anyone taking it seriously?

But they know that! Just look at the three bikes in the photo at the top of the article - now to read the rest.

[fd3]

Bike magazine tells everyone what they already know or bike magazine talks about different bikes that are not as good as what everyone already knows.
I don't see how they can win, though to be fair I don't see the point in magazines anymore, what with them costing the same as a book and providing a lesser service than google.