Breaking The First Rule of Bike Touring 

As a metric loving American, I find a lot of joy in bicycles because they're predominantly metric (except for MTB tires and frame sizes).

34 pounds is almost 40 euros nowadays.

No the US needs to use the metric system. Lol

I haven’t got a clue how much 34lbs is

​@@a1whitemy almost 4 year old is 43 pounds. Does that help? :-)

As a Canadian, no, please stick with the pounds!! And height in feet and inches!

Good to know. It’s begging for some bigger meats!

Ron ortho bars seemly always sold out.

They are instock right now, I was just looking at them. @@Mantis858585

I absolutely love my Crust " harvey mushman" bars 800mm great comfort & control!

Your never said how much

@@Kitiwake frameset cost is 1095€. Complete bike 2290€. If you pick your own components the price may be higher or lower

Indeed, given how few complete bikes are available anywhere in the ‘Western’ world that come with fenders, dynamo, and some kind of rack, I wish you’d have spent more time contemplating the kind of bike it is, where it fits in the market, and so on, rather than the kind of bike you wished it were. There is an entire ecosystem of gravel and ATB bikes out there. Wanting this to be one of those misses an opportunity to look at alternative cycling outside of “gravel” and gravel adjacent worlds. Cheers!

Of my 9 bikes, the smallest width is a 28, but I just “test rode” a used bike with 23’s, which werdd Ed the norm just a few years ago. Anyways it was surprisingly nimble & responsive; along with being noticeably lighter. I wouldn’t want to ride it on loose gravel but for the mean concrete streets of Seattle, it did fine. ✌️

If this is your first time on a bike... you have to tour.

“this narrow” tires, by which standards, 🇺🇸 ? By🇪🇺standards, these tires are just fine. Nobody needs loading 2 days of food, let aside 3, in their panniers touring in Europe. Ditto, bike packing, might US riders or Aussies need sometimes to haul 6-8 liters of water, up to 12l, I’ve read, riding in the Australian outback. European riders go a long way with two 1l bottles. You can find water easily about everywhere in Europe, in dire need, just knock randomly on anybody’s door and ask them to fill your bottles. Euro-riders travel light, are light ( compare average BMI) and therefore have no use of these [ridiculously] oversized tires.

In their own copy "A bikepackers choice".

So it's not that I am just getting old...

I think that quip was essentially that most modern MTBs have low top-tubes to accommodate dropper seatposts that they're getting closer to step-thru now. The standover on my XL FS MTB is 759mm, or 29.8". The medium on that model is 703mm or 27.6". It's not a true step-thru, but it's low enough that few people won't be able to stand over it it's even close to the right size for them.

I haven't watched it yet and I thought the first rule of bike touring is to not talk about bike touring :-D

Bikepacking / bike touring is defined by the terrain not the bags. Riding a mountain bike on the road doesn’t mean you’re mountain biking. Using bikepacking bags on a road tour doesn’t mean you’re bikepacking.

We have 9 moths of rainy and grimy in finlands. Just replaced the rims on my rim-brake tourer, would rather just service brake discs.

​@@velousagiSame here in Cumbria 🙄.