I'm pretty much decided any future bike packing type tour will not be on a drop bar bike. I just prefer MTBs both up and down and I'll take the downsides mostly those found when riding on the road.
As I said in my write up, my thinking was steel hardtail, short-ish fork, 2.2ish fast rolling but not flimsy tyres, dropper post, SLX level transmission with a big range, prob get away with 2 pot brakes, etc.
What I'll probably do is rebuild my MK2 Solaris Max to that kind of spec. But if I was going to buy something...mmm
Fairlight Holt - lovely looking thing, rather spicy head angle.
Mason Raw - Looks amazing, costs amazing 😉
Sirius Pipedream S6 - Good lower cost option, not very available. Oh they do a Ti Version 🙂
I'm sure there are others. Even a short travel FS, but that kind of feels like it's gone too far the other way.
I'm not too worried about lots of 'fixings' as my plan is to switch to shorter 2 day routes. Wait for decent weather to keep the pack size down, Pub/B&B in the evening, travel as light as possible. So many routes we could do from here using the train to open up more than out and backs or simple loops.
Anyway, what have I missed? Not that I'm actually going to buy anything but it's a fun exercise anyway.
There's a nice write-up, with pics, on this route here,
https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?t=164924