If you wanted a budget tourer…

How is it 30 year old Galaxy’s etc are listed for nearly £500 even with obvious corrosion, lots of scuffs and scrapes and clearly in need of some significant tlc?  I know it’s market forces but it doesn’t look good value.

Am I mad to be considering a £550 Raleigh Grand Pioneer or Strada instead for the odd week or less tour and local journeys?

I keep an eye on the CyclingUK forum ‘bikes for sale’:

https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewforum.php?f=40

eg

https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?t=162011

@tractionman that’s brilliant,  even as a CUK member I forget their forum!

I’ve just pinged a family member who lives nearby with that ad – half a chance they know the seller/bike.

Thanks ?

No idea, I got a 70s Galaxy that turned out to be a Mirage for £20 a few years back. Needs a pair of 700c wheels and a respray but otherwise solid.

There are other options out there, you could pick up a Thorn for that money and have half of it left over.

even as a CUK member I forget their forum!

I sold a couple of bikes on there years ago (my Dad’s old touring / leisure bikes when he got a bit too infirm to justify keeping them). Very easy sales both times.

Touring bikes are a funny one – you either get ones that have literally been around the world and are shagged (or customised beyond belief) or you can sometimes find some gems – older ones that have been bought with the idea of getting into touring and the owner has done one or two rides, decided it’s not for them and the bike has been in a shed ever since.

You can have my Super Galaxy for nowt, just taking up space now.

Touring bikes are a funny one – you either get ones that have literally been around the world and are shagged (or customised beyond belief) or you can sometimes find some gems – older ones that have been bought with the idea of getting into touring and the owner has done one or two rides, decided it’s not for them and the bike has been in a shed ever since

Same for tandems. (I’ve got nothing to useful to add about finding touring bikes.)

Look outside the box of ‘touring’ – my Vagabond was £500, and had been used for under 50 miles, so basically new…

They are out there. I picked up an Ultra Galaxy for a couple of hundred quid a couple of months ago on Scumtree.

It’s a lovely thing to ride.

We used to use our old hard tail bikes with rigid forks. They fitted we already had them and they had low gears.

My 90s tourer is still going strong, I just renewed the drive train courtesy of spa cycles, they rebuilt the rear wheel 10 years ago and no signs of wear.  No idea what it’s worth, it just keeps going.

First tour- fully ridgid MTB

Second- hardtail

Third- hardtail, until the front of the bike got stolen and I replaced it with ridgid forks

It’s mostly been a weekends bike packing on MTBs since then for me

Where are you? I’ve got a lovely PX/Holdsworth Stelvio tourer that I’m happy to do a good deal on

Galaxy is a name that people are happy to pay for in order to relive the aspitations of their youth.

No idea why – I’ve always thought they are over-long in the top-tube.

Touring bikes can almost last forever. I had a Trek 520 steel touring bike that had done 65,000 hard miles. It was a bit like Trigger’s broom, although the seat post was still original and the Phil Wood front wheel had done 60k+ of those miles !

Sold it to a friend for peanuts, which was a stupid thing to do.

Thanks for the posts all.  @IHN and @midlifecrashes I’m in Hampshire if that’s vaguely close.  Trying to sell the “another bike” on low cost local transport and occasional tour but I could just take the gravel bike and risk loading it to it’s limit with luggage.

I could just take the gravel bike and risk loading it to it’s limit with luggage.

Your Achilles heel is your back wheel 🙂

That’s generally the limiting factor – maybe not immediately but maybe after a few hundred or even a few thousand miles as spokes start popping. If it’s lightweight maybe treat yourself to a spare heavy-built one.

Fully loaded, front and rear with old-skool camping kit, lightweight frames can also suffer frame shimmy. Terrifying but even a Galaxy could do this. Unlikely with modern kit but load it up and go find out.

Enjoy 🙂

Sold my old Dalesman on the CTC forum. I’d replaced everything with new (105/Mavic wheels, strong light cranks, new chain and cassette, new brakes, new tyres, new mudguards). And still only got £275 for it.

I think the better question is who if anyone buys the beaters off eBay.

The bike charity I volunteer at has a couple of Thorn tourers in at the moment with flat bars. They’re from the 1990s but are loaded with guards and racks and are in amazing condition. If you’re about 5’8″ then they’d be for sale for about £350 each. PM if you’re interested.

@IHN and @midlifecrashes I’m in Hampshire if that’s vaguely close.

‘Fraid not, I’m near Stockport/Macclesfield

I don’t think Doncaster is any closer.

Thanks all.  Next trip is 2 nights/3 days so we are going to try going very light and taking the gravel bike I think and if it looks/feels noodley on a test run then I shall borrow something from the shed of dad as starting at my parents place.

I’ve done 2-4 day tours on my old Merlin gravel bike, two modest panniers*, frame bag and bar bag – it handled it just fine, on and off road.
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*I was carrying mrs_oab’s stuff and had to refuse the hair straighteners…

The Thorn Club Tour a good alternative 700c wheels.

Have toured on mine ,( mk 3 version)  done audax and was my gravel bike for years inc. dirty reiver 200,

I would avoid the Thorn 26″ wheel tourers, a bit slow and heavy and built like tanks!

Actually mines a mk4. I had forgot and not thought about that for a while.

A mk5 on ebay , a big saving on a new one,but not cheap and looks like an alvio chainset on it.

I think the mk5 accepts disc brakes ,mk 4 only accepts rear disc brake.

Mine rides well loaded or unloaded,  a 90 Nigel Dean Reynolds ST tubing tourer i had before was harsher at the rear unloaded and was  better loaded !

Fully loaded, front and rear with old-skool camping kit, lightweight frames can also suffer frame shimmy. Terrifying but even a Galaxy could do this.

A lot of touring bikes of that era actually relied on them having some degree of loading to dampen the whole thing down – as @aggs says above. Larger frames in particular could be quite “squirmy” but chuck some panniers on there and the whole thing calmed down.

There’s a nice little history of them here:

A Brief History Of The Dawes Galaxy Touring Bicycle

Sort of touches on why they still fetch a high price, just because of the legacy and the history of that name. For an endearingly long time the Galaxy name was absolutely synonymous with cycle touring.

Iv got (well its on loan to a mate) a 20 year old Super Galaxy and there is a reason they are popular. Its just a really easy to live with, effective and really quite fun bike to ride.  The only thing that’s ever been replaced on mine other than consumables is the rear wheel and that’s mostly because I used to use it as a quasi gravel bike around the Chilterns long before that was a ‘thing’.  Older Scwhalbe Marathons are almost indestructible but also the heaviest deadest thing ever attached too a road bike.

Timely after only seeing posts about lightweight bike packing over the last few years – my mate who I did LEJOG with back in the day turned up this Monday on his ancient Raleigh Steel tourer on a 4 day route. He was carrying a daft amount of kit but I couldn’t believe how much flex there was in the frame! Anyhow with my lad talking about going away with his friend it’s enthused me to get my old bike (alu specialized with pannier mounts) converted back to touring spec and gears fixed. Might have to do an autumn get away.