So I’ve got a short travel full sus and a 150mm travel full sus and mountain biking will always be my main love, but I also do other riding occasionally. My Cannondale R1000 road bike is a beaut but it now needs some serious money spending on it. My wife wants me to flog it and buy a touring bike so we can tour Europe and for a while now I’ve been feeling it’s too much of a race bike with big gears, drops I never get on, light wheels etc. I fancy replacing it with a more adaptable road/cross/tourer with pannier bosses, lower gears, disc brakes, maybe flat bar, option of wider/tougher tyres etc, maybe something I could use to ride easier trails on. Thing is unless it lights me up like my ‘dale does I’m likely to just sulk and never use it. Any suggestions for a bike that covers these bases and will set my pulse racing?

New specialized sequoia?

Sounds like you want a kinesis tripster…

Cheers chaps, that Trips ter looks lovely but outside my price range (about a grand). Like the look of the Sequoia, and a steel frame has some appeal to an oldie like me. Any other suggestions?

Have a look at some secondhand stuff

In the spirit of recommend what you have – a GT Grade 105 Alloy GT Grade 2017 @Evans

Some good s/h options available, and the more I look the more choice there is. Looks like I have to decide where to skirt the edge between touring/gravel/road. Off the top of my head I reckon I need a road bike that will do some touring if necessary and gravel with a tyre swop, maybe like a Spesh Diverge. Others that roll along the same line?

pinnacle arkose?

Cotic Escapade (drop bars) or Road Rat (flat bars) worth checking out.

Croix de fer?

Giant Revolt?

Following in ‘recommend what you own’ Singletrack style;

I just rode the Way Of The Roses on my 2016 c2w bike – a Kinesis Crosslight 5T Disc. Non discounted and with the standard Upgrade Bikes build kit it’s about £1300. Build basically is 5800 with non series 36-46 crank, FSA finishing kit, Spyre C’s, Kinesis CXDisc v3’s (tubeless ready) and WTB tubeless ready Crosswolfs. CX sizing means that at 178cm I’m (just) on a 54 and find it fine for road riding and off roading. You could easily spec a build with hydraulics and cheaper wheels (RX10’s maybe) if you wanted although the Kinesis/Upgrade build does actually work out quite well as a whole if you start trying to add up piecemeal builds for the sake of picking your own parts. 🙂

It should tick all your boxes I think. It coped very well with needing to slam on the anchors at 45mph down Greenhow Hill into Pateley Bridge when a driver in front lost their nerve and stood on the brakes on an armco corner, easily hits 30mph sprinting round town and copes as a commuter well (rack and guard mounts present), the wheelset is a joy, the 5800 Shimano build just goes snick-snick and never misses a beat and it’s been down a few descents in the Peaks around Ladybower so far, too without incident (admittedly much more slowly than my mtb’s). Definitely not a bike I regret buying. The pearlescent ‘sweet orange’ really is not done justice in pictures… I’d certainly recommend taking a look at one based on your spec.

Tandem. Seriously. If she wants to tour, you’ll probably be frustrated at the pace. So keep together.

That Tripster is LUSH, I’m telling you. LUSH. 84 pages of gertin’ greet LUSH.

If she wants to tour, you’ll probably be frustrated at the pace

Are you saying he’s slow?

It’s alright he/she is following the STW assumption that everyone else must be slow/less/skilled/biogotted/mysogynist/ignorant.

(as am I, ironically, with this post)

Tandem is a good suggestion but we are both opinionated control freaks so it would only lead to war. Also she has a gorgeous titanium audax bike with campag kit so wants me to get something she can sneer at. All other suggestions go into the hat to be researched. Love the look of the tripster but she’d kill me if I got a ti bike.