After much doubt and indecision, I have decided to ride a Trek 520 touring bike. This means I will be leaving behind my beloved aluminum mutt of a road bike that I built last year out of parts gathered from the far reaches of the Internet. Chief among the deciding factors was the Gear Issue. My road bike doesn’t have many low gears. The lowest gear, in fact, is barely low enough to get me up the steepest hill I know of in the New York area: the climb up to the GWB (occasionally failing altogether when my backpack weight exceeds around 10lbs.)
Alex quite rightly pointed out to me that this could become problematic in the Rockies, particularly given that I will be carrying around 30lbs of gear. So, much as I love it, I will be leaving it behind. It’s actually fitting that I ride a Trek — my last long-distance bicycle jaunt (south-west to north-east corners of the UK in 1997) was completed on a Trek 370. Of course, that was also an entirely unsuitable vehicle for such an endeavor. However, in that case I had a support vehicle to drag the gear, so it ended up being feasible (if a bit uncomfortable.)
Posted by: sam