I leapt into the world of bike touring as fast as I could. If you know me, this is the shop til you drop phase. While my budget wasn't extremely limited, I wasn't about to go buy a $2000 sick-ass custom-built LotR-referencing touring bike, much less a $5500 one. I looked around on eBay and found a marked down Jamis Aurora Elite, in muted blue. It happened to be semi-local, 2 hours away in Amherst. It was quite hellish to go check the bike out, as my car's slave cylinder decided to die in the bike shop's parking lot, forcing me to stall multiple times going through Amherst college limping along in 4th gear. And I couldn't even fit the bike in the car.
I eventually got back there and squeezed the bike into my other car. I was very excited. I didn't know the first thing about serious bikes. They had to teach me how to use the brifters when I test rode it.
So I got a bike for just over $1000. Matt ended up getting a new Trek 520, a pretty popular model for touring. Gabe went down to REI and got their house brand touring bike, the Novara Randonee. All three were more than enough hardware to get us through the trip. Now we had to start riding them and owning them. I'm a big fan of Top Gear, and our trip premise was fast shaping up to be like one of Top Gear's travel specials, where the hosts pick out 3 different cars, praising the merits of their own rides while looking down on the others'. Yeah, it was good that we all had different bikes. I'm sure their personalities will really show up when we are touring. If you haven't watched Top Gear's Vietnam Special, drop everything and watch it.
FWIW, I test rode a Surly Long Haul Trucker in 55cm and 57cm, but it didn't feel as good as the Aurora. It handled a lot better, but just didn't feel as solid. Because the Aurora had been sitting in shop for a fewcouple years, it was cheaper but with specced up components, notably disc brakes, which ought to be safer in wet weather. And I did think having brifters would be better for all my training riding around town.
edit: Now that I think about it, having Elite in the model name was a huge positive in my decision making.
2 comments:
Interesting, I wonder what made it feel more "solid"? Does it have to do with road vibrations? I would think disk brakes could be a liability while on a long tour, but I don't know how finnicky they are / whether they ever have issues. But touring bikes do typically have canti brakes.
I think I just felt more flex in the frame of the LHT.
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