How to Shop for a New Touring / Adventure Bike!

Shopping for a new bike is super exciting and also can be overwhelming! Here are some tips and things to consider when shopping for a new bike for touring and adventures - this is something our community and sale’s manager Casey articulated to a customer earlier this season to help one of our customers find her perfect bike. After you think through these things, you’ll be ready to dig into brands and more!

Things to look for/consider when buying a touring bike:

- How self-sufficient do you need to be?

ie: will it be remote enough that you need to be able to do all bike repairs yourself, or will you be near bike shops? If you want to be completely self-sufficient you'll probably want more simple technology on the bike and you'll probably want to use YouTube to learn basic bike repair. For example, hydraulic disc brakes are very difficult to service in the wilderness, while mechanical caliper brakes would be much easier.

- How much gear do you want to carry?

That will help you decide how many mounting points/racks the bike will need to have. If you just need the bare necessities and will be stopping to refuel on food often, a simple seat post bag and frame bag may do the trick. If you want to go days without seeing anyone, front and rear racks may be needed. 

- What kind of routes will you be riding on?

Pavement, gravel, both? This will determine how wide your tires will need to be and then how much tire clearance the bike should have. “If you want a short answer, I’d say that the longer the event, the wider the tire,” says Ken Avery, vice president of marketing and product for Vittoria. “This allows for the added weight of supplies and gear, and also affords flexibility if your route gets a little gnarlier than you anticipated.” 

- What material do you want the bike to be made of?

Carbon is the lightest but most expensive, aluminum is usually the most affordable, steel will absorb some road rumble and can be welded back together if it cracks, which makes it ideal for some intense tourists who want to be able to do repairs on the road and handle anything life throws at them. Modern steel is also much lighter than the ‘70’s Chicago Schwinn Cruisers we all think of, so don’t be too afraid of it. 

- How much do you want to spend?

If you’re buying new, you should expect to spend between $1-2k for a drop bar gravel or touring bike. If you want to pay less than that, think about looking at used bikes, but definitely plan and budget to bring it to a bike shop after you buy it and be prepared to pay for some new parts. It can be hard to shop for used bikes and make sure you don’t get a lemon, so try to buy a model made within the last few years and ask the previous owner question about how often they got it tuned up and other things they did to care for it.

- Where will you be touring?

Do some research for the area you are looking to explore and see what people recommend. If you are in the American Southwest, for example, you might want tubeless tires to avoid flats from cactus spurs. If you're staying in the Midwest you may need fewer gears than in a mountain area like Colorado.

If you don't know how to answer these questions, you can do some googling and read the thoughts of many bike tourists before you - The Radivist is a blog that lots of adventure bikers will write all their hot takes about good bikes on, adventurecycling.org, the Adventure Cycling Association,  Bikepacking.com, and more are all resources you can check and learn from.

Always feel free to come in and chat with our staff about bikes, gear, and more, we love to help beginners hit the road!

There's so much to learn but you can figure it out and find something great for yourself!! Many riders are also am firm believers that you can make any bike work for you - one of our staff members did a thousand-mile tour on an 11-year-old aluminum road bike once and had a wonderful time. There's no need to buy the state of the art, you can go a long way on something old that you treat with love and a maintenance visit to a good mechanic. Good luck, happy learning, and see you outside!!