Bike set-up for a road trip.

VIA said:

Hey.. A friend and I are planing a 1000-1500mi road trip for next year and I wonder what will be the best bike set-up for it.. fork, DS or HT, tires ,ect.
Any sugestion..

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You're on the right track man, Id highly recommend using a fork and tires. I might also suggest a saddle (personal preference of course) and handlebars. Pedals aren't a bad idea either. Have fun and good luck.

Type of terrain

What type of Terrain will this mostly consist of? thats the main question you need to ask

TNC said:

I'd take a good all-around 5" travel bike. Not too light but burly enough to handle some of the rougher trails that you'll probably encounter. Maybe a bike like a Heckler. I'd take my 32lb. Bullit which is built up a little lighter than normal, but you can use this bike in a lot of situations--kind of a Swiss army bike...LOL!

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what tires are those?

eman said:

what tires are those?

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ugly ones....

For all the "smart @$$"... nothing smart this time guys... try better next time.


Thanks for the good inputs.

Is gonna be mostly road but you never know ...

You think that for a long trip is good idea a DS bike..?

Anyway we are planing to do like 50-65mi a day... so I don't think that we need the lighter bike.... but I realy don't know much about long trips anyways.

When you say "road trip" do you mean you will be getting in the car and driving to remote locations to ride or do you mean you will be taking your bike and riding 1000-1500 miles? If it is the second option and you are going to be riding mainly paved roads I would recommend a touring or road bike with racks and panniers etc.... A full supension bike would generally be too heavy and inefficient for 50-65 miles a day on the road. Do you do any road riding now? If not you should start as soon as possible and train as long as you can.

Good luck

Frankenschwinn said:

When you say "road trip" do you mean you will be getting in the car and driving to remote locations to ride or do you mean you will be taking your bike and riding 1000-1500 miles? If it is the second option and you are going to be riding mainly paved roads I would recommend a touring or road bike with racks and panniers etc.... A full supension bike would generally be too heavy and inefficient for 50-65 miles a day on the road. Do you do any road riding now? If not you should start as soon as possible and train as long as you can.

Good luck

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The plan is do 1000-1500mi with the bike only.
And no road riding at all... I only ride my heavy FR bike and on weekends I ride like 8-10 hours some time...

I was thinking something like a light HT XC bike with 2.0 tires and a 4 or 5 inches in the front.
I gonna built both bikes with all the same .. from the frame to all the components.

Well if you ride 8 hours a day, you only need to average 8mph. Thats not hard to go that speed at all, I can average probably 15 for a while on my hardtail with knobbies on the street.

Despite being ugly, they're Mich. Hot S.

eman said:

what tires are those?

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Oh WCH, you hurt me to the quick...LOL! Those are 2.5 and 2.2 Mich. Hot S models. The 2.5 is a carbon copy of the Mich. DH Comp24 without the wire bead and not as much carcass. I loved the one I had, but it was gawdawful heavy--1250g. The carcass of the Hot S is definitely beefed up from the original Hot S models (you'd get a sidewall tear just looking at them), but it only weighs 840g. They also run tubeless with great results. The 2.5 only comes in red at this time, but I would be glad to run a black one if they had it. They make the 2.2 in red and black--go figure.

VIA said:

The plan is do 1000-1500mi with the bike only.
And no road riding at all... I only ride my heavy FR bike and on weekends I ride like 8-10 hours some time...

I was thinking something like a light HT XC bike with 2.0 tires and a 4 or 5 inches in the front.
I gonna built both bikes with all the same .. from the frame to all the components.

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As the previous poster said best thing for that kind of trip is a road bike, but failing that a good a hardtaill will do. smaller tires less thread but enough of a grip so that you can go offroad if you want.

But if you are doing only 60 miles a day for 1k miles thats 17ish days, you will probably have a back pack or panniers, hard to go full on offroad riding with a full pack or panniers. the skinnier tires should do well for you.

I was thinking of doing the exact same thing with a friend a few years ago, and we both agreed that the best thing to use would be a cyclocross bike with disk brakes or a durable hardtail. If we saw any offroad trails we can still hit them. But the caveat was to have my wife a few hours behind with all our gear this way none were on us besides our camelbacks and we would meet her at a designated point each night

Good Luck

VIA said:

The plan is do 1000-1500mi with the bike only.
And no road riding at all... I only ride my heavy FR bike and on weekends I ride like 8-10 hours some time...

I was thinking something like a light HT XC bike with 2.0 tires and a 4 or 5 inches in the front.
I gonna built both bikes with all the same .. from the frame to all the components.

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That would work well too. When I was in Moab I met two guys from Great Brittain that were riding across america on HT XC bikes pulling BOB trailers. They used semi slic tires and short travel forks (3"). Looked like a miserable/fun trip.

I also like the guys suggestion of the Cyclocross bike. Just put tall gears on it for all of those road miles...
You might have more valid input on passion or one of the other forums. Most here seem to only ride FR/DH. Not all but most.
Have fun and post pics.