Table of Contents
As an Australian, I like to keep a list of touring bikes that are currently available in our stores. Unfortunately we have a pretty slim range compared to North America / Europe / the UK – but you should be able to find something you like!
Allegro T1
The Allegro T1 is made by an Melbourne-based company with a passion for environmentalism and fair work. It is constructed using steel tubing and features v-brakes, bar-end shifters, a rear rack and fenders. I generally find that double cranksets like the one featured on this bike do not achieve a small enough gear for steep climbs (especially with heavy panniers). You may want to look at this resource for ways to achieve smaller gear ratios HERE.
Price: $1599 AUD
Best suited to: Loaded touring on-road.
Fuji Touring
This Fuji is the best value touring bike in Australia. It employs a steel frame/fork, bar-end shifters and 36 spoke wheels to keep it simple. This touring bike comes with a good climbing gear too (26-34t / 21 gear inches). You can read more about the Fuji Touring in my resource HERE.
Price: $1299 AUD
Best suited to: Loaded touring.
Kona Sutra
The Kona Sutra has been improving year on year for almost a decade. This steel frame and fork is setup with a great geometry, the gear ratios are wide (22-119 gear inches), there’s barend shifters and it even comes with a Brooks B17 saddle!
Price: $2049 AUD
Best suited to: Loaded touring, on or off-road.
Salsa Fargo
Price: Fargo 2 ($2650 AUD), Fargo 3 ($1875 AUD)
Best suited to: Off-road travel.
Pros: Mountain-bike geometry to take it properly offroad, steel frame/fork, wheels, thudbuster post, tyre clearance, bidon cage mounts everywhere.
Cons: Bike geometry not the best on-road, STI shifters can be problematic on remote tours, crankset doesn’t offer many bigger gears.
Fargo Titanium also available
Salsa Vaya
Price: Vaya 2 ($2395 AUD), Vaya 3 ($1795 AUD)
Best suited to: Loaded touring, on or off-road.
Pros: Steel frame/fork, Sram gearing, wheels.
Cons: Road double crankset does not achieve small enough gear for steep climbs with gear, STI shifters can be problematic on remote tours.
Vaya stainless steel with couplers also available
Soma Saga
Best suited to: Loaded touring, on or off-road.
Pros: Steel frame/fork, touring crankset, wide gear range, barend shifters, mounting provision for everything that you need.
Cons: It’d be nice if the Saga Disc complete bike was available.
Soma Wolverine Frame
Price: $899 AUD
Best suited to: Loaded touring
Pros: Steel frame/fork, belt drive compatible, sliding dropouts, Rohloff compatible.
Cons: Short chainstays and headtube given it’s not a dedicated tourer.
Surly Long Haul Trucker
Price: Long Haul Trucker ($1799 AUD), Disc Trucker ($1949 AUD)
Best suited to: Loaded touring, on or off-road.
Pros: Geometry is perfect (in our opinion) for long haul touring, 26″ and 700c wheel size depending on rider height, steel frame/fork, 3x bidon mounts, Shimano XT derailleur and hubs, barend shifters, eyeleted 36h double-wall rims, wide gear range.
Cons: No kickstand plate behind BB, cantilever brakes are average at best (LHT). Read my review HERE.
Tout Terrain Silk Road
German manufacturer Tout Terrain put together some fantastic steel touring bikes with all the right parts. A Rohloff 14s hub provides maintenance-free gear shifting and the Carbon belt drivetrain will reduce the need to lube anything (and will run completely silent for 20000km+!). Added features include fenders, a built-in rack, a Brooks saddle, a Supernova dynamo hub and lights and The Plug III USB charger. This is actually quite a good value option when you consider what it comes with.
Price: $4999 AUD
Best suited to: Loaded touring, on or off road
Vivente
Vivente is another Australian brand making touring bikes. The owner of this business, Neil, tours a lot – he’s able to design the bikes to the way he likes. You can get your steel Vivente with drop bars or flat handlebars, with barend or STI shifters and with derailleurs or a Rohloff 14s internally geared hub. All the Vivente touring bikes come fully featured with dynamo hubs and lights, rear Tubus racks, fenders, a kickstand and a horn.
Price: Anatolia, Deccan, Patagonia ($2199 AUD), The Gibb ($3699 AUD)
Best suited to: Loaded touring, on or off-road.
Wayward Bike Co
A third Australian touring bike company! The Wayward touring bikes are both steel, the key difference in terms of components is the choice between rim and disc brakes. Like most good touring bikes, the Waywards use barend shifters and have a great climbing gear of 26-34t. The fenders and racks complete the rather affordable package. The only thing to note is the rather obscure Shimano Octolink bottom bracket type – it may be hard to get spare parts for in the future.
Price: Nullarbor ($1399), Cape York ($1599)
Best suited to: Loaded touring, on or off-road.
Quite a comprehensive list. As I just mentioned in another article of yours I am an owner of the latest 2012 model Vivente World Randonneur. It’s a great touring and commuting bike. Well designed, excellent value and heaps of thoughtful features. For me the geometry is pretty great, it’s well suited for a full set of pannier bags, handles well and, unladen, it is actually pretty zippy to ride!
Thanks for sharing this info. It will be helpful for me while I decide which touring/commuter bike is best for me.
No problem, Remi! Let us know what you end up getting and why!
I no longer buy stock bikes, I build my own and will continue to do so. My current bike is a Surly Long Haul Trucker but I am planning to buy my next frame. It will have an S&S coupling for easier transport because finding a suitable cardboard box on the fly after a long ride can be an issue, especially if you don’t have much time. I’m not sure if I will go with Surly or Thorn but Thorn has brase-ons for both disk and linear pull brakes which could be useful.
What makes a tourer suitable for off-road? Specifically, I’ve got my eye on the Allegro but would consider the Jamis now given you’ve made this differentiation… Thanks.
Hello Hayley
Any bike is off-road capable, but in my opinion an off-road touring bike should have:
A triple chainring front crankset (preferably a 24-26t granny ring)
A wide range rear cassette (11-32 minimum)
Wide tyre clearance (700x38c or wider)
The Allegro has gearing better suited to the road.
A wider gear range will allow you to ride up almost any hill, even with four panniers. Wider tyres will offer more grip, and will be much more comfortable on bumpy roads.
It does all matter where you plan to ride though – the above features will only really help you out when you have to climb some steep hills, or cruise on rough roads. If you plan to ride on gravel roads or rail trails, the Allegro will be great.
Regards
Alex
It was very interesting to see your comments on the bicycle frames.
How did you decide on what is the most perfect?
What’s the effect of the current designs vs. your ideal? For example what would the steeper angles and longer chainstays do on the Koga Miyata?
Based on your comments, the Surely LHT frame was the only “ideal” touring frame geometry. However, my preference is a butterfly handlebar.
Does the handlebar choice influence the frame geometry?
Or it doesn’t influence and I can just use it with a butterfly handlebar?
Can you recommend other frames (maybe not available to Australia) that are “ideal” for touring, like the Surely LHT?
Thanks a lot!
Having ridden lots and lots of different touring bikes, our ‘ideal’ geometry is how we would custom build a touring bike frame.
Steeper head angle bikes are a little more agile (less effort required to steer). A slacker head angle will want to turn quickly when leaned (more effort to steer). As a result, the Koga would be better at higher speeds, than say the Surly. I just checked the Koga chainstay length on their website, and it seems they’re now 10mm longer! Maybe they read CyclingAbout…
A butterfly bar will not require any ‘special’ geometry to make it work well. The only thing to consider when running a flat or butterfly bar is that you will need a bigger frame size than if you run a road handlebar.
I’m actually not all that familiar with bikes outside Australia, but if you compare bikes with similar geometry to the LHT, you can’t go too wrong. 😉
Thanks for the overview, thought I’d add my experience. I’ve got the Tout Terrain Silk Road (Rohloff) and it’s bullet proof. When fully loaded, front and rear, the handling is superb and the disk brakes stop it with no problem. I toured on it in Germany last year and it handled everything with ease as it is massively overspecc’ed for a tour on paths but is came into it’s own as soon as I hit trails and some rough conditions caused by some flood diversions. Had no problem with heel strike in reference to your comment on chainstay length.
In Australia I love riding this on trails – too easy!
with mountainbike cassettes reaching 36t and 40 or 42t aftermarket, there is no need for a more complex front end….wouldn’t you agree?
I’m not quite sure what you mean by complex? Currently, 40 and 42t cassette sprockets are only available on high-end 11 speed, single ring MTB group sets. I don’t think we’ll see them on touring bikes quite yet.
With respect to the above discussion, a more likely partnership on the Allegro could be it’s road crankset (30t cog), used in combination with a 36t cassette sprocket, giving ~23 gear inches as the lowest gear (700c touring wheel). I use our 18 gear inch combination pretty regularly on our tours and I’m a strong rider, so for an off-road tourer, I think 30:36t is probably inadequate!
Just wondering why there wasn’t a thorn bicycle in the review? Hubby and I have thorn Raven with a rohloff hub and they have been brilliant. Getting ready to ride from cape York to Cairns our first real off road trip so looking forward to seeing how they perform.
Hi Sylvia. I haven’t included the Thorns because they aren’t available through a shop in Australia. Everything else on this list you can try-before-you-buy! Good luck with your Cape York to Cairns tour. Alee
In the interest of list completeness, there are a few Trek 520s floating around Aus.
I’ve also seen Giant ToughRoad SLRs, something called a Malvern Star Oppy (S 1 and S 2), Gios Spazio Tourers and few Avanti Giro AR 1 advertised.
I’m not sure if they all qualify as ‘touring’ bikes (they could be mislabeled for all I know – found a Kona Sutra in the road bikes section the other day), but thought they were worth mentioning just in case.
Thanks Ruby. I’ll do a bit of research and amend the list soon – can’t believe I missed the Giant! I’ll keep the Trek 520s off the list as the distributor is no longer offering them. 🙂
I’ll be interested to see how they compare. I have found the mini reviews for each bike you’ve listed very useful – thanks for those.
I wasn’t aware that the trek 520 was no longer being offered. A bit disappointing as I was thinking of buying one. Considering how rare they are already (touring bikes in general even) I’m guessing I’m not going to find one in my size in the remaining Aus stock =/
Thank you for this website Alee, I’m sure it is very useful, it’s just I’m very new to the ins and outs of bicycles, and I don’t understand a lot of the details. I’m considering buying a bike; here’s what I’d like to use it for; mainly on road touring but with the capacity to tolerate off road or bumpiness if circumstances present; be able to carry enough required for a day or short day trip. I’d appreciate any advice you can offer me please. Thank you, Kind Regards, Claire.
Hi Claire. It sounds like you’re the perfect candidate for what I like to call a “light touring” bike. These bikes are typically a few kilograms lighter than a “long distance touring” bike because they aren’t designed to support the same kinds of weight. They keep a very upright positioning too, and often have a wide spread of gears. Perhaps start by taking a look at the Trek CrossRip or 720 bikes: https://www.cyclingabout.com/2016-trek-adventure-and-touring-bikes/. The Kona Rove and Giant Revolt are two other examples found in Australia.
Also, keep an eye out for my new book on touring bikes (including light touring) – available next month. 🙂
Hello Alee, thank you for your swift reply, I appreciate that. I will have a look at these light touring bikes. Thank you for giving me some examples; that will give me a starting place. Just wondering, still a little unsure about what my optimum geometry would be. Would you recommend any of the Vivente bikes for this light touring? I look forward to your new book, that should be quite informative, thank you. Kind Regards, Claire.
The Vivente touring bikes are built really solidly (ie. you could go around the world on them!). I think they would be overkill for your needs. Don’t worry too much about bike geometry, most ‘light touring’ bikes are set up very similarly – just make sure you head into a shop to get the sizing right. Alee
Hi Alee, is the new book out yet? I’m hoping to do the Adelaide to Melbourne route at the end of the month. I’m a beginner but I intend to really take my time (4-6 weeks), so be good to know what available and where I can get it in Adelaide. CHeers
Sorry Chris, I don’t think it’ll be complete until right at the end of the month. 🙁
Great list! Be great to know where the best places to buy 2nd hand touring bikes is too. I’ve been checking ebay and gumtree for about a month, and nothing has popped up.
Yeah, they’re infrequent, but they sometimes pop up. This forum thread for second hand touring bikes was really active until mid-2016. Maybe give it a bump to get people sharing what they’ve seen! http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=75234
thanks!
Hi Alee, any chance you could get hold of a Malvern Star Opee bikes for review ? I had a Malvern Star as a kid 30 years ago – they have been around for ages, but not known very well overseas. Nice looking bike, they are going for a retro color scheme, no idea about quality or suitability for touring bikes. The top models s2/s3 have reynolds frames and reasonable componentry. Would be nice if we had another choice to buy locally.