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I live in northwest Arkansas. I'm fantasizing/thinking about planing a tour to the Rocky Mountains through Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado.
My current ride is a performance hybrid Giant Escape. I bought it a few years ago before I really knew what I needed, but got lucky. Nice and stable to handle the varied terrain around where I live -
>stance handles the dirt roads well but is still aggressive enough to travel more than 3mph on pavement (relative to a "comfort hybrid"),
>low gearing good for the hills,
>700x32 isn't perfect on gravel but can handle, and work great on the rough, ill-kept pavements around here
But it's not good for distance, the longest I've done on it so far was 39 miles, very hilly, sometimes gravelly terrain. And I was dying trying to take hills in that flat-bar posture. Not able to move my ass or back around. Drop bars needed maybe.
So I'm definitely going to get something more suited for long distance touring, but I'm not sure what kind to aim for yet. How well does a traditional touring bike handle gravel? With say, 700x35 to 40? I've been looking at gravel bikes but it seems like they're not really built as much for loading down with tons of racks and gear and it seems as though a touring bike is probably perfectly capable on any old Kansas dirt road.
