# Gravel bike or Cyclocross bike as a Touring, camping bike?



## lacofdfireman

I've always wanted to try bike camping. My boys would also like to give it a try but I'm really at a loss for what style bike to get. I know this will be a bike that would only be used to camp on for a few nights per year so I really don't want to buy a purpose built bike like a Surly trucker or something like that. I can get a decent discount on Giant bikes so I kinda lean that way. I was thinking about the Giant TCX Advanced SX but noticed that it has a carbon seatpost and it seems like some people say that you shouldn't put bags on a carbon seatpost. I like that it can fit a 40mm wide tire. I think that would be great for off road and camping in general. Am I going to be disappointed trying to setup a carbon bike with a carbon setpost? 
I could also buy a cyclocross bike but most only have 33mm wide tires. Is this a big deal? Also I'm 6'4 and 260lbs so bikes for me are hard to come by. I ride a Giant TCR Disc now but have a Farley large Seat to bar drop. I'd imagine touring that might not be to comfy for longer days? But without custom nobody really makes a big enough bike for me. 

Photo of my road bike:










For those of you that do tour and bike camp what are your opinions on the different styles of bikes?

1. Flat Bar Mountain bike style for touring vs. Road bike style bike for touring? Mixture of Road and gravel road. Not single track. 

2. How wide of tires would you run? 

3. Most of the Gravel and Cyclocross bikes I see now are 1x11's. Is that an issue for a touring, camping bike?




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## bikerector

Disclaimer: I have not actually gone bike camping, I've simply researched it a fair amount before I got into racing as a way to spend weekends before spending them in a peloton.

CX bikes could be fine for bike camping but I don't know of a single carbon framed CX bike that would be good for it simply because I don't know of any that would have the braze-ons for racks which you would want. They may exist I just don't know of any. I know the surly cross-check is pretty popular as a touring bike. A downside to a cross bike is the chainstays can be a little short which means you could have heel/pannier collision issues, especially if you have big feet. I was able to get away with it when I was commuting and doing "day tour" kinds of things to visit family 50 miles away.

You could also look into bike-packing types of setups that tend to skip the racks and pannier setup. You could also simply get something like a bob yak trailer and let that carry everything fr you and keep the stress off the bike. I don't know if they have adapters for 142x12mm thru-axles so you may have to be selective on which CX bike you get if it has disc brakes.

1: Flat bar or drop bar is pretty preferential. Many people like drop-bars because of the extra hand positions but plenty of people are fine with flat bars as well. I know a few people that will use aero bars for touring as well for to put the weight on the arms instead of the hands and wrist for an additional position.

2: Really depends on how much you load it down. I think a basic setup with gear, you would want at least 32mm tires but wider isn't going to hurt at all, especially if you add gravel into the mix.

3: It could, make sure you pick a small chainring if you stick with this. Hills are going to be a bit harder loaded down, especially gravel hills. Mtb gearing wouldn't be awful if the 1x11 allows for it. Since you're getting a discount on Giant I'm assuming you're buying from a shop so maybe chat with them about swapping gears with the purchase.

As far as a type of bike to get, I feel like the giant tough road slr 1 would be a starter spot that would require minimal after market parts. https://www.giant-bicycles.com/us/toughroad-slr-1. It reminds me a lot of the giant escape I used when I was doing this type of thing. I was using 32mm vittoria randoneur tires and a rear rack with panniers for one point of reference. I eventually upgraded to an aluminum CX bike which I also used for daily commuting. I feel like the giant anyroad or revolt bikes could be okay options as well if they have the braze-ons for it.

My bike of choice for this type of riding was an all-city space horse when I went as far as building a bike for the task and then never had the time to do the bike touring thing. I only had plans for weekend trips.


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## harryman

I'd second the thought that a carbon bike would be a little awkward for touring if you're using racks/panniers. You can certainly mount racks with a little ingenuity, but take care to pack light, carbon frames tend to be designed for specific loads in specific directions, an al or steel frame would give you more leeway. 

You could easily set it up in bikepacking mode though, even with a carbon seatpost. Just pack your light stuff in your seatpack. There's plenty of info online of people touring on carbon wunderbikes with bikepacking setups.

Many gravel bikes are set up with more endurance geometry FWIW.

Regardless, go for as much tire clearance as you can, if you're touring on pavement or decent dirt roads, 32mm would be fine, but rougher than that and you'd appreciate a wider tire.

That being said, unless you're going to do this a lot, you can make do with any bike, so get one you want to ride on all the other days of the year.


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## lacofdfireman

Awesome video and thanks everyone for the info. I'm really considering buying a cyclocross bike and then setting it up like the guy did with his road bike. I'd say 99% of the time I'd be riding the bike on gravel, dirt roads or tarmac to get to said road and maybe a couple nights max each year camping so I don't want a touring specific road bike. I already have a nice road bike and I think if I picked up a cyclocross bike it would be a great addition to my other bikes. The only thing that would maybe concern me about touring on this cyclocross bike I'm looking at is it's 1x11. Never toured before but wondering if I did if I'd miss those extra 11 gears by not having a derailleur up front?


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## Migen21

Volagi makes the perfect bike for this. The Viaje. 

Viaje XL | Volagi Cycles

They call them a disc road bike, but they have been confused with "Cyclocross" bikes in the past. In fact I believe they won some kind of 'Cyclocross bike of the year' award the year they were released. 

They have rack and fender mounts, accept fat tires, are extremely comfortable, handle well with heavy loads, and work really well as a fast gravel (CX) bike when run 'clean'.

Also, don't forget the option to pull a trailer as opposed to the strap on bags. They have their own challenges in terms of handling, and might be limited in the terrain they can cover, but it gets the weight off of the bike, so there are definitely some advantages.

Edit: Here is a facebook post from Cyndi Janetzko showing her 53cm Viaje with her bike packing kit mounted.
https://www.facebook.com/KayakCyndi/posts/10210963889712455?pnref=story

And here is my Ti Viaje (60cm) with a rear rack and a small set of panniers on the back. I use this for commuting, but I've used it for over night photography expeditions, taking a small tent, sleeping bag, and a few camping essentials, plus my camera stuff, just used a larger set of bags on the back, and put the small ones in the front. I also run a slightly larger tire for gravel (Clement XPlor USH or MSO).


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## Jay Strongbow

A true cx bike would probably be way to aggressive handling to be comfortable carrying racks and camping stuff. And a 260 pound person carrying a load off road probably wouldn't want to be limited to 33mm tires.


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## harryman

lacofdfireman said:


> The only thing that would maybe concern me about touring on this cyclocross bike I'm looking at is it's 1x11. Never toured before but wondering if I did if I'd miss those extra 11 gears by not having a derailleur up front?


It just depends on your terrain and what your low gear ratios are. 1x systems generally sacrifice top end over low end. I love my 1x on my mtb, I'd never go back to a front der there, the simplicity is nice as well as the lighter weight. I see 2x as less of a drawback on a roadbike, I could go either way.

I'd second the Viaje, I have a Volagi Liscio that I like a lot, they are nice bikes. Plenty of options out there these days for a mixed surface road bike.


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## Jay Strongbow

harryman said:


> I'd second the Viaje,


No familiar with the brand but what I can gather from looking at the link posted that would about perfect for what the OP describes. Looks like there's really good tires clearance too.


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## Jay Strongbow

lacofdfireman said:


> The only thing that would maybe concern me about touring on this cyclocross bike I'm looking at is it's 1x11. Never toured before but wondering if I did if I'd miss those extra 11 gears by not having a derailleur up front?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


No way for use to say. Don't make the mistake I made though and make your decision based on what you know about yourself and gearing on asphalt. Going up trails, loose gravel, especially with a load requires much easier gearing then the same slope on asphalt. One major reason for that is you can't stand and power up a lot of stuff because you're spin out so you need to sit and go high cadence.


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## rmsmith

It's really tough to beat a purpose-built bicycle. I commute daily on this custom 62cm Co-Motion Divide, and I also use it for fun rides with my son who has a much lighter Salsa Vaya. I ride a Serotta Legend Ti for fitness work-outs.


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## lacofdfireman

rmsmith said:


> It's really tough to beat a purpose-built bicycle. I commute daily on this custom 62cm Co-Motion Divide, and I also use it for fun rides with my son who has a much lighter Salsa Vaya. I ride a Serotta Legend Ti for fitness work-outs.
> View attachment 316668




I have to agree but if I buy a purpose built bike like that it will collect dust in my garage. I just don't see me riding a bike like that. I don't have a job I could ever commute to and I'd be lying if I said I could ever see me bike camping for longer than 3 days at a time and most likely less than a total of 2 weeks per year. I really like the pic posted up with the Giant road bike all packed up. All I'd need is something like that for what I want to do but I don't think my particular road bike would do well on gravel or dirt roads. That's why we I'm considering a cyclocross or gravel bike. I could see myself riding one of those a lot. Where I live we have endless gravel and dirt roads. Could be a lot of fun. My biggest concern about touring is most rigs I see have a seat and handlebar height that is basically even. Some have a handlebar height higher than the seat which I would think would be ideal for touring for comfort. At my height I have a huge seat to bar drop as you can see in my original post. Only way around that I'd suppose would be a long stem with a steep rise. 


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## rmsmith

Between a career job and a family I have little time left for personal pursuits such as fitness riding, so I added a touring steed to the stable years ago. I found I really like riding after work frequently taking a longer route home... unwind if you will. I used to ride a Co-Motion Americano, but these Divide models with wider tires and longer wheelbase are incredible, IMHO.


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## nayr497

I've been using a Nashbar steel cyclocross bike for touring and commuting for years now. I have smooth 32 mm tires on mine, full fenders, a rear rack with dual panniers, dual bottle cages and flat bars. Mine is a 10s but now they're offering 11s.

If you wait for a sale, which happens like 2-3 times a week, you can get the complete bike for something like $650. It's an insane deal considering the (mostly) Shimano 105 drivetrain. I rode it as delivered and then upgraded here and there over time. I went with v-brakes and also a nicer wheelset, then odd and ends as things wore out. It's an awesome overall bike for that price, with eyelets for fenders and a rack.

Check it out, I highly recommend the bike.


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## lacofdfireman

Well just dropped $1600 in repairs on my Motorhome so the bike is now on the back burner. Bummer


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