Looking for relatively light steel road bike with disc brakes, wide tyres & panniers

Wow great replies already,
Wow great replies already, thanks guys 🙂

Gkam84 wrote:

Right, this is the kind of challenge I enjoy lots.

So you WANT….

Steel
Light
Disc Brakes (mechanical or hydraulic)??
Decent width tyres (35c as an example or around that)??
Mounts for mud guard and panniers
Rohloff gearing.

That it??

I’m guessing this will be for touring, do you want drop bars, flat bars….etc?

I’m sure there would be a bike out there with all that, but as you say, its going to cost a bomb.

Why not start with something like this and build your way up??

http://www.genesisbikes.co.uk/bikes/frames/croix-de-fer/croix-de-fer%5B/quote%5D

That Genesis could work, although I can’t find a frame weight or any info on whether it supports discs at a glance?

I’m not too fussed about mechanical or hydraulic disc brakes, although the lack of need to regularly realign the brakes makes me lean towards hydraulic. Not a dealbreaker by any means tho.

35c is an example but I’m not sure I’d like to go much smaller. I live in Rome at the moment but move around a lot so I need tyres that won’t fall between cobbles & crevices. The 37c I have on my current heavy front suspension hybrid seem about right for a mix of versatility and relative speed.

The bike’s not really for touring – more fast commuting, getting around the city for social stuff and possibly the odd leisure ride.

[quote=Gkam84]When you talk about an On One 11, do you mean Day One 11??

http://www.genesisbikes.co.uk/bikes/cross/day-one/day-one-alfine-11

The other thing you COULD think out, is a custom built steel frame….Have you read Rob Penn’s – It’s All About the Bike (The Pursuit of Happiness On Two Wheels)??

NO…..Get it and read a bit before you go looking further…then ask him some questions. A very approachable guy.

Finally, here are another few to look at under the touring section http://www.enigmabikes.com/bike-list.html

If you want much lighter under 12kg, you are going to have to go for a Titanium bike I think ;)

Yes, sorry, I meant the Day One 11.

I have thought about a custom frame – I saw Rob Penn’s TV programme which gave me the idea. (Not sure why I saw it – I wasn’t in the least bit interested about custom bikes at the time!)

In fact I messaged the guys who wrote Made in England last week, a book about custom bike builders, on Twitter asking whether I’d be able to get what I’m after without spending more than £3.5k. They said that with the £1,000 hub it wouldn’t really be doable – more like £4.5k depending on what I put on it. But I don’t want to scrimp on components either. So I think I’d rather go for the Thorn Mercury than a custom build.

I really like the look of some of those Enigma bikes and their website is great – although I’m not convinced about their bike builder software. A configured an Ethos Rohloff just now and it came out as costing about £1800 and weighing 3.2kg. Obviously there’s something missing there – the Rohloff for starters!! I’ll take a closer look later though.

Regarding titanium, before I’d set my mind on a steel frame I messaged a Santos dealer about a Santos bike listing my requirements and a budget of £3k and instead of coming back with a Santos he came back with a quote of £6k for a custom titanium frame as he felt that the Santos bikes wouldn’t meet my requirements. That’s just out of the question unfortunately.

If you think I won’t get a steel bike much below 12kg with Rohloff then I’ll probably end up settling for the Mercury. It’s not that I’m unhappy with a 12-13kg bike – I’m not into racing and although I’m slim I’d rather lose a couple of kilos body weight than spend thousands shaving grams here and there from the bike. I just want to make sure I can’t get something lighter for my money.