Can you tour with your Gravel Bike / Fitness Bike? Part 1

Can you tour with your Gravel Bike / Fitness Bike ? Part 1.

As you can see before writing this blog I found some mud to play in!!

Welcome to a mini series on touring with your Gravel Bike / Fitness Bike. For part one, I will look at the bike and mounting on the frame. Part two will be about our panniers and what we carry and the final part will be feedback from a multi day tour. I hope you enjoy this mini series and find it useful when planning your adventures.

Since I purchased my Gravel Bike a little over 3 years ago, I have always been worried about adding a pannier rack and using the bike to go on a multi day tours. But a recent comment on a Facebook Group made me rethink this.

"If manufactures makes a frame with eyelets for panniers you can use your bike for touring."

That made sense, so after a little research I found that my bike could carry panniers front and back, with the capacity to carry 13.6kg (30lbs) on the carbon front forks and 25kg (55lbs) on the rear triangle which has traditional rack mounting points including cleverly designed upper mounts integrated into the seat post collar.

Pannier fitted using the 4 mounting points.

Seat post mount and frame mount. My poor frame showing a few knocks.

A small problem to solve by adding the pannier was that I lost the place on my seat post to fix my rear light. The pannier came pre drilled with mounting holes so I purchased a universal mount with clip for my rear light. Problem solved, helping me to be seen day and night.

Light mounting bracket with random flash light.

So with a holiday planned in the UK,  I converted my Specialized Diverge in about an hour into light weight bike touring mode. I think our full touring setup will be too heavy so for now we will just enjoy some short bike touring adventures in the southwest of England.

Luckily when we arrived in England the sun was out, so I took my bike out for a test ride without the panniers. Just by lifting it out of the car, I noticed the extra weight. But on the ride the handling of the bike seems to be the same.

We are now ready to explore, our accommodation booked, supplies purchased and panniers packed as we head towards Watchet and the Quantock Hills.

I will do a full review with panniers and everything else we carry on the bike in part 2.

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