But I need all that stuff (particularly the fig bars, rain jacket, spare tube, extra spokes, blowup doll, multi tool, extra water, maps, pump, headlight, tail light and Ramen noodles).

I was thinking of a smaller front chain ring. Some of the hills around here are so steep that I have to lean way forward just to keep the front wheel on the ground.

I've owned a lot of mid-rangers and Cannondale is a favorite, you can't go wrong IMO.
Been a few years, but I've got no reason to believe they've changed a great deal, as far a quality and weight-to-durability is concerned.

That may be a little fussier to setup than a new cassette. I assume you have a 9sp cassette. You can run anything from an 11-21 12-27in Shimano Ultegra and 11-21 to 12-26 in SRAM (better price) I did have to change my mtn bike from a bigger cassette to a smaller because the rear derailler was being over-extended. *shrug* I think the change is useful and doable but your chainring idea is a cheaper place to start.

Ha ha! I went to the Trek site and the two dealers in my city are the one with the worst rep -nobody has anything good to say about them and they didn't mention Trek to me, and the other had nobody to help me so I left. But their website looks promising, so I'm thinking maybe they were having a bad day and I'll try again.

My first touring bike was a Cannondale, it was a nice ride. I did, however, have a frame failure because the chain stays, being aluminum, were soft enough to be ground away by pebbles which stuck to tar on my tires. This was an early version frame though and the new ones have more space between wheel and chainstay. For hardcore touring, I'd lean toward steel for durability and ease of welding.

I'm not criticizing the load. I probably carried about 10 lbs worth of food alone. Considering I burn in excess of 4,000 calories day-to-day, I'm not sure I want to know how many I burn touring. I'm thinking it's somewhere in the range of all of them!

I once spent 51 days riding from Frankfurt, Germany to London, by way of Italy, and I kept a food journal (I should look for that). We ate lots of pastries and ice cream and pasta. Just before we left London to come back to the US I bought some nice dress pants. They fit me for about a week. I didn't realize how much weight I lost during that ride, despite the huge intake of food.

(My friends wanted to climb the Leaning Tower of Pisa but I didn't want to spend the money. I said, "I need that money for more food." I did end up going up, and I'm now glad I did.)

Now the proud owner of a Trek FX 7.2 WSD. Thanks all

(it has pink grips, but I'll be doing something about that in the next few hours.....)

My friend also needed a new bike, and has similar riding habits, and found that the (evil) store just round the corner from me was doing 10% off today. she tried loved and bought one of these this morning, then called me..... The service was still crappy, though.

21lb. feather-light :D

Yay monster yer the biker!

monster -- I imagine you've just finished a 14-hour marathon ride with your new light-weight bike. How do you feel?

Nice looking bike - just checked it out in the Trek catalogue.

As well as changing the pink grips you might want to change the saddle to an ergonomic one (the standard ones become uncomfortable too quickly), and although the tyres they fit are quite good they have relatively high road resistance - try something like Specialised Armadillo All Condition which are very light on road and yet still tough off road (need high pressure - min 75psi front and 90 psi back).

Have fun!

Well I biked to the pool and back and a local party and back.... Have a longer ride arranged with my friend for monday. It is wonderfully light -especially on the way back tonight when the beer was in my belly and not the panniers... ;) :p

Saddle is fine so far (I have plenty of personal padding and my previous saddle that i have to compare it to was 20 years old....), but will keep this thread and your advice in mind if it gets to be a problem, thanks CF. The wheels thing -way to technical for me. But if one day I suddenly understand, I'll be sure to remember your advice and come back and read it again, thanks :) I'm a real newb to real bikes, even though I bike a fair bit. Hoping it will be more now I have a new bike and a riding buddy and next year all my kids will be in school all day..... :D

(I think beest is jealous of my new bike.... I wonder if we'll be down the store again tomorrow getting him a new one before the 10% discount expires....? ;) )

monster - that's a nice looking bike. It has a mountain bike-style frame with the sloping top tube. Does it give you a lot of clearance when you're standing over the frame? With the Trek 520 I only have about an inch of clearance between the frame and my sensitive bits.