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I have some touring planned this year with my sons (2x 5day trips one to Holland with one of them in about 3 weeks and then another in the Summer to France with both). One trip will be everything you'd normally take for camping except stove and tents (we are hoping to get a hiking hut setup that has a cooker but no crockery/utensils/bedding etc). The second mid-summer trip is also likely to require stoves, tents + tarp.
I'm looking to adapt my Free Ranger with a rear rack and looking at:
- Madison Summit
- Roswheel Tour
- Tortec Epic
The rack would potentially be combined with some 48l Carradice Super Dry panniers that I've seen on offer and if needed a dry bag on top of the rack with lightweight stuff (sleeping bags - we don't have ultra light stuff so these are a bit bulky). I am wondering if I would be better to downsize to 40l and add some bar/frame luggage for better weight distribution.
N+1 and buying a tourer isn't an option. If the FR was considered too wibbly wobbly (my feeling is if it can take a beating off road then cycle paths and panniers should be ok) then a touring fork for the old steel 456 and some proper low riders might also work for me but I need to crack on and order some stuff whatever I am doing.
It's been 30 years + since I did a car free tour and I'm thinking "out loud" a bit with this post but any thoughts/experience appreciated as I don't really want to make a total horlicks of this with a 12 year old in tow!