So I bought a trek dual sport 1 gen 5 for my tour of australia, just going with the recommendation of the cheapest option from my bike dealer. In retrospect it was dumb to go with the cheapest, but I’m trying to make it work. I snapped 2 spokes on the rear wheel in the first 6 weeks, so I’m in the process of getting a custom rear wheel built. But I guess I’m worried that if I spend $700 on a bulletproof rear wheel, other parts of the bike will break. The website states the bike has a 136kg weight limit, and currently with me on it, it weighs about 133kg fully loaded. Am I being naive in thinking a heavy duty rear wheel (where most of the weight is loaded) will solve all my problems? Should I bite the bullet now and try to find a proper touring bike before I spend $700 to modify this one?
Cheers.
by 002dollar
1 Comment
You should be okay. A good rear wheel is well worth the investment.
Wheels, usually spokes, are the usually the first things we see fail on stock bikes either from heavy loads or more milage than the designers ever expected that price point to be ridden. A good set of wheels can always be carried onto another touring bike should you wear this frame out eventually.
I own a rural shop that has a few 1000km loops and some cross continent routes pass through and I’ve fixed spokes, bearings and lots of other issues on bikes of all price points and ages – custom titanium bikes down to 25 year old mid level bikes and newish entry level bikes. You can’t anticipate and prevent all mechanicals and accidents and all of these bikes are capable of doing a 5000km+ trip with some work along the way as needed.