Chainstays for Touring

in #blog6 years ago

So you are ready to go on a long distance tour and you are ready to purchase a bike. There are some basic considerations that you have to take into account like, gear inches, frame material, tire capacity, Braze-Ons, frame geometry, and chainstay lengths.

This section is about chainstays and why they are longer on touring bikes.

cycleframe.gif

As you can see by the above diagram, the chain stays run from your bottom brackets to the dropouts where your seatstays meet. Most touring bike are at lengths of 445 – 470 mm (17.5 – 18.5 inches) or longer. The chainstay length serves two purposes, to provide stability for heavy loads, and to provide clearance for your heels when the bike is loaded with panniers. There is an example in the picture below.

loaded_touring_bicycle.jpg

If you want to use shorter chainstays, I suggest you install racks and panniers and ride the bike to make sure you will have clearance for your heel. If the measurements are just close enough to give you a rub, you may want to purchase pannier bags that have a contoured design to prevent this action from taking place.

There are exceptions to this rule. Lets say that you want to purchase a gravel bike, or an MTB. The chainstays on these bikes are much shorter, but they are used on tours all the time. When using these bikes, the setup for bikepacking is used. Racks often forego to frame bags. There is an example of this set up in the picture below.

bike-packing-northpak-2085691_960_720.jpg

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