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Raleigh Sojourn or Salsa La Cruz

3K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  EHCRain 
#1 ·
I am looking to purchase a touring bike for commuting between my apartment, school (5 miles on way) and work (17 miles one way into a valley). I want a steel frame with disc tabs. Does anyone have either of these bikes and have suggestions one way or the other?

If i went with the Raleigh i would be getting a complete bike for around $600 while the Salsa would be a frame set for about the same price. Right now money isnt too much of a concern as long as i can stay below $900. I already have a spare set of 700 Disc wheels that I would be using.
 
#2 · (Edited)
never ridden the salsa or sojourn. la cruz has no braze-ons if you want racks. only seen a couple sojourn's on the road. the tubing on the raleigh looks pretty beefy. don't know which one would hold up better on a dirt trail, but i'd assume the la cruz would since it's built for cross. looked into both frames you mentioned before pickin up a soma double cross dc.

the soma appealed to me cause it had rack/fender braze ons, was disc compatible, and can fit some tires wide enough to trail ride. built it up a few weeks back and have been using it for commuting 10 miles one way (20 if i'm feelin it and wanna ride home) on a mix of rural/country roads, city streets, no real dedicated trail ridin yet, and i'm set on goin on a little loaded mini tour of some sort next week. packed it up yesterday and rode it down to the beach n back, 20 mile round trip, some nice climbs and short/med steep hills to get goin up & down, sand, crappy roads n stuff. put it through its paces a bit. it's a pretty fun bike so far, surely diggin the price and performance.

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#3 ·
Judging by materials, I'd expect a snappier, more energetic-feeling ride from the Salsa or Soma. All three are made out of good quality steels, but 520 is typically used where the frame maker wants a more forgiving ride and True Temper and Tange Prestige are more typically used for sportier steel bikes. The Salsa and Soma both have plain cromoly rear triangles, so they ought to have fairly damp road feel.

Building up a bike from frame and wheels for an additional investment of $300 would not be easy, though, especially if you like STI shifters. I hate bar-end shifters, but the Raleigh does have really nice ones and it looks like the frame accepts downtube shifters, so you could move them if you found you didn't like them either. Same shifter, just slightly different mounting hardware.

Of course, at $400 for the frame and $120 for the fork, it would be a slightly easier task with the Soma...
 
#4 ·
I can't comment on the salsa, but the Sojourn is a fine ride if you can handle the weight. Stock it is around 35 pounds, and for me as a daily commuter, that is too high. If you are also planning to tour, then great, it is perfect for that. However if you are just looking for a commuting machine, I'd consider whether hauling the extra 5 pounds around constantly is worth it.
 
#5 ·
My daily commuter probably comes in around forty. I don't like panniers, so it's got collapsible wire baskets on the rack on the back. They're very heavy, but totally awesome for hauling tools or groceries.

In your position, I'd probably want to keep to a lighter setup, though - 17 miles with some climbing or descending is a long enough trip, to me, to want to do it with a bike set up to be efficient and dressed up as a cyclist. I don't ride mine for longer than an hour at a time, in general, and usually only for fifteen-thirty minutes.

I think that nativeson's Soma looks like a pretty nice solution for a longer commute like yours.
 
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