Touring bike for 80% pavement, 20% gravel/dirt

[OHRider]

I sold my touring bike last fall- my excuse being a friend was selling his Niner RLT 9 aluminum gravel bike.  I rode it once and fell in love with it.  Super ride and very flexible for road, gravel, light mountain biking, and touring.  I've ridden the Ohio to Erie Trail - 326 miles- which is mostly paved with about 70 miles of crushed limestone- loaded with all gear for camping.  Also did an overnight gravel trip on it- very lightly loaded.  It was perfect.

Leaving late October to ride the Southern Tier- San Diego to El Paso section.  I'm sure it will work fine. 

At present I'm using a rear rack and panniers.  The front fork is carbon fiber but has two threaded inserts on both sides- I'm considering getting some of the smaller racks for those along with some bags but I'm not sure I'll need those.  It has SRAM Rival and I switched the rear cassette to an 11 x 36 for easier hill climbing.  I was also lucky enough to get a second set of wheels so I run 700x42 knobby tires for gravel and 700x32 smooth tires for road and touring.

[hikerjer]

That's close to the percentage of paved/gravel that I ride on with my Kona Sutra with 700x35 Schwalbe Marathons.  Seems to work fine for me. I think the tire width is just as important as the type of bike you're rideing.  For gravel, I'd get as wide a tire as a touring bike will take but that, of course, has to be balacnced with the amount of pavement you're on.  Pavement may not require such a wide tire. It's always a trade off.

[dkoloko]

Weighs in at 30 lbs. for size M less pedals but including racks and is available now, although M is low stock.

https://www.rei.com/product/122462/co-op-cycles-adv-11-bike

I ride my heavier (but also) larger LHT (discontinued for this year) on and off road, including somewhat rough off road sections of more than a few miles.

I wouldn't be put off by a 30 lb bike. I recently sold a 2017 Trek 520 touring bike which weighed 29 lb stock. Touring bikes and gravel bikes that have morphed from touring bikes have gotten heavier, not lighter. Disk brakes and wider tires have upped the weight of touring bikes. If you use backpacking bags and eliminate the need for a touring rack you save ~a pound, the weight of a half-filled water bottle. Most of the weight saved by using backpacking bags is by carrying less.

[froze]

The problem is finding one in stock!!  But the only two that I would recommend for cross country touring and gravel is the Masi Giramondo and the Kona Sutra, the rest I saw in that price ranges didn't have as good of gears and other stuff as those two had, I went with the Masi but there is pros and cons to both, but for my needs the Masi fit the bill a tad better plus it was cheaper.  The Masi had incredible gearing range which is really idea for loaded touring climbing mountain grades, and it came with Tubus steel front and rear racks whereas the Kona just comes with aluminum rear rack.  The Kona is more suited for off road touring whereas the Masi is more suited for paved, dirt and gravel roads.  The Kona from the factory weighs 28 pounds whereas the Masi weighs 29 pounds BUT, the Masi uses 8 pounds of tires! so I swapped out my tires and saved 4 pounds of weight thus now I'm at 25 pounds which includes the heavier steel tubus racks front and rear, so overall the Masi is lighter.  The tires that came with the Masi are crappy Kenda Drumlins I now use Schwalbe Almotion tires, Kona came with decent Schwalbe Marathon tires; Masi also came with a cheap saddle, I switched it out for an old Brooks B17 I had, the Kona comes with a B17, the Kona cost $400 more.

So you have to decide if Kona due to it being built more for off road use if that appeals to what you will be doing on the bike, or if the Masi suits your needs better.

So all of that to say the Masi is the better buy, but neither are available now due to the bike shortage, not sure if you could order one and wait for delivery or not, you would have to contact Masi or Kona.