Giant Toughroad SLR 1 for long distance tour I will be undertaking a cycle tour of around 2700km (~1800 Miles) in Europe this summer (Early July to the middle of August) and have been looking at the Giant Toughroad SLR1 as the bike to go for.

From the (limited) content I have read online, the bike seems to be a good fit but I wanted to get the opinions of some people who might have used this bike for undertaking something similar to the above.

I will be attaching rear panniers to it and possibly front as well, going for Ortlieb panniers.

I am 193cm tall and weight 90kg (6ft 3" and 200lbs).

I am quite new to bicycle touring so was wondering if anyone has been in my situation and what recommendations you have regarding this bike (or maybe others).

Also, if you buy a bike online direct from the manufacturer, do you need to do much assembly when it is delivered (from Giant in particular)?
You're looking at around 60km a day on average (presumably a bit more but some rest days).  The bike can take it with no trouble. I sometimes ride that sort of distance on a comparable (but older spec) bike, lightly loaded but it's heavier to start with.


The tyres may not be optimal if you're almost all on tarmac, though they're probably pretty good for dirt roads -- tyres are easy to change when you've planned your route. (I'd go for something like marathon plus 35 or 38, but that's partly habit).
You may want to swap out the grips for something offering more than one hand position (like these Ergon GP3s that I use)
You'll need to train for it on the bike you plan to use.  We've got quite a few questions about training here, so I won't go into details, but this is the only way to get the fit right and make sure the saddle is right for you.
You might want to upgrade the pedals, depending on how the stock ones work with your shoes.  This could be clipless, toe clips, or just normal platform pedals that your shoes don't slide around on.


Giant have lots of dealers in many countries so it's worth checking whether you can try one for size, even if it means making a special trip.  I'm about your size and bought online with no real problem (GT, not Giant, XL frame) but I consider myself lucky that it fits so well.  In theory assembling is easy; in practice my front derailleur wasn't set up square and took a lot of fiddling to get right -- perhaps you shoudl check out how much a shop or mobile bike mechanic would charge to put it together, assuming getting it through a dealer isn;t an option.