SPA CYCLES WAYFARER
£1400 A day-to-day bike and tourer in one well-equipped package
Along with Thorn, Spa is probably Britain’s leading supplier of touring bikes. It flogs tourers from the likes of Ridgeback and Surly, but also its own Spadesigned tourers, including the ‘expeditionfocused’ Wayfarer that ‘provides the ultimate in luggage-carrying capability’. But the qualities that make it a touring bike – comfort, racks, full-length mudguards – are equally handy when it comes to commuting and leisure riding.
The Wayfarer is based around a very wellfinished Reynolds 725 frame, with three sets of bottle bosses and handbuilt wheels. Gearing is from nine-speed Shimano Sora, which is one of my favourite groupsets, with Spa’s own triple chainset.
Triples are rarely seen outside of touring these days and while there will be some redundant ratios, the small gaps between gears mean you can keep a smooth and consistent cadence, which is what you want for distance riding. It also gives you a high top gear and a low bottom gear, which you’ll need if you’re hauling kit over hills. And if its 28x34 bottom gear isn’t low enough – and for loaded expedition touring you can never go too low – Spa can spec your chainset of choice.
I tested the Wayfarer over my former commutes – 12 miles mostly on towpath and 16 miles on a surfaced Sustrans route – as well as longer, loaded days out. It proved an exceptionally able companion at all times.
Apart from dynamo lights and a kickstand, either of which you could go for, the Wayfarer has pretty much all you could need for touring – or commuting, or getting half a week’s shopping. Yes, it is a bit of a weighty beast, but a little extra weight is really neither here nor there on a touring bike, and we rated Genesis’s similarly weighty Tour
de Fer 30 very highly when we tested it recently. Far more important when carrying kilograms of kit are comfort and reliability. If you’re halfway across the Gobi desert, you don’t want your frame failing.
Reliability and ease of servicing are also the thinking behind the TRP Spyre C brakes. They don’t have the power and ultra-light action of hydraulics, but I know what system I’d feel more comfortable fettling in Faisalabad or repairing in Rawalpindi, and it’s not the hydraulic system. The Spyres are a dual-piston system and braking is controlled and powerful enough, and better than the Tektro Mira single-piston discs on the Forme.
The Spa’s tubeless-ready wheels are an absolute highlight, handbuilt to a high standard and paired with quality Schwalbe tyres. The 50mm-wide rubber coped well with broken road surfaces, towpaths and gritted surfaces and would be ideal if your riding regularly takes in such terrain, as well as for touring in the back of beyond. For day-to-day riding, I’d probably drop down to slightly narrower tyre, especially as the Schwalbes are a very, very tight fit with the mudguards, even if the front guard is designed to pull away from the hub if a foreign body is trapped between the tyre and guard.
The ride is everything you’d expect from a steel tourer with ride rubber: sumptuous and comfortable. The riding position is upright and the FSA Wing bar – with its slightly flattened tops – is excellent for long-distance comfort. You’re not going to fly up hills, but drop into the bottom gear and you can sit in the saddle and spin.
The Spa’s front and rear Tubus racks will take more weight than I could comfortably haul, and if you’re using the Wayfarer for the daily commute, you could lose the front rack, keeping it for bigger adventures. The saddle is another touring classic: a Cambium C17 from Brooks. I’ve never been a huge fan of Brooks’ leather saddles, but I got on very well with the rubbertopped, nylon-hulled Cambium, which I found supportive without being overly firm – exactly what you want.
In fact, there’s very, very little that I could fault the Wayfarer on.