October 23, 2013
The new 2014 Salsa Vayas are available, and we have all sizes now in stock.
We love this bike. It is one of many touring-worthy steel-frame bikes that we carry, and it is arguably the best out-of-the-box touring bike around. This year Salsa made some changes to the Vaya, and we think that the changes are upgrades. Most notably, Salsa replaced the bar-end shifters on the lower-priced Vaya 3 model with integrated shifters. The now Shimano Sora-equipped Vaya 3 feels sportier than the 2013 model and sportier than other touring bikes like the Surly Long Haul Trucker, which comes with bar-end shifters.
The Vaya 3, pictured above, looks lovely in green this year, and has upgraded disc brakes in addition to the integrated Sora shifters. The price also went up a bit this year to $1500.
The Vaya 2, pictured above, also has a sweet paint job this year in sky blue. As before, the Vaya 2 is an upgrade from the Vaya 3 in almost every way, except for the frame. While the 3 comes with a Shimano Sora triple crankset, this comes with a Shimano 105 triple crankset and 105 components all around. This year's Vaya 2 complete bike is $1950, but it is also available as a frameset alone.
We also still have a couple of Vaya Travels from 2013, which are gorgeous! They Vaya Travel comes with couplers and so you can break the bike down for easy traveling. It also comes with Ultegra-level components making it an amazing bike. This bike carries over for 2014 unchanged. The Vaya Travel frame, in addition to having S&S couplers, is made of stainless steel. Like a Delorean...
I found a review of the Salsa Vaya over at the Path Less Pedaled here. They do a great job of comparing the Vaya to the Long Haul Trucker, another awesome touring bike.
Salsa hasn't updated their Web Site yet to reflect the 2014 models, but they have put out a catalog, which you can look at here.
And don't forget, we also stock the epic 29er touring bike, the Salsa Fargo, if you wan't something a little more heavy duty.
Runs. Over. Everything.
