Should I use a Trek Domane SL5 for touring?

Question

I am planning for one week/ two weeks long bike touring, mostly on the road with a moderate amount of riding uphill (mainly in Japan).
My weight is around 60kg. All of my touring gear won't exceed 10 Kg of weight.
I am planning to buy a Trek Domane SL5 (because of its endurance characteristic).
I am prioritizing the following facts to consider for a bike for touring:

Comfort for a long ride.
Durability
Budget-friendly but still not outdated.
7~21 days touring

Is it okay to choose a Trek Domane SL5 2021 as a touring bike?

Adam Rice · Accepted Answer

People tour on all kinds of bikes. That said, if you're going to tour on the Domane, you'll need to figure out how you'll be carrying your gear, since (as Argenti mentions in his comment), it doesn't have any mounting points for racks.
There are workarounds for mounting a rack (which come with compromises), and increasingly people are bikepacking—using frame bags, seat bags, and handlebar rolls that mount directly on the bike instead of traditional racks and panniers (which come with a different set of compromises). 10 kg of gear is probably close to the limit of what you could fit in a bikepacking setup.

Phill · Answer

Regarding durability, I'm sure the Trek Domane SL5 2021 can take a bit of a battering, but I personally would be wary of taking anything with a carbon frame on a tour.
I did a 3.5 week tour of Japan myself last year (best time of my life!) and no joke, I smashed one of the seat-stays into a bicycle gate thing between Osaka and Kyoto on my first day of riding. Luckily I took a steel frame bike, but I hit it hard enough that I'm sure a carbon frame would have been ruined. It had (and still has) a sizable bend in it, but it survived the trip without any trouble, and still does me good as an occasional backup commuter.
Point being, when you are touring, your bike is your everything, and if it gets damaged, your holiday is ruined (especially if it's only a couple of weeks). A steel frame will be heavier, but if it takes a hit, it's much more likely to survive and be rideable. I don't think you can have that kind of confidence for carbon (or even aluminium for that matter).
Regarding comfort for touring, certain bikes are built with a frame geometry that has comfort in mind, but you can make many bikes acceptable for touring comfort by adjusting them properly to your body. The bike I took was probably more of a racing geometry, but with the right adjustments and good seat I was fine. In fact, if I were you, I'd spend a big part of my effort on getting a seat that suits you really well. I'd recommend a Selle SMP, but seat selection is a very personal thing.
Good luck with your tour, Japan is an amazing place to see by bike, and a great place for a first tour - you're never more than 10km form a conbini!

Image from: http://regex.info/blog/2015-06-26/2592

Should I use a Trek Domane SL5 for touring?

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