Touring with the XP

I'm planning to take a bike trip next September, so yesterday I put my loaded panniers on the front and back rack of the XP to see how it would ride. I'm not sure yet whether I'll take my XP for the trip, but since it's one of my most comfortable bikes, I wanted to do a testride. Except for the tent, almost everything I needed was loaded in the 4 panniers. I'm still not sure which tent I'm going to take with me and where to put it, so I left it out for this ride. I might add a B.O.B.-trailer, but that would make the XP really look like a freight train, I wanna try to get everyting on the XP itself. I know that you can order a under seat rack for the XP, but at 120 $ + shipping, that'll be a very expensive utility.

I rode the XP for almost one hour and I learned a couple of things.
First of all, the front rack I have on the XP sucks. Since the sides are connected on one side only, the weight of the panniers is pulling them open. Everytime I hit a hole or rode on bad surfaces, the rack would open up a bit in front. I defenitely need a front rack like the one for the regular Stratus, which is connected on both sides on top. Unfortunately, the Stratus has a 20" front wheel, so it's rack will not fit the XP.
Getting started was a tad more difficult, but once up to speed the XP still handles very stable. Average speed is a bit lower too, but that's no issue to me, especially not when touring.
It does take a bit more effort to get the bike straight again after taking curves, but that's only natural due to the heavier weight on the front wheel.
Another thing I was curious about were the brakes. I did some emergency stops and to my surprise, they worked okay. Since everything is flat here where I live, I decided to ride over the bridge across the canal to have some kind of elevation and even when I rolled down the bridge, the brakes did what they're supposed to do and stopped the bike just fine. I expected the Rollerbrakes not to be powerful enough, but to my surprise, they are. No need for disc brakes (yet).

So, I'll have to look for a new front pannier rack that'll fit the XP's big fork. Guess I'll be surfing on the internet for the next couple of days ....

The "wrong" kind of front pannier rack