As long as it’s smooth, a big single comes close to the optimal configuration for a do-it-all travel bike, especially if you intend to ride dirt roads occasionally. You’ve enough power to pull a load, the economy to carry it a long way, and all without too much mass making the rig hard to handle on muddy or sandy tracks. And these days efi has managed to introduce smoothness and hopefully seamless starting too. Read the rest of Chris Scott’s post here.