Cannondale CAAD 8 Ultralight Touring Bike.

Cannondale are known to produced the best aluminum bike you can buy as well as being the most comfortable and lightest which is why I went for them, the comfort factor lie solely on the fit, tyres size, pressure, rims width and handlebar.

It was possible to make a Dolan Precursa into a comfortable long distance bicycle by fitting 32c tyres on wide rims, road fork, carbon setback seatpost, decent bar shape and levers.

How would it break? touring bike break because of the huge amount of equipment they carry, lightweight tourer don't, my friend's MTB keep breaking because of the huge amount of weight he was carrying despite having similar equipment to me (the rack and panniers were hefty before he included the luggage).

As Dammit said and I've in an earlier post - wheels are likely to break, so Mavic A719 in 32 holes, laced to Hope Pro 3 road hubs is not only is a lots stronger than the Mavic Askium it'll replaced but weight almost similar (1850-1900g estimate), highly likely it's not as aero, but that doesn't really matter when you're trying to stop your teeth from chattering on a poor road surface in Spain.

It's presumably a pricey bike, and I'd have thought that something something in steel with race geo (if that's what you want, something slightly more relaxed might be more suitable) that's been built to fit you could be got for a similar price.

73/73 angle is a normal geo (well, 73.5 on the CAAD), I'd hardly call it race as you can apply that on any bike be it's tourer, CX, track, crit, hybrid and so on*.

I don't fancy paying another £900 for a custom steel frame.

*not including the difference in fork rake, tube wall thickness, shape, wheelbase etc.