Recommendations

Bike equipment

The right bike will make all the difference to a tour. Nothing is worse than riding for hours each day on something uncomfortable which is creaking and feels inefficient. I don't own a touring bike and have therefore only toured on a mountain bike and, once, on my road bike for a lightweight trip to Northern France. If you don't mountain bike, a touring bike will be the most efficient means of carrying gear on everything from tarmac down to smooth tracks. You do not want to be riding skinny tyres and drop handlebars on anything much rougher or muddier though. Leave that to the cyclocrossers.
A road bike is great for 'credit card' touring in the developed world but not much good when you want to carry more than a backpack.

Frame

It is very important that this is strong and fits well. After that, I think that it is up to you. My mountain bikes have been steel, which is strong, easily welded and comfortable day after day. However I don't think the difficulty in welding Aluminium should put you off. A strong Aluminium mountain bike frame is highly unlikely to break. The ride will be 'harsher' than steel though. Specialized make some excellent frames at a good price and buying a complete bike from them will reduce costs further still.

I had a '97 Marin Pine Mountain until I discovered a crack in the frame last year. As a replacement, I invested in an Independent Fabrication Deluxe. Very expensive but they make everything fully custom, sizing, tube selection, bottle mounts, cable routing, rack mounts etc. etc. Give them a call as they are very happy to talk things through with you. The Deluxe is their classic mountain bike frame and rides beautifully when used for its intended purpose. It was pretty good for touring on too, fitting perfectly. Alternatively they can build you their Independence touring frame to your exact specifications. All for a price of course!

Alternatively consider the classic Koga Worldtraveller which is the 'sensible' touring bike of choice for many of the European riders that I meet. By all accounts they are bombproof and very comfortable, coming with all the racks, bottles and mudguards required for round the world excursions. I suspect they'd be just as at home on shorter trips and probably work well for commuting too.

Wheels

Possibly even more important than the frame, particularly on a rough tour. They will be carrying much more load than normal and since a loaded bike is less manouverable, you're more likely to hit things hard. I rode all my tours up until South America with Mavic 717 rims, the standard cross country mountain bike wheelset. Whilst they are fine for cross country and for touring mainly on the road, they weren't really up to touring off road. On the Great Divide I broke two of these rims on the back wheel.

Before going to South America, I had a set of Sun Rhyno rims laced to 36 hole Shimano XT hubs by St John Street Cycles. They have proved utterly indestructible and are still as round as when I left. I've been very impressed with this but they are very very heavy. This wheelset would be overkill for use where spares were readily available.

I used the excellent Schwable Marathon XR tyres for the South America trip and, like the wheels they were bombproof but very heavy. I could have got away with one set for 5000 miles though and I got only one puncture in that time. Not bad going.

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