Touring - How long did it take you to start touring?

Just wondering how long it took some of you to get started with touring after the idea of doing so entered your minds.

Did you already have a bike, did long distances, and then just decide to take it further?

Or did you not even have a bike, and decided to get one just for touring?

Either way, did it take a while to give yourself a kick to finally take off and go on your first tour?

Decided to tour last winter. Bought my first touring/road bike in March. Started commuting daily shortly after 14 miles each way. Took a 2400 mile solo trip North along the coast of Oregon and Washington into Canada North of Golden then South through Montana, and to Wyoming. It's a hoot just go for it. :)

Just wondering how long it took some of you to get started with touring after the idea of doing so entered your minds.

Did you already have a bike, did long distances, and then just decide to take it further?

Or did you not even have a bike, and decided to get one just for touring?

Either way, did it take a while to give yourself a kick to finally take off and go on your first tour?

Decided to go touring in the March and took off around Australia for 23 months in the November. Did some basic research and just went. Had a ball! :D
Regards
Andrew
http://www.where2pedlato.gr8m8s.net

16hrs.
I met some cyclists at a hostel in Ireland. Decided that it sounded fun. Hired a bike and joined them.

I've been cycling for many years but this year I came up with the idea of touring. Unfortunately I spent the whole summer trying to convince my parents to let me go but they won't. I'm 19. I just hope I'll manage somehow next summer when i'm 20, and may be I'll manage to get a local into this. Uptill now I've had very negative responses from my friends and mates, they all think i'm crazy lol. This seems to be my parents' greatest fear, they don't want me to go alone, but still they surely won't encourage me to go even if with someone else.

It started with extended day tripping.
And was fueled by reading and corresponding with the late, great Ken Kifer (http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/).

It took me 19 years!

The touring bug bit me in 1979 when a friend biked from San Diego to New York City by crossing Canada. In September 1979 I bought an inexpensive touring bike with the aim of going to France, but I only used it for toodling around town and day trips. When the bike was stolen in June 1985, I replaced it with a fancier touring bike and resolved to take it overseas soon. But then I moved, started graduate school, etc., and used my bike for commuting and the occasional day-trip. I bought panniers in 1989 on an impulse, and used them to haul groceries for the better part of a decade. Finally, in 1998, I took the plunge: I flew overseas with my 13-year-old bike and 9-year-old panniers, and spent three glorious weeks in Alsace and Burgundy. I now take one extended trip per year.

As a 10 years old kid, I spent hours at my local librairy reading books and magazine on bike touring. I did my first overnight trip at 12 and my first long distance tour the following year. I took my friends and I a lot of work to convince our parents to let us go... that was the hardest part... but we had understanding parents who prefered to see us biking than watching TV and they kept themselves available at all time during our trip so that they could drive to the rescue if needed. The other problem was money... 13 years old kids generally don't have income and we all had to find a way to finance our project (fence painting, newspaper delivery...). I'm still surprised our project did materialize... I'm hooked since then.

It took me 2 years of thinking I need to ride fast. Then my friends said once you Tour you will never want to ride any other way. So I decided to give it a try and rode across Iowa with a trailer hooked up to my fast bike and rigged some racks on it to hold my panniers. After that week I started shopping for my Touring bike and never looked back. It lets out see everything at your own pace and your own time schedual.

Here is a thread I started recently on the 50+ forum that explains my experience:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=137631

I'm with MagicTofu
Freshman year in HS ended and 4 of us got this idea, and 50 feet of rope, some rucksacks, crappy tents, saddle bags, and bandanas (helmets? what's a stinking helmet? It was 1970) and we were on our way

ive been riding bikes my whole life but only got seriously into mountain biking while living in oregon about 5 years ago (I'm 32 now). after moving to washington, d.c. a few years ago I became intrigued with the idea of riding the entire C&O Canal, which is really ideal for someone without a lot of touring experience because it is almost completely level and has free campsites right off the trail every half-dozen miles or so. i m now hooked, just rode from pittsburgh to d.c. in june on the allegheny trail-c&o hookup and am now looking to buy a touring bike to do the blue ridge parkway next spring. it's an amazing way to travel. as for the 19-year-old who's getting grief from family and friends for being interested in touring, just go for it.

Always have had a practicle side, guess I'd read about touring in a magazine or something. In the mid 80's I subscribed to a short lived mag I think was called "Bicycle Rider". It was mostly about touring. I began riding to work & needed to carry work clothes, this is where racks & bags showed up, & I kept dreaming of a real tour bike. Late 80's I got a mountain bike & soon started to make it more Toury with racks & comfy parts, & still kept dreaming. In '94 I bought my current Trek 520. Now I just dream of that pricey custom that I can't afford just yet...............

I caught the bug while following Inoplanetyanin's cross-country trek on his $20 double-chainring 12 speed Schwinn, posted right here on this forum a couple of years back. I basically modified my bikes for touring. Two months later, I was doing local overnight tours.

After being away from cycling for years, I bought a MTB in mid-October 1998 and it occurred to me that these bike things can be used for travelling. So the next spring I bought a return ticket to France and cycled around for 2 1/2 months.

Oh, I met Inoplanetyanin about half way into his tour.

I got back into cycling to recoup from knee injuries from hiking. I liked cycling so much that loaded touring was a natural for me. I did my first short overnite tour within a couple months of starting cycling, if I recall.

I had loved riding my bike since I was a little kid, but my interest in cycling was always kind of on-and-off, until about my second or third year of highschool, when it was rekindled. That didn't last too long before cars came into my life, and though I spent a lot of time on a bike project my senior year, I didn't take them seriously until my first year of college.

At college I found myself without a car, using my bicycle and the buses to get everywhere. I even started commuting to my job on my bike. Toward the end of my first semester, my old big-box store MTB broke down and I bought a used bike at a local shop. As it happened, it was a mid-80s Miyata touring bicycle. As it also happened, when I came home for winter break I found that I just didn't like any cars. The local mall parking lot was scene of breathtaking wastefulness to me. I discovered Ken Kifer's bike pages and learned all about touring. All of those factors kind of came together, and by the end of January I was planning a tour for the summer, along with my roommate. That was last winter. This May and June, we took our first trip, 8 days up the New Hampshire and Maine coastline. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life so far. I don't intend ever to look back.

******Just wondering how long it took some of you to get started with touring after the idea of doing so entered your minds.

How long? Well let see I would say since I was like 10 years old and did my first pretend bike trip was the beginning and it wasn't untill I was 45 before I really did it.

******Did you already have a bike, did long distances, and then just decide to take it further?

I guess I have always owned a bike. But what moved the idea closer was about 9 years ago my when my son was 11, we drove down the pacific coast. We saw others riding bikes and said, " hey we ought to do that". Well it was 2002 he was then 16 and I thought its now or never. We only really got serious about it in May and by early July we were riding. I really hadn't had much exsperience other than like 25 mile rides here and there. I had a bike circa 1988 specialized but right before we left my daughter won a Raleigh M60 and traded it to me for a debt she owed me. Turned out to be a perfect fit.

******Or did you not even have a bike, and decided to get one just for touring?

See above.

******Either way, did it take a while to give yourself a kick to finally take off and go on your first tour?

Well yeah I guess it took the fact that my son would soon be gone to move me to action. But in the end it was about the time we had planned but it seems that so many people are always saying someday I will do such and such and never do get around to it.

Well, not sure I can really answer since I haven't officially done my first tour yet. But I can tell you that the idea has been in my head for 19+ years, ever since I bought my first road bike and did a week-long supported tour. Unfortunately, school, marriage and raising children, not to mention trying to support a family, have made it impossible for me to fulfill that dream.

I have plans for a short tour the summer of 2006 and then cross country in the summer of 2007. I have been riding for all these years, but just bought my new touring bike (Trek 520) and am starting to put together the gear. Looking forward to actually being able to load up and set off on an adventure!

Cherry Bomb

I have not toured yet (unless you count on less than 5 hours). It may take 8 months more to start the first real one.

I first got into the idea after I found about the 2004 Great Divide race. Then I got connected to "Ruta Chihimeca" in Mexico. I will work on that one the next year.

I got the idea in April,even though I hadn't been on a bike much. I bought a CannondaleT2000 (love it) in August and am in a hotel room, on DAY 3 of my first tour ever!!!It is heaven, me, my bike and trailer and the wind. Of course, I have my laptop, camera, phone and HR monitor, but hell...this is the 00's!!!!!!!!!
I'm cycling to Baton Rogue, raising money. If anyone wants to ride along for an hour or so...PM me!!

When I stumbled upon a webpage for self-guided touring in France back late 90's,
I thought that was nuts (even though I've been riding bike for long time
and always wanted to go to France). My first reaction was that was crazy
to take a bike overseas, navigate on your own through strange country where
I don't speak of word of native language.
Guess I wasn't all that adventurous back then. I dismissed that idea right away.
But 4 years later, I suddendly thought of it again, and thought WELL, WHY NOT?

So I've toured in France three times since then, including the big one,
across the Pyrenees, coast to coast. Now I'm planning to continue to go
every year. Next year, the goal is to ride across the Alps.

Two years. I wanted to cycle from San Francisco to San Diego. My buddy I was going to do the tour with wimped out. I found out that YHA ran a loaded tour from SF to SD, but it wasn't when I wanted to go. I signed up the next year, but it was canceled due to lack of particpants. But the three of us who had signed up got together and did it on our own.