Touring - How about a forum for bicycle camping

I know bicycle camping is an extension of touring, but how about a forum dedicated to bicycle camping?

I know bicycle camping is an extension of touring, but how about a forum dedicated to bicycle camping?


As long as you don't take a gun, I'm sure it's fine.:D

Bicycle camping is touring, as far as I'm concerned. Motor vehicle supported group tours or credit card tours aren't really the same thing.

Isn't bicycle camping the same thing as bicycle touring?

Bicycle camping is touring, as far as I'm concerned. Motor vehicle supported group tours or credit card tours aren't really the same thing.

I beg to differ. I am sure there are hundreds of thousands of other cycling enthusiasts who undertake every year group tours supported by motor vehicles, and credit card tours who also would be begging similarly.

Just how would you describe the two types of tours you've just dismissed as bicycle touring?

No offense but bike forums already has so many different sub-forums here, it's almost impossible to read unless you got a lot of time.

No offense but bike forums already has so many different sub-forums here, it's almost impossible to read unless you got a lot of time.

I was just going to say. The Commuting Forum has gotten bland in my opinion because so much has been sliced out of it: winter clothes, lights, utility cycling, safety, etc. It has gotten boring because every subgroup of a subgroup think they need their own forum.

In all due respect, I really do not agree that bicycle camping is separate from touring and I do not think starting a new forum can be justified.

This reminds me of the Car Free and Utility Cycling Forum. I think this is somewhat ridiculous but came about because of the arrogance of some of the purist that did not respect people who just wanted to haul groceries. I have not seen that here yet but that is what this thread is implying: that bike campers are somehow more superior to credit card tourers and thus deserve their own forum.

Bicycle camping is touring, as far as I'm concerned. Motor vehicle supported group tours or credit card tours aren't really the same thing.

So credit card touring and group tours aren't touring? Seems kind of a pompous attitude to me.


And we don't need a separate forum for "bicycle camping".

I was going to suggest (as a joke) a fender forum.

bump, a camping forum makes sense, especially since this forum gets far too much traffic, and embodies already all types of cycling tech and as well cycle camping issues. im not a separatist, but i think this idea really makes sense.

To me touring involves a trip on a bicycle, typically more than one day in length. I have done one day out and backs where I camped, stayed at a friend's house, bed and breakfast, or motel. Other times on longer trips I have mixed camping, friends' houses and motels. And yet others have been B&B the whole trip. Now if you want a cycle camping forum are we going to break it into the following sub-forums: tent, hammock, stealth, campgrounds, post office lobbies or?:p

I agree that too many sub forums dilutes the main forums. Many people seem to have a problem with the search function...:rolleyes:

Aaron:)

Oh, come on now, we all KNOW that it's not really touring unless you're crossing Malaysia via dirt roads, on a Surly, Trek 520, or other very specific touring bike and it must be solo at that :)

Bicycle camping is touring, as far as I'm concerned. Motor vehicle supported group tours or credit card tours aren't really the same thing.
+1

bump, a camping forum makes sense, especially since this forum gets far too much traffic, and embodies already all types of cycling tech and as well cycle camping issues. im not a separatist, but i think this idea really makes sense.
Not to me. There is so much overlap between what a credit-card, group and a camping tourist needs that there is really no point to breaking it up.

And if you think this subforum gets "too much traffic," try reading the Road Cycling section on a regular basis.

To me, touring by bicycle is bicycle touring. You can do that fully supported and staying in 4-star hotels, or self-supported and camping, or variants in between. My personal preference is self-supported and camping, because that gives me the greatest sense of freedom and accomplishment, but that's just me.

I think this is the place to discuss bicycle camping. cpblue, do you have any questions or anything you'd like to share on that subject?

bump, a camping forum makes sense, especially since this forum gets far too much traffic, and embodies already all types of cycling tech and as well cycle camping issues. im not a separatist, but i think this idea really makes sense.

As a non-touring cyclist, I respectfully disagree!

I have a touring bike because I like the geometry. I also harbor thoughts that I may do some short weekend tours some day, and share an attitude with the typical bicycle tourist that speed is not the ultimate goal of cycling.

However, the traffic is so light in this forum, that I keep up with it even though I don't even tour... simply because there may be something in here that I enjoy. With some similarities in attitude, I find this a nice forum, and frankly the 10-20 messages per day is hardly unmanageable when compared to other forums.

Take a hop into some of the other forums for real message volume... Road Cycling being I think the worst... On a busy day, it has more new threads than this forum has new messages in an average week. And some of those threads have more messages per day than this forum does in a week.

I read Road Cycling... and in Road Cycling, the threads that automatically don't interest me are easy to spot... the ones with "Look at my new bike." "How do I ride faster?" "Should I upgrade?" and any thread title with the words carbon, training, bling, porn, or any brand names in them that I don't own.. Sudddenly, there are about five active threads at any given time that may interest me instead of the usual 50 or 60 active threads.

Perhaps, for those who think this forum is too busy, a change in your technique of reading the forum would be helpful. On most days, I "read" at least 8 or 9 forums. In only about 3 of those forums do I open as many as half of the threads on a given day, and that only when I am really interested. For most threads I read only the titles to determine there is nothing I am interested in. For some, I will read the first message due to a poor title.

Especially with the low volume here, I would suggest that if your intrerest is only camping, then ignore the threads that are unrelated to cycle camping. That is how I read some of the other forums... I sure hope that nobody spends enough time in Road Cycling to read all of the messages there!!!

Supported touring, unsupported touring, it's all touring ;) To me, if you ride a bike on an overnight trip, it's touring! I do unsupported with gear load for camping, but that's just what I like to do. If others want to tour with a motorhome following them, then that's fine too......for them. :D

I was going to suggest (as a joke) a fender forum.

There you go: http://www.fenderforum.com/forum.html

:D

I think this touring forum is the perfect place to have discussions about camping. I don't camp on tours, so I rarely follow threads on the subject. But I am glad they are there for those that do camp.

That's the advantage of threaded discussion forums. Follow the threads that are of interest, and ignore the ones that aren't.

As a non-touring cyclist, I respectfully disagree!



Take a hop into some of the other forums for real message volume... Road Cycling being I think the worst... On a busy day, it has more new threads than this forum has new messages in an average week. And some of those threads have more messages per day than this forum does in a week.

I read Road Cycling... and in Road Cycling, the threads that automatically don't interest me are easy to spot... the ones with "Look at my new bike." "How do I ride faster?" "Should I upgrade?" and any thread title with the words carbon, training, bling, porn, or any brand names in them that I don't own.. Sudddenly, there are about five active threads at any given time that may interest me instead of the usual 50 or 60 active threads.



I agree. It seems most of the road bike posts are junk. And many of the threads that start off useful usually wind up in some stupid discussion. In fact I have pretty much given up following the Road bike forum because all of the garbage. I only look in from time to time. What I like about this forum is it's low volume and the quality of the posts.

Well, I didn't mean to poke a hornet's nest with a short stick, but I did want to engender some discussion on camping while touring. I'm relatively new to touring and I like to camp when I tour. There's lots of folks out there who have experience and expertise on both subjects and I hope they come forward. I'll post some camping questions in the near future. Thanks.

It seems we have been able to handle the camping part of bicycle touring just fine on this forum, no need to seperate it now.

Well, I didn't mean to poke a hornet's nest with a short stick, but I did want to engender some discussion on camping while touring. I'm relatively new to touring and I like to camp when I tour. There's lots of folks out there who have experience and expertise on both subjects and I hope they come forward. I'll post some camping questions in the near future. Thanks.

Yes! Please do! :) Lots of people have posted have posted lots of camping related questions here. It's something we're quite used to.

Just a hint, if you've got questions about tents or something, do a search to see what might have already been discussed. Maybe your question has already been answered before you've even asked. :)

Well, I didn't mean to poke a hornet's nest with a short stick, but I did want to engender some discussion on camping while touring. I'm relatively new to touring and I like to camp when I tour. There's lots of folks out there who have experience and expertise on both subjects and I hope they come forward. I'll post some camping questions in the near future. Thanks.

Ask away. There are very high-quality individuals on this forum who have many years collective experience in various forms of cycling, including the one that interests you. Machka and I have just spent a month or so in Europe with I think 22 consecutive nights sleeping in a tent (plus a few other nights at either end in hostels). I think I have put in a year's worth of camping over the past three with my own adventures.

Not everyone will agree with what I (or anyone else) says, but one thing you will find is that you will hone your comfort and equipment levels to suit you as you gain more experience, ask more questions and consider more answers.

And, it doesn't have to cost a fortune; if you are patient and shop around, you can assemble a camping kit that will last you a decade with proper care and treatment.

If you want to start a thread with a question, but don't want the hassle of trying to find the thread in the Touring forum list, I think there is an options facility to enable you to follow the thread you started or the ones in which you are interested. Play around with your personal settings to see what you can find.

Well, I didn't mean to poke a hornet's nest with a short stick, but I did want to engender some discussion on camping while touring. I'm relatively new to touring and I like to camp when I tour. There's lots of folks out there who have experience and expertise on both subjects and I hope they come forward. I'll post some camping questions in the near future. Thanks.

Just lively debate.

I think it is always good to consider the direction of a forum within the forum itself. Sort of a self-direction.

If nothing else, you have raised the issue that camping is important to a significant segment of touring cyclists. And seen that in general, the group would like to keep from splitting the forum. The next time it comes up, the answer may be different. Especially if after the fixie craze dies down the next craze is touring. :D

Also worth remembering, and this forum tends to do it well... We can always use a reminder to use good titles so people browsing can skip those threads with content they don't care about.

Especially if after the fixie craze dies down the next craze is touring.

that tread away from fixed towards touring workhorses is already being seen in some locales. Touring bikes are getting street cred among the 'hip' crowd.


My advice about bike camping? get your camping skills dialed in, and the bike camping follows naturally.

Oh, and bring a Siltarp.

"camping forum makes sense,"

That's possible. Bicycle camping is different, it implies a synthesis between the cycling and the camping. That's in 90% of the touring posts here. If there were enough demand for a group that just discusses camping that would be different (though I doubt there is enough trafic).

If we are having a discusion about Rohloff, or wide gear ranges, or bullet-proof wheels, or trips to Oz or Africa, it almost always comes down to a spin-off from someone's trip on a bike with camping gear.

I really don't see the point to arguing about the relative merits of loaded or unloaded touring. It's all touring, but really most of the discusion here is loaded related. You want to hire a cycle touring company to do a trip in the wine regions of France, what do you need this place for? Your agent has you covered.

I did an overnighter at one of our state parks here in Washington this May. I rode there paid my $18 for the space and set up my tent. I was amazed later that evening as other campers came in there RVs towing cars fighting for the remaining spaces. I looked at there rigs then looked at my bike,BoB trailer and tent and thought how unfair, that I had to pay the same amount as these other campers did.

While we are on the subject of getting new forums, I kinda would like a "Surly Long Haul Truckers owned by people named Brian that live in Tennessee" forum. I think it would be really popular.

Bicycle camping is touring, as far as I'm concerned. Motor vehicle supported group tours or credit card tours aren't really the same thing.

So if I head out with camping gear, but there's a horrible rainstorm and I take refuge in a hotel for the night, I'm not touring?

So if I head out with camping gear, but there's a horrible rainstorm and I take refuge in a hotel for the night, I'm not touring?

Yes, you're touring. If you ride your bike on an overnight trip and camp, or stay in a motel, either way, you're touring! ;)

There's plenty of camping forums out there, we don't need another one. I don't understand this drive to dilute the forums, it just kills them off. The utility cycling forum is dead and needs to be rolled back into the living car free, especially since people are pretty much still posting about utility cycles in the living car free forum and ignoring the one they should be posting in.

Just my personal rant. Bottom line: STOP DILUTING THE FORUMS!

I did an overnighter at one of our state parks here in Washington this May. I rode there paid my $18 for the space and set up my tent. I was amazed later that evening as other campers came in there RVs towing cars fighting for the remaining spaces. I looked at there rigs then looked at my bike,BoB trailer and tent and thought how unfair, that I had to pay the same amount as these other campers did.

I AGREE! 15 years ago I did a ride down the coast. Back then Washington had hiker/biker sites for reduced rates, just like Oregon and California. (I think they were a bit more expensive in Washington than those other states, but it was still less than for a car.) This summer I rode through Washington. They had hiker/biker sites in many of the state parks, but you paid the same as RV's! Outrageous!

I think they should have a sliding scale based on the MPG of your rig. Bikes should be almost nothing. 36 foot RV's pulling an SUV should cost a fortune!

Well, I've waded through the 2 pages of comments on this thread. As usual there is a great diversity of opinion. This is a good thing.

A far as a separate forum, I'm in favour because bike camping, or unsupported touring or what you want to call it is what I do. I passionate, I'm informed. I'm engaged.

It would be nice not to have to wade through all the other posts from members who have a great variance of ideas as to what touring is. It's not that I'm not interested. It's just that I often don't have the time to go through all the posts to get ideas about camping.

Bike Forums recognises this diversity. How quick were they to add Electric Bikes to the forum?

Bike camping is sufficiently different than touring that it deserves a forum.

A lot of parks have at least a few "primative" camp sites (i.e. no electricity maybe no water real close) that are generally less expensive then the sites that RV's use.