safariofthemind

Been checking out German sites (with my rusty old College German) and found it very interesting that the German cyclists differentiate between trekking (often including going off road, often accompanied by hiking) and touring (more amorphous, but guess mostly road-based).

For those of you with more experience with the terms, what's your take on it? Kind of like the difference between bikepacking and cyclotouring? A historical oddity like Italian giros/cicloturismo and French randoneuring/cyclotourisme? Fascinating to see how other folks choose to approach things.

Also, noticed that ebay.de has great prices on used fully equipped "trekking" bikes with fenders, lights, etc (which are legally required in Germany) going for 100 Euro prices. Pity shipping is so expensive to the US. Would love to try an old Diamant or similar bike.

BTW, Germany has the 4th largest number of bikes on the road, 62 million, after China, the Us, and Japan. https://www.worldometers.info/bicycles/

Here's some google translate links for your enjoyment:
https://www.radtouren.de/
https://translate.google.com/translat....de%2F&act=url

https://www.biketrekking.de/
https://translate.google.com/translat....de%2F&act=url

https://sport.shop.ebay.de/Fahrrader-...=p3286.c0.m282
https://translate.google.com/translat...Dp3286.c0.m282

Sixty Fiver

I see trekking as a form of touring that is more expedition like where the trip takes you off road a good deal and as such, the bike you use is better suited for that type of riding with wider and more aggressive tyres and upright or actual trekking bars which are excellent when you are off roading and serve quite well on the road.

Have seen a number of German made touring bicycles and most do have trekking bars instead of drop bars and are more like cross bikes in their build.

A touring bicycle could also be made to handle more extreme conditions but are typically optimized for riding on smoother serviced roads.

safariofthemind

I too noticed a lot of trekking bars while visiting Germany. At the time I mostly thought the locals were very fond of early 1990's rigid MTB It was not apparent that they were a special category of anything, worthy of its own ebay category. It was neat to see what looked like our touring bikes (lht, trek, etc) all over the place, with proper fenders, lights, racks, etc.

Sixty Fiver

Racks and fenders are a common fitting across the pond and lighting is mandatory... I use trekking bars on 3 of my bicycles and really like them while my touring / expedition bike has drop bars which I would never change.

The wide hand position and stability you can get on trekking bars is quite useful for standing climbs and low speed stability and offers even more hand positions than drop bars.

My "Trekker"... very nice over 100 miles of pavement and also very nice to take off road with the 700:35 cross tyres.

wahoonc

Here is a bike that I own that is classified as a trekking bike. It is a Staiger Florida which is part of their trekking lineup. It appears to be similar to what we call a hybrid in the US. I do like the fact they come fully loaded and ready for use. My DD is using this one out in Seattle for grocery runs and general transportation.

Aaron

bradtx

So, a trekking bike is more like the bicycles we rode as kids? Before we, as cyclists accumulated a bike specific to each need? What a novel idea!

Brad

safariofthemind

Interesting. Seems like quite a wide range of bikes get called "trekking". These ones by VSF are definitely not low end though
https://www.fahrradmanufaktur.de/?page_id=62
https://translate.google.com/translat...d%3D62&act=url

What prompted this line of inquiry was a recent look into Tout Terrain bikes, and the Rohloff equipped expedition bike offerings. While many of the offerings you see in the US are semi-custom offerings, there seem to be a wider range being offered in Europe at the moment as off-the-shelf offerings a la Thorn, Santos, Koga-Miyata, etc.

The EU bike fleet is huge (all EU together is about 180 million bikes!) and yet there seem to be minuscule amounts of cross-pollinization with US and China/Taiwan brands, other than use of common factories in the far east. Very interesting. And yes, Aaron, I noticed a lot of their mass-produced trekking bikes seemed to be cloaked hybrid bikes too. Checking ebay in detail showed a lot of Tourney-level shimano and typical 400 Euro/500 dollar bike components, but in a more touring friendly packaging

https://www.adventure-cycling-guide.co.uk/bike5.htm

Philly Tandem

I'd say German "trekking" bikes are akin to USA-type touring bikes in function, but differ a good bit in design. In my experience, which includes probably 15 trips to Germany in the past decade or so and lots of bike riding there, you'll rarely see a drop-bar touring bike. In fact, often my drop-bar touring bike is an item of interest to Germans when I'm touring, and I've answered lots of questions about mixing Ultegra STI levers with XTR rear derailleurs and wide-range cassettes, for example.

Trekking bikes are an evolution of the German "city bike," both of which probably have their roots in the traditional Dutch "sit up and beg" bike. Trekking bikes can be VERY high-end, with amazing component groupos and accessories, including stock Tubus front/rear racks, internally geared hubs, etc. They have some similarities to what Americans would call hybrid bikes, but I think they go well beyond that. Shimano even has special "trekking" components that are widely available in Europe but nearly impossible to find here in the USA, with components like XT cranksets with 48-38-24 chainrings stock.

On more than one occasion I've thought of bringing a nice trekking bike back to the States with me, but have yet to do so. It's traditionally been hard to find anything even close over here, although some manufacturers have toyed with offering a few models in the US recently.

A good website to browse a wide-range of German bikes and gear is fahrrad.de (farhrrad is bicycle in German).

cyccommute 

I don't know about you but I'd not want to tour or do much of anything on the bikes I rode as a kid. My bikes were a 20" Hiawatha, a hardware store 3 speed which promptly became a 1 speed when the cable broke and no replacement cable existed and a Sears "10 speed" which hardly did a good job in one speed. Or maybe you'd prefer a 20" wheel BMX...now there's a great touring machine

Thanks, but I'll keep my ride specific bikes with all their fancy smancy reliable index shifting, quality brakes and, in some cases, ride smoothing suspension.

fietsbob

I got a Koga Miyata, WTR , came fully set up, racks mudguards and all ...
that packaging is different as US bikes ship stripped down,
the customer buys all the other parts at point of sale
or later.

Cannondale for example, ships a whole different bike, more fully equipped,
to the rest of the world than domestically.
Dealers here derive significant income from selling all the parts left off
in new bike equipage.
I expect that is largely why ..

Booger1

Call it what you want,looks the same to me.

Lg2207

Hey All- interesting reading- I just picked up a "trekking" type bike from a local sale- Cant for the life of me find the brand -- any thoughts?
https://s762.photobucket.com/albums/x...urrent=005.jpg

Regards All!

AdamDZ

I was trying to find and answer to this for a while and I gave up. The line is very blurry and no one seems to offer a clear differentiation between bicycle touring and trekking.

It's like trekking versus hiking. Although, here people seem to agree more that hiking is the easier form of the two. Whereas trekking is more of a strenuous, expedition type of traveling by foot through more rugged wilderness.

So perhaps is trekking as applied to cycling?

But in the end, yeah, both look the same to me. People toured Himalayas by bikes. That's pretty freaking expedition-like as it gets.

bradtx

My psydelic reading is pretty rusty, but my guess is COATES.

Brad

Lg2207

Brad-
LOL! yeah I've tried "COATES" but to no avail- someone else said CATO but that has not yielded much other than a similar post/pic from a guy with a black MTB trying to find out more about his bike as well (with same label).

Regards and thanks for adding........
-Larry