Originally Posted by
ByteMerc
In looking at the responses to this question it's clear that there are lots of different ideas about what "touring" is.
Cycling loaded with baggage or loaded with a credit card, drop bars, touring bars, fat tire / skinny tire and lots of other factors are assumed.
Taramenel - what do you mean by "Touring"
How many days on the road?
What do you plan on carrying?
What kind of weather will you ride in? (if you are a fair weather rider maybe you don't need fenders)
What kind of roads to you plan on using? Some people ride on paved roads only, others have access to gravel bike paths that cover long distances.
What kind of terrain? Cycling through Florida might be a different setup than cycling through the Rockies.
More information will generate more helpful advice.
Somewhere on BF or perhaps elsewhere is the idea of Long Distance riding, light touring, and heavy touring. HT of course is rough-sleeping rough-cooking self-sufficiency for more than perhaps 2 weeks at a time. Think 50# of gear? Some will even carry fishing and hunting gear, for back-country survival.
To me, light touring ranges from SAGged week-long tours where you need to carry some reliability stuff (wrenches, lube, tubes, pump, et cetera), rain/cold gear, snacks, and other daily stuff, but your tent or spare clothing are in a truck. No cooksets.
Long Distance is as best defined in the LD forum here. Carrying needs can vary from pockets and a Camelback, to a stuffed Carradice and 9-liter front bag. But it's not usually tent, sleeping bags, and cooksets. Many experienced randos use go-fast bikes built with a little extra room and carrying capacity. I'm always surprised they're not talking about using the Specialized Roubaix.
I hate to get soaked or to drink from water bottles with road cr#p all over them, so I like fenders, even though they're often not required.
Back in the day, the Trek 720 was seen as an excellent heavy tourer. We now see it as too flexible, and heavy tourers want something stouter like a Long Haul Trucker. I did a few weekend tours with sleeping bag, tent, cookware, clothing and other stuff on a Pletscher rack, wiggling on the back of a tubular-equipped early '60s Italian race bike. There are a lot of different approaches that can work.