One aspect I suspect comes into play is the effect of the internet on all this. When I began touring (I guess late eighties), I had camped all my life growing up, canoe trips and such, so "bike" camping wasnt that much different, just a diff set of bags and using a map. In other words, I kinda just winged it at first.
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that was about it though. Nowadays, one can find an amazing amount of info on the net about, well, everything. One also can go hog wild and obsess about every detail cuz "the forum" say you need this, you need that, well, you get my drift.
Throw in the aspect of "social media"--izing a trip, writing about your preparation, your route, what your toenail looked like when you dropped your loaded pannier on it on tuesday morning....sort of stuff, and the experience can be very different than pre-internet.
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but I do stick to my view that the web probably increase the number of people who get all gangbusters about bike touring, and then might find its not their thing, but perhaps got too much into "oh I have to have this, or that..."
This is very true. The internet definitely creates some pluses and minuses. I would say the pluses outweigh the minuses, but it definitely creates the idea that you need a lot of specialized gear, which might lead to people investing a lot before they figure out that they really don't like touring or really don't need that piece of gear.
On the other hand, it has really opened my eyes in terms of what is possible. I also did my first "tour" 20+ years ago. I decided to bike from my home town to college. Nothing was touring-specific. I didn't even know there was gear and/or bikes that might be geared towards touring or lightweight travel. I had enough fun that I tried it a couple more times, but without the benefit of anyone who could give me pointers, I came to conclusion that while traveling by bike was fun, getting a consistently comfortable and warm night's sleep just wasn't going to happen with the camp gear I could fit on a bike.
It wasn't until I started lurking on the touring section of the bike forums that I saw what I had been missing. The main piece of gear for me being the hammock tent, but many other items have been added to my supplies as well, and now bike touring is a real option again.
But I'm not a good candidate for what Tom's talking about. I tend to agonize over high dollar purchases, and try to get by on the cheap if I can. So the gear I end up abandoning is usually stuff that ended up not being that suitable to begin with, and I suspect that may be the case for a lot of us. Recycling the gear of someone who went whole hog on the gear-buying phase, but never got into touring would be trickier, because they're probably no longer into touring, and so might not be aware of people who wanted to try their stuff. Better candidates for sharing gear are probably those of us who simply don't get out there as much as we'd like. I'm pretty happy with my gear, but there's almost 50 weeks a year when it's collecting dust anyway.
I like the "try before you buy" concept, but generally the reason the internet works for sharing this kind of information is because you can compile data and share experiences with people from all over. Just locally, I don't know many people who tour. When I bought my Trucker, I got it sight unseen because there wasn't a shop that carried them. I did find one person who rode one, but sitting on his two-sizes-too-tall bike with clipless pedals (and me in my street shoes) really didn't give me a great feel for the bike. But still, I had decided on what my current bike was lacking, and my internet research kept pointing me back to the same bike. And it worked out. I guess that I had more time than money, and the people who end up with a lot of surplus, useful gear have the opposite problem. Any gear I've abandoned was usually done with good reason. But if anyone wants to dip a toe into the touring waters and see if it's for them, they can hit me up to borrow some cheap panniers that like to come off the rack, a sleeping bag that isn't quite warm enough and doesn't pack that small, and a tarp that, while it sheds water and provides great coverage, also needs almost a whole pannier of its own.