Touring styles
Originally Posted by
Machka
Short tours
-- hub and spoke ...
-- overnight/weekend/long-weekend ...
-- day tours ....
-- shake down tours/practice tours ...
Mid-length tours
-- 5 day or week-long, or longer tours ...
Long tours
-- probably a month or longer ... same as above but more time on the road.
[HR][/HR]
Self-supported tours
Supported tours
Credit card tours
Fully-loaded/Camping tours
-- a variation or extension of this might be Expedition touring
Ultra-light tours
Multi-modal tours
Event-style touring
-- variations on this might be cross-country tours or end-to-end tours or similar where the goal is crossing a country or similar (see below)
On-road or Off-road
[HR][/HR]Or some combination of the above.
You might find these discussions interesting:
http://www.bikeforums.net/touring/87...ing-style.html
http://www.bikeforums.net/touring/89...over-time.html
Nicely constructed and comprehensive list, Machka. It reawkens in me the longing to tour, not done since 1986, though I was avid from 1972 til then, including a cross country ride. I particularly miss the novelty of riding unknown roads, even though cycling in Metro Boston is very nice.
I guess I would want at least a supported tour, or more preferably a credit card one, allowing for more independence. I posted to his thread on the Fifty-Plus Forum,
”What do you find hardest about cycle touring now we aint spring chickens any more?"
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
My earliest cycling activities back in the 70s and 80s, were cycle-touring with my girlfriend-then-wife, including a honeymoon cross-country tour. Since then, I've been strictly a cycle-commuter, and sport road cyclist, mainly due to work and family lifestyle. Last year, I avidly read the posts on BF about a perimeter tour of Lake Ontario, and I experienced some surprising mental discomfort that struck me as a sign of getting older.
While I would still enjoy riding about 50 miles a day for an extended trip, the thought of the uncertainty of finding a place to stay for the night was unsettling. (Our previous tours were all self-supported and self-guided. If I/we were to resume touring, it would at least be a credit card style, if not an organized tour.) On that honeymoon though, finding a place to stay was a memorable part of the adventure…
I guess 30 years of a stable, predictable cycle-commuting lifestyle erodes that exhilaration of the uncertainty. One of the best quotes I have seen about the spirit of cycle-touring is this….
I think I can get back into that if the opportunity arises.
One wild dream tour is to ride the perimeter of the USA (after I win a big lottery, with a luxury moble home as my sag wagon, driven by my wife
). I discovered that there is a
Perimeter Bicycling Association of America that maintains
records of perimeter rides around various world-wide geographic and political regions.