Originally Posted by
jonc123
Me...195 Pounds
Bike...33 Pounds with racks and other assorted odd devices
4 Panniers...maybe 40 pounds loaded
Total...268 Pounds
This doesn't include all the water, helmet, clothes and shoes, etc. If it were 10 pounds lighter or 10 pounds heavier, I would not be able to tell the difference.
I suspect this is a pretty common scenario, and the reason why most contemporary touring bikes (LHT for example) are in the 28lb range. The problem with this for me is that the bike becomes a one purpose machine, too much of a truck for a weekend joyride.
When I got into cycling, racing bikes were about 21lbs, and (good) touring bikes were about 23-24, maybe 25-26 if you built if for a heavy load with 48H wheels etc. There really wasn't much difference between racers and tourers except the geometry, and
maybe they'd go .1mm thicker for the tubing gauge of a tourer. Tires were typically 27 x 1 1/4" or 700x32, though 28c wasn't unusual. 38c or whatever didn't exist. Some people used touring sew ups, really. Good luck finding those today...