Originally Posted by
indyfabz
... In my mind, people who did loaded touring were older, bearded, tree huggers. They wore tube socks from Woolworth's, Bell V-1 Pro helmets and cotton t-shirts. Their bikes were old and their panniers dirty. They carried all that gear because they were not strong enough to ride fast on road bikes. ....
I did not know any bike tourists when I was a kid or young adult. But I had wanted to try it ever since I worked in a bike shop in my late teens. I met a couple in the early 80s (when I was about 30) that were bike touring, they were camped in the campground next to my site. They were teachers, had the summers off so they went touring every summer. They had either the old Cannondale Overland panniers in rear or maybe the Kirtland panniers. And I think they had handlebar bags, maybe another bag on back but not much else. I remember thinking that they had a lighter load than my backpack for backpacking.
I looked over their bikes, average mid level bikes but each failure they had they replaced the part with really high end stuff so they had an odd mix of components on their bikes. A wheel that has a lot of miles on it, the spokes will have grooves worn into them where they touch other spokes. And I saw that their spokes where they touched other spokes had more wear on them than just about any other wheels I had ever seen. They had cut ensolite foam from their foam pads to wrap around the handlebars and secured there with duct tape. They looked like they had the entire bike touring thing figured out perfectly.