When I was in college (around 2006-2008 time frame) I was wanting to get in to backpacking. I had been camping when I was growing up and always wanted to get deeper in to the wilderness. When I got to the university I graduated from I got in to their "mountaineers" club. It was a group that had their mainstay as rock climbing and mountaineering, but there was a smaller pocket of people that backpacking was their thing. At first I didn't know if the club would be a decent fit, but once I got to talking to some of the guys about backpacking it all worked out. I ended up on my first real backpacking trip (3 days) in October of 2008 in the Monongahela National Forest (Appalachian mountains). I didn't have the right gear for the trip and it went down well below freezing so, needless to say, I froze my arse and came out of that trip more sore than I'd ever been before. I was hooked on the backpacking thing, though, and that continues to be a very large interest of mine.
I was on a backpacking trip in the Smoky Mountains of TN/NC (we were right along the border) several years ago now. The way it was in the park is you have to reserve camp sites. The only way we could make a route work with camp sites that were available for the time period we had was to start at Clingmans Dome - the highest elevation in the Smoky Mountains (that equates to everything else being down hill - catch my drift?). The first day we went 13 miles and dropped 3,000ft in elevation. I held up OK until the last 1.5 to 2 miles. My legs basically said "we're done dude" and spent the last bit of the hike leaning on my trekking poles to drag myself to camp. My buddy and I tried to figure out how to dig ourselves out of the predicament. Without being able to hike, and our vehicle was 3000ft up and 13 miles of hiking now, our only recourse was to hitchhike. My legs and hips took months to come back out of that. It made me realize a couple things:
1. How important it was to be able to go backpacking
2. How critical it was to be in better shape to be able to hold up on a trip
To tie this back to bike touring - With as few opportunities to backpack now as I have in my life (life goes in other directions and a lot of stars have to line up right to do it - scheduling and other people's schedules) I needed to do something to get, and stay in, shape so I have the stamina to handle backpacking when it comes around.
A family member had been in to bike touring for decades. He did local trips around travel destinations. So the riding wasn't to get to the destination, it was the transportation method for exploring the destination. He wanted to do some longer trips and eventually worked up to 700 miles or so to get down south to visit family by bicycle. Since a lot of the camping gear crosses over between biking and backpacking he got in to backpacking with me to work on gear checks and get some exercise in as he worked through his ramp-up to a big bike trip.
My brother and I went over to his starting point for his big ride to wish him well and seem him off. I followed along with his trip updates and had a map set that he gave me for the route details. It was really neat to watch his updates.
So since we did some backpacking trips together I got to thinking about bike riding also. It was a natural transition. Again, with a lot of the gear crossing over, I already had a leg up on everything camping related and the self-sufficiency aspect.
I got my first "real" bike in 2014. I maintained my goal of staying in shape, but due to a busy (well, very demanding, and that is still an understatement) job I was having a hard time balancing riding with my schedule. A lot of my riding ended up at night after work. However, I did work in some day trips on the weekends when I could. The first year I did 1000 miles. From a staying in shape standpoint, I did pretty good except I rode with platform pedals and ended up with major knee problems because I built up my leg strength only pushing. That winter, and starting off the next riding year, I spent a long time (6+ weeks) in physical therapy to fix the knee problems. I switched to SPD clip shoes/pedals and did 1500 miles that year. I've never had knee problems since.
Between a demanding job and some other challenges the past several years I haven't been on the bike much, admittedly. However, things started opening back up for me this past year. I'm back to where I can do some day trips again. Earlier this Spring I got to do a day tour in the hilly farm country of central Pennsylvania. That was really neat, only I wish I had my fishing rod along for some of the rivers and streams. I've done some other trips through the network of trails around Xenia, OH (a lot of them are rail-trail conversions, but Xenia is a giant hub in Ohio for bicycling activity). We'll see what the future brings.
I prefer relatively unorganized trips where I look at a map and pick where I want to ride as I go. Sometimes I'll have a destination in mind then figure out a route to get there, other times I just get on the bike and start riding. In any case, I prefer more secluded/less populated routes like 2 lane country roads and some long-distance trails (like the rail-trails in Ohio and tow-path trails along the canals in IL, although they can be quite congested near towns with dog-walkers and strollers). I always enjoy stopping to talk to locals - other cyclists or not - during my stops on my rides. Sometimes the attention of a lot of gear on a bike can be a pain, but most of the time it turns in to a good conversation starter.