Bike touring is a pastime so there isn't really anything ridiculous about what type of bike one chooses. Just choices and directions to explore.

This is my current road touring bike. At the moment it has 700x32 Gatorskins.



This was my loaded tour bike for a while. A 90's era rigid mtb that was repurposed for loaded road touring. It had 26x1.75 Schwalbe Marathons



On this trip I saw the limits of that size of tire as I couldn't ride the sand at that width. I also had problems in another swampy area.



I tried adding a suspension fork and mtb tires to my now redundant converted mtb. It was ok but the fork threw the geometry off a bit. It is also a bit too small for me so I decided not to invest any more into it as a tour bike. For old school mtb it works fine.



After that I made up my mind to get a better off road bike.

I bought a fatbike. What I really wanted was a Surly ECR and I think that would be a better overall choice with 29x3" tires but I couldn't afford one at the time and I got a good deal on this one. For the up coming summer I plan to swap the 26x4.6 for 26x4". Ultimately I want to get a second wheelset 29x3" which keeps the BB at the same height.

If the proof is in the pudding then wider tires have made a difference as it has become my favorite go to bike for riding these days and when I think of tours it's hard to think of road routes as I tend to be looking on the maps for more and more off road opportunities. Two things I notice:

Riding it is just plain fun. It makes me look for terrain that's sketchier or different because I want to see if the bike can handle it.

The distance I make is less but that gets me out of the mileage mindset. Usually, on the road, I tend to try to make big mileage each day and get bored if I stop early and have to sit around camp. With this bike I tend to not think of making miles and tend to enjoy the distance I do ride more.