Old 04-08-24, 04:07 AM
  #9  
Tourist in MSN
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 11,237

Bikes: 1961 Ideor, 1966 Perfekt 3 Speed AB Hub, 1994 Bridgestone MB-6, 2006 Airnimal Joey, 2009 Thorn Sherpa, 2013 Thorn Nomad MkII, 2015 VO Pass Hunter, 2017 Lynskey Backroad, 2017 Raleigh Gran Prix, 1980s Bianchi Mixte on a trainer. Others are now gone.

Mentioned: 48 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 3470 Post(s)
Liked 1,475 Times in 1,151 Posts
I have weighed my bikes without water, without handlebar bag, without panniers. But with pump and spare tube and racks installed. If I recall correctly, my Ortlieb panniers (four) and rack top bag weigh 8 pounds empty.

I do not weigh a loaded bike with the panniers, etc. I do not want to know that number. Twice I have weighed my loaded panniers and handlebar bag, from curiosity, but I did not pull out a calculator to add up a total with bike. I was more curious about front to rear weight ratio of my gear at that time.

On the other hand, Machka that used to post on this forum frequently had a rule of thumb that your bike fully loaded should not weigh more than half of your body weight. In her case I think she was talking about with water and food.
How much weight do you take on tour

I really did not want to know what my bike weighed when I took this photo. I had my luggage scale along, but chose not to add up all the weights. I had about two and a half weeks of food on the bike, at roughly two pounds per day for food, that probably was probably 35 pounds of food. I tried to keep my food weight down on that trip because I had to carry so much, but I think I had about six or eight cans of food in the bag. Backpacking (where the weight is on my feet, not on wheels) my food is slightly below two pounds per day but when bike touring where the weight is on wheels instead, I am more inclined to eat more palatable meals that will weigh a bit more that two pounds per day. I am just using two pounds per day as a rule of thumb for planning.

Three liters of water in the bottles would be roughly 6.6 pounds. So, I probably had over 40 pounds of food with water in this photo, not counting everything else.



That is the heaviest that I have ever loaded a bike. I was surprised how well the bike handled that weight, but that model is built for serious touring. The frame is rated for about 60 kg (~132 pounds) including bottle cage weight, weight on racks, and handledbar bag weight, but excluding the weight of rider or the bike itself.

I see that Staehpj1 has not commented yet, I am surprised. He will shame all of us with his minimalism.
Tourist in MSN is offline