This is an open ended question and so of infinite interest and open to endless debate. You are going about things correctly by asking questions and with a little experience you'll decide your own touring style and come up with a gear list that has your essentials and probably a couple of luxuries. I encourage you to come up with a detailed gear list as this will help you in packing and prevent you form leaving stuff behind.

The next are broad generalizations, but the weight of the bike goes from 20lbs to 35lbs and the gear from sub 20lbs to over 50lbs. I'm a lightweight tourer in that I use a sport touring bike and fully loaded with the "big 4" and cooking equipment my gear is 20lbs, it goes up to 22lbs if I take my Asus PC along

Here is a thread with a discussion about gear and my gear list

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ighlight=20lbs

I've made two major changes, 1) I replaced the pepsi can stove with a Trangia as it has a simmer ring
and is just far more sturdy, 2) as it's fall I'm using a 20oz quilt not the 16oz summer one.

Go to

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com

for lots of journals and some gear lists

Here's the inspiration for my setup

http://milly.org/rambouillet/index.htm

For a radical approach look here

http://www2.arnes.si/~ikovse/weight.htm
http://pompinos.blogspot.com/

and finally there's the Crane Bros journal of a ride through Central Asia in the mid 1980s with 18lbs of gear

http://web.archive.org/web/200412110...tup.net/crane/