Not really an issue perse but, if the idea is ul, why bring it? You can drink from the pot or the bowl... plus the water bottles on the bike. At least 4 different drinking containers?

But then again I wouldn't take any kitchen stuff other than a spoon and a can opener.. and a dedicated rain jacket.

Just different perspectives.

BikeCrazy, here is the gear that I took on my summer cross country ride from Anacortes to Boston. It worked out well for me. I camped about a third of the time, stayed in motels for a third and Warmshowers for the final third, however, I could have easily camped more nights.

https://wheelsofchance.wordpress.com...2/25/gear-list

Yes we'll all have different perspective - as mentioned in my post everyone has to find their own minimum comfort level. I like hot meals and often 2 items at the same time (eg, coffee and oatmeal) so cup + pot. The blue cup handles fuel measurement, hot pot holder, and shot glass (for my dehydrated vodka/fuel) so not totally necessary, but it's an oz and nests inside the cup.

On top of all that, I also have water vessels (Naglene, 2 Sawyer bladders, ultra-Sil bucket) which covers purification, evening shower, dinner, B'fast, and water for the morning half of my ride.

For only 5lb/10L, it's a rather comfortable/versatile UL camping rig for me... YMMV of course.

Still, the arrangement looks very tidy & if one get tired just take a catnap right in the seat! With an unusual rig like that he probably gets lots of friendly inquiries & perhaps offers for dinner or free camping. Hopefully he has some ultra-low gears since it looks difficult to push.

Some say to go light & buy clothes/equipment if needed, but bricks & mortar stores have been cutting inventory/selection so the stuff one find en route might be inappropriate or expensive. Heh, visited Miami & went to WalMart to buy flip-flops & long-sleeve t-shirt & couldn't find either.

It's been said already, but to reiterate, you really need to decide what kind of trip you want. Is this a biking trip or a camping trip? If it's biking trip, you pack only what you need to support the biking, then bring the bare minimum to lie down and sleep when you're not biking.

Or you can bring kilos of cooking gear, camera gear, blogging gear, fishing gear, bird watching gear, etc. It's your trip, bring what you like to make it happen.

On the subject of clothing, I don't even bring spare cycling clothing. On a warm day, I'll wash in a restroom in the mid-afternoon, put the clothes on wet and wear them dry so I'm relatively clean when I stop for the day. On a rainy day I'll skip doing laundry and hasn't harmed me yet. My "spare" clothing serves other purposes for cooler weather, rain, etc. Everything I carry can be worn at the same time as a coordinated layering system. Clothing is bulky and many need an entire pack just for extra clothing that, as mentioned by some above, never gets used.

If you're interested in cutting weight, look at the backpacking forums. And go backpacking. When you have to carry the stuff on your back, you're more interested in reducing weight. I also started touring with 50 pounds of stuff carried in five packs and a mound on the rear rack. After a career in long distance hiking, I now carry 17 pounds in two packs, including the packs. That has made all the difference in my touring. It became a fun bike ride, instead of a slow expedition-style slog across the terrain. Especially in the mountains.

("XC" is a more common abbreviation for cross country.)

I agree. Whatever makes you happy on the road.

I don't know why you would need to carry more weight than a back packer would carry and even less since you are most likely not going to be that far from civilization with stores galore. 35 pounds would be my goal.

To me the big difference between packing for backpacking and bike touring is that for bike touring I typically am never that long between potential restock points when road touring. If MTB touring into the back country even that difference disappears. For backpacking food becomes the majority of the weight if I go more than a few days without restock, so when backpacking it wouldn't be unusual for me to have more food than gear.

Also, less of a factor IMO, but on a bike tour you can buy stuff along the way and in a pinch there is usually help available. So in the event of injury or breakdown hitching a ride is an option. The more remote the road the more likely that any traffic that does go by will help, so even on remote roads you can get help if necessary. That doesn't mean that you should be less prepared though so the difference isn't much.

The funny thing I have observed is that when touring around other people I am usually the one lending gear items to people carrying 2, 4, or 6 times as much as I am carrying rather than being the one borrowing stuff. I think sometimes that is because they have enough stuff that they can't find things. Other times I think it is because they have not spent nearly as much time optimizing their gear list. I find that, even though my list has gotten much more minimal over the years, it has benefitted from being tested and refined with more attention than most. I have certainly been over my packing list hundreds and maybe thousands of times refining each trip and each look between trips.

Some people just want to have more stuff along I guess. I enjoy having only what I need and not much extra. It makes for a simple lifestyle that I enjoy when on the road.

I like to travel light and have spent a lot of effort trimming my packing list, but...
There does come a point where the law of diminishing returns sets in. When you get to the point where you are riding with only 10 or 15 pounds of stuff cutting a little more starts to not matter so much IMO. I can pretty easily get to 9 pounds or so of gear, but at that point I start to think about taking something extra and unnecessary along and wind up back at 12-15 pounds.

My "base weight" when hiking is about 8 pounds, good down to 15F. On the bike it's double that. That's because the packs are a little sturdier, and I realized I'm really packing for two--me and the bike. The bike needs some steel tools and a few spare parts. And I carry a little more clothing to deal with wind chill, since many of my rides include long mountain descents at high elevation, and I've gotten close to hypothermia doing that while just sitting still.

But I agree that considering weight of consumables, my overall bike packing load is generally lighter than hiking.

This isn't really possible to do.

bikepacking must include bicycle repair stuff so weight might be more than backpacking.

Carrying a spare frame would fall in the "too much" category. But what is an ultralight repair kit? (Flat kit + multitool to tighten what comes loose?)

I tend to forget that in part because I have a little seat wedge with a few tools, patch kit, and a tube or two on the bike that stays with the bike whether on tour or not. Since I never take the repair stuff off of the bike even at home, I actually consider it to be part of the bike.

I guess that given that my 14 pound base weight is actually 15 pounds the way most do their weight accounting. It never even occurred to me to consider that one pound of tools and spares to be anything but part of the bike.

+1 on this definitional difference.

Backpacking 'base weight' excludes consumables AND what you are wearing and the EDC in your pockets - it's generally just the incremental gear required to turn a regular walk into a mult-day self-supported hike. So for terminology parity, I count the weight my toolkit (tube, patch kit, basic tools, pump), cable lock, and water bottle toward the weight of my bicycle (~31lbs) since all that stuff goes on every ride, long or short. My bike touring base weight (~13lbs) is then directly analogous to my backpacking base weight and also represents just the incremental bag(s) that take me from a regular ride to a multi-day self-supported trip.

Here is the best advice. I promote the same. Learn by doing.

:commute:

-Snuts-

You have too much gear if you get to the top of a long climb and have a mental list of things you are going to send home.

:thumb:


My first tour was about 6K miles across the U.S. and then some. On the morning of the third day, while we had time to kill waiting for a ferry, a couple of people mailed stuff home prior to hitting the Cascades, which was to come in a few days. One woman sent home, among other things, a blow dryer and a Sony Watchman TV. The latter was one of those "WTH were you thinking?" items.

:thumb:

That's how I learned how much was too much backpacking! Lost 15# from one hike to the next.

I'm convinced that a major factor in me finding the Cascades and Logan Pass relatively painless was my Cervelo RS with a 12x36 rear cassette and my 20lb gear load. I'm overweight and not a particularly strong cyclist so I've adopted a lightweight approach to compensate.

That's true, but with backpacking you have heavier boots, perhaps some trekking poles, and bear mace or other items which should cancel out the difference.


Unless the tour in off the main road, I can't see carrying more than a day or two of food. This is quite different in the wilderness where you may be a week between being able to replenish.


There are just a host of options for cycling tours that should make traveling light an option.

A couple of things:

Bike tourists do not carry the gear's weight on their back/frame; the bike does that work for you.

A bike tourist has a mechanical advantage that a hiker does not.

Even though 20 lbs. is 20 lbs. whether it is on you back or on your bike; it takes less energy/work to move that weigh on a bike. I have a lot more incentive to be really critical about my backpacking gear's weight than I do about a reasonable load on my bike.

Depends on whether you are biking on a holiday, or holidaying on a bike... the former cut the weight back as far as you can, the latter, don't go crazy, but err a bit towards comfort.
Because I generally holiday on a bike I've been known to carry a small pressed metal BBQ to enjoy the local seafood... I also stop at anything interesting to look at, and interesting can be as simple as a funny sign. Means I don't cover more than 100km in a day generally, and usually less. In the mountains I just use very low gearing... 20 x 34 with 26" wheels

Good points, but the advantage in only on flat and down hill. Otherwise you are having to move the weight of a bike along with the contents. Personally, I would prefer to walk with a 35 pound pack than push a bike plus load up a mountain.

Have you tried it?
Put 35lb's on your back and 35lb's on my bike and I bet I will cover more ground/day on any road, day in and day out. If that wasn't the case no one would bike tour.



Everyone has to make choices based on what gives them pleasure during a tour, which is a very personal thing. If you like cooking you may take more cook stuff than I would. If you like photography maybe a bigger camera and more lens. Is that too much weight? Kind of a ridiculous concept.

I have never really weighed my gear or set arbitrary weight goals for my trips yet I can go pretty spartan when I want to. It just depends on what the point of the trip is. I just think in terms of what's the goal, what do I need to achieve it and perhaps what little extras can I take for comfort (if I want) while not overdoing it and go with that.

Rather than weight, I tend to think of systems and work on refining those. For a tour I generally need something from the following:

Bike (bike, spare parts, tools)
Clothing
Environmental Protection (weather wear)
Electronics (phone, GPS, music, cameras, lights, chargers)
Cooking/Food
Hygiene
Comfort

That's it. Then I just expand or collapse those categories depending on where I'm going and what I'm doing it for.

Too much gear is when the enjoyment of the tour is compromised by the excessive of what you bring.
Too little gear is when the enjoyment of the tour is compromised by the lack of what you bring.

wow. you've just negated the entire history of human civilization. :roflmao2:

https://tse4-mm.cn.bing.net/th?id=OI...=0&w=300&h=300