I have a nine speed set up currently, and just wondered (academically) what was going to happen to touring bikes in terms of 10 speed road equipment.

Currently it seems pretty typical to have an 11-34 or 12-34 cassette, which aren't made in ten speed... so what's going to happen to all of us, unless we just keep on ebaying ourselves new parts? Are they planning on 10 speed mountain groups as well?

That's a good question superslomo-- I'm guessing touring bikes will use Tiagra brifters (9 speed).

Touring bikes are a small market share, so they will suffer even more as the engineers at Shimano fine tune high end parts for racing.

Or some small company (IRD maybe?) will make a 10 speed touring cassette. It won't be cheap.

Probably,why bother though, aren't the chains skinny enough and the tolorences already too minimal ??

IRD makes 10sp 11-32 and 11-34 cassettes already. I haven't used one, but they probably work fine.

Mountain cassettes are a mix of 8sp and 9sp; the lower end groups are still 8sp. 9sp mountain (same rings as touring) cassettes will be around for a LONG time.

In terms of shifters - SL-BS77 9sp barcons are easy to find (and still standard equipment on a number of touring bikes), and there are always Sora (8sp) or Tiagra (9sp) brifters. Also, barcons (even current 10sp) can be run in friction, so you don't even have to match them if you can live without indexing.