I'm lucky to be put in a situation to where if I take off a friday from work I will have 7 days off, I'm looking at venturing out from my home town in different directions 3 days out, 3 days back. 6 day tours, at least once a month. I have a hardtail mountain bike that i'm going to throw a rack and some panniers on for now. it's a new trek 6000 that is my pride and joy. I'm going to order some new tires and wheels so I'm not constantly switching tires out from my trail setup to tour setup. Any decent priced deals out there for some good 26' touring wheels disc compatible ?

Now back to the original question, how long is everyones average tour? I wish I could tour across the country right now, but have 1 year 8 months left on my contract at my trauma center. I am thinking of taking a sabbatical then and doing a northern tier route. I think if I was to do 10-15 week long tours in the next 1year and a half I will be ready for the real deal cross country trip.

I have 20 thousand saved up as of now, How much do you think it would cost to get dedicated touring bike, nice racks, panniers, and cost of travel for the northern tier route? I will definitely be stealth camping!!!!

thanks for the help and advice!

losing job = extended tour...indefinitely.
dream bicycle would be co-motion pangea ($3630+gear) with belt drive internal hub.
https://co-motion.com/index.php/singles/pangea_rohloff
, but why, when that money could take you touring a LONG TIME???
see my spreadsheet page PACE for my quick estimates.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...hl=en_US#gid=2

I'm not sure that it's terribly meaningful to talk about average lengths of tour. Mine have varied from three days to eight weeks. There's no real need to train for touring, IMO. As long as you are fit enough to be comfortable on the bike for a few hours a day you can ride your way into fitness as you go.

As for costs, you can spend a lot on a touring bike and gear but there's no particular need to go mad. Say $1500 for bike, panniers, spares, etc etc? And as fr the costs of touring, they can be very low if you are camping most of the time. Certainly if you are thinking about spending $20k, even including the bike and flights to your start point and home from the finish, you could do a trip across America no problem at all, and have plenty of money to spare. In fact, you could do the trip on a credit-card basis, staying in motels and hotels and B&Bs, and still spend less than that.

mine usually run to a week or 2 to 3 to 4 days haven't done an extended tour as yet but anything is possible one day.
as for gear and bike i'll run this lot by you probably the best gear out there well near enough.
bike look at the thorn range of tourers i have the sherpa.
panniers ortlieb bikepacker plus and ortlieb sportpacker front panniers.
bedding /exped 7 down matt
alpkit down sleeping bag (pipedream)
thermarest compressible pillow large,
cooking/ optimus crux stove
alu pots/kettle.
tent i have two lightest one is
hilleberg akto
mountain hardware speare gt2
both great tents cant fault either.
everything i mentioned there is great quality gear will last years and problem free with a good back up service.

When I decided to take the leap into bike touring, I dropped $5K on a Waterford Adventure Cycle (T1900, I believe) with S&S couplers and good quality components. It is a fabulous touring bike, but there are lots of much cheaper ones available that do the same job.

As for touring costs, you will have a better idea after you take a short, say, 1 week tour. Do you like stealth camping exclusively or is a motel every so often important. What about couchsurfing? I find eating to be as much a part of the cost as lodging. Do you want to cook every meal on a camp stove or are restaurants something you prefer? Buy provisions and make meals or get sandwiches for lunch?

Bike touring has enough challenges without having to forgo desired lodging and eating options to save money, especially, if money isn't really a worry.

If it matters, my tours tend to be 1 month long and I prefer a combination of getting hosted (couchsurfing and warmshowers) and motels and buying sandwiches for lunch and alternating eating at restaurants and buying and preparing food from a grocery store for breakfast and dinner. Of late, I been thinking about taking longer tours.

Ray

I'm not sure "average tour" makes sense. I've done a big variety.

This past weekend, I did a three day ride from Vancouver BC to Seattle WA. Earlier in August it was eight days cycling from Portland OR to West Glacier MT. I'm dreaming and scheming for at least a six month ride coming up and have done a ten month and twelve month trip in the past. In my current setup, it gets tough to take much more than a week at a time - so that is what the tours are at.

My guess is you'd be ready for a cross country trip in far less than 10-15 week long tours. When I look at things, there isn't as much difference as you'd think between a six day trip and a six month trip. A lot of the packing lists are similar and on that longer trip, you might be a little more inclined to mail something home or buy something along the way. I don't bring much different in amount of clothes. A six month trip might bring some additional visas and perhaps different climates, and would prepare to wear through tires and a few other things. However, not that much different.

Mine have varied from day tours to a 3-month tour. If I were to calculate an average, it would probably be some length of time that doesn't match any of the tours I've done, and would be meaningless.

As for getting ready for a cross-country trip, first it would depend which country you're planning to cross. You could cross some of the European ones in a week-long tour. But if you're planning to do a 3-month or 6-month tour, as mev says, you really don't need 10-15 week-long tours to get ready for an extended tour. But definitely do some shorter tours so that you can sort out your equipment needs etc., and definitely do lots of cycling in general.

I think you can safely quit saving money for a x-country bike tour. You have enough. Way more than enough.

$2000 will get you a nice touring bike and all the gear you'll need to stealth camp. Figure on $20-40/day for a comfortable tour, excluding gear cost, motels, and commercial transport. Biggest variable will be food cost, depending on how much cooking you do vs eating at restaurants. A x-country tour is normally completed in 60-90 days.

You're smart to start out working with what you've got and doing a few practice tours. Won't take but 2 or 3 to pretty much figure out what
you'll want for that x-country. Check out www.crazyguyonabike.com where everything there is to know about touring can be found somewhere.

Hi

Mine so far have been restricted by annual leave/partner/kids so my average length has been seven days. As has been suggested I am not sure that it means much. I hope with changes that have recently occured to add to my mix some weekend overnight rides so that in itself will reduce my average. On the other extreme I have long service due to me so hoping to complete a tour around 50 days.

Also adding into the mix is my change of thinking about my touring moving from trying to do lots in one day, distance wise to doing less and seeing more/engaging more with the world around me.

Andrew

To me, there's a difference between 'going for a ride' and 'touring'. Cycling for one to three days, usually going from one location to a close destination, to me, is a ride. Cycling for several days, traveling to see what's around the next corner, so to speak, is 'touring'. My tours have been from one week to three weeks.

>How much do you think it would cost to get dedicated touring bike, nice racks, panniers, and cost of travel for the northern tier route? <
What`s wrong with your pride and joy?

All my tours are very short- longest at six days, most are only two or three, so not much advice to give you about how many "little" ones before you`re ready for a long one. Rather than count numbers of trips and lengths, If it were me, I`d keep doing your one week tours until whatever point you feel like you`re comfortable with your methods and your gear. It might be after the first or might take fifty.

I got a visa extension, UK has a standard 6 month tourist visa,
so my march tour lasted into november,

I do alot of overnight or 2 night rides.Once a year I like to ride L.A.-S.F.- L.A. The farthest I've been so far is L.A.- Denver- L.A., about 8 weeks with side trips.

We've done several 2 to 3 week tours (Oregon Coast; San Juan Islands; Canadian Gulf Islands), and we did not train as extensively as you are planning. Usually our first 4 or 5 days involved some moaning and groaning with sore muscles and butts, but it ceased to be an issue after that. We packed pretty heavy because of camping (tent; sleeping bags; clothes; camp stove; etc.) so our daily mileage wasn't all that long. Usually rode 40 to 60 miles a day with lots of stopping, photographing, and sight seeing. Our bicycles are not fancy, but have good components. We use panniers, front and back, and sometimes pull a Bob Trailer for the camping equipment, and we always carry extra tubes and tools for emergencies. We've not rode across the US, but some of my friends did with an organized tour. They loved, so it is on my bucket list--less the tour company. Good luck. It will be fun.

Here's one tour we did in Northern Japan:

https://www.celebrazio.net/bicycling/...week/2009.html

It was 6 days of riding, mainly, at just under 100km a day.
A video up there too. We travel pretty light, which is possible in Japan. We're all working so we don't take too many days off.
Another great tour is the Japan coast-to-coast, which I've done 5 times on 2 different routes. It can be as short as about 200km or zig zag along to about 500km. I do one coast-to-coast ride which is 400km in 3 days.

Get in touch if anybody wants to join one.