Hydrate

Will riding a loaded touring bike affect your overall speed when it comes to regular road riding on a striped down road bike

Caretaker

I've read this post a couple of times and this is what I think you're trying to ask. "Would cycle touring affect my chances of winning the Tour de France?"

No.

Hydrate

Well put
Next year Ill do my first loaded tour and win the Tour de France
Thanks

Caretaker

If you're not loaded you're not touring. Just my opinion.

ijsbrand

Any tour on which you'd spend several hours a day in the saddle will improve your cycling condition. Chances are that you'll ride as fast on a loaded cycle after a week as you did before, unloaded, in training.

muu

Think of it as weight training, only a little more fun.

If you're asking whether everything you carry will slow you down, it's much less about weight and more about drag imho. I can stuff my Carradice bag I stuck on my roadbike to the brim with 20lbs of stuff and it still feels faster than a set of empty rear panniers.

Hydrate

I figure definatly make you stronger
Just wondering when you go out with a moderatly competative group ride on the weekend when your not touring

Hydrate

Caretaker, when you say loaded you are referring to the bike correct

10 Wheels

I have done it.

It will make your stronger with higher endurance but not faster.

Caretaker

Definitely better preparation than watching TV.

Hydrate

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is knowing not to use it in a fruit salad
Lots of Wisdom here
Thanks

Caretaker

Yes.
I'm certainly not 'loaded' in the financial sense.

raybo

This is the best line about bike touring I've ever read!

Hydrate

Nor I assume in the intoxicated sense

sathor

It depends on how you load it to. I once went downhill with my kids in a bike trailer and a nasty headwind, all 230 pounds of me on a 45 pound bike and just under 100 pounds of kids, and all I could get up to was 5 mph. DOWN HILL. so, pack wisely.

fietsbob

It would be equal if ..
1 flat, and 2, mass and gravity were made zero,

given gravity retains the atmosphere
breathing would be brief.

kayakdiver

My feeling is this..... My touring really helps endurance but really does hurt my speed. Riding fast is about riding fast, I tend to ride much more relaxed and at a lower heart rate when touring than when on my local fast group rides. After going on a long tour I find myself suffering much for a few weeks until the speed in the legs returns.

Is this what you are asking OP?

antokelly

Hydrate imho yes it will make you much faster, when i get on my carbon road bike after been on my loaded or even unloaded thorn i get the feeling on a motorbike , a good road bike consists of faster wheels true racing frame lighter everything yes you will go faster .

LeeG

and...? You should try finishing your thoughts. Touring will not make you a bike racer. Touring will not help you ride a 25mph paceline. Touring will not help you sprint. Touring will not help you put out anaerobic efforts recover and do it again. Touring will not help your bike handling in tight groups. Touring is not training for peak performance.
Touring can provide a base to build on, but touring in and of itself isn't an adequate base for fast riding. To do that you have to ride fast, then ride faster, then do it again after a recovery period of minutes, hours or days.

acantor

I have never paid close attention to my riding speed. I don't have a speedometer on my bike, although I sometimes estimate average speed by dividing distance by time. But it's not exact. "Hmm, according to the road signs, I just covered 32 km, and it took 3 hours and 30 minutes, but I stopped for about 30 minutes to eat apples and skip stones, therefore..."

More weight makes it harder (and slower) to climb hills, but seems to have little or no effect descending hills. It takes a little more effort to get up to cruising speed with a heavier load. Air resistance is probably a factor, too, although my guess is that the arms, torso, head, and legs account for more surface area than one's panniers. (But aerodynamic drag is proportional to the square of velocity...)

So in purely physical terms... more mass means more work... it's harder pedaling against gravity with a heavier load... bigger panniers means a little more frontal resistance which could increase drag...

But I don't care. As long as I am having fun on a tour, I am not thinking too much about the weight.

djb

are you guys kidding, heck ya it makes you stronger and faster!
I have lots of memories of being on an unloaded bike after touring and going, "what, no more gears to shift up into?"

or doing a hill that I regularly do, after a trip, and being able to do it 5 times instead of being pooped after 2.

I look at it simply that your legs get stronger--but as someone put it simply before, its training and you put in a lot of hours, and work hard at it, hence are stronger, hence faster.

B. Carfree

+1. With the caveat that if your tours involve riding very slowly on flat terrain for short distances like fifty miles per day, you may not get much performance benefit. If you can enjoy touring while riding all out for part of the day, stick to the hills as much as possible and are good with daily centuries, then you will end the tour stronger, faster and with better endurance.

There is no "right" way to tour. What I enjoy would be awful for most people. What others enjoy about touring often leaves me cold. It's all good.

imi

Well yeah, after a tour I am faster and stronger when I get back on my unloaded bike.

On the other hand I've never met Lance and the other pros rolling through France with 40 lbs of camping gear in order to prepare for the TdF

So I imagine there are better ways for them to get faster...

DIFFO

I managed 630km in 3 days with full touring kit / camping kit in Scotland this year to ACP regs on a audax

About 12 hours a day. OK my bike is a decent audax bike and I had one of the lightest tents / kit I could get my hands on though Im no super hero cyclist !

With the training I must say I hardley even noticed I had two small Carradice pannier bags and a small Carradice saddle bag. :O

jamawani 

My favorite affect is leather and spiked heels.
Its effect on my speed is quite amazing.
(Loaded or unloaded)