Like I said earlier, this is not the case. Just a quick browse on backpackinglight.com led me to this list. Check out the "clothing worn" section.

And I'm not sure what MassiveD is on about. I work in a bike shop and know plenty of hefty customers rolling around on 16 pounds bikes. There's no reason a 300 pound rider can't tour on a 16 pound carbon bike if they so choose. And there will be a pretty big difference between a light bike and a heavy bike.

Think about it this way: You and your buddy go to tour the mountains. You get identical 10 pound base weights for some insane reason, and, just for fun, you both weigh about 180. You roll out on your "fast" bike, let's say 20 pounds or so, and he decides to take his "touring" bike which is pushing 35 with racks and fenders. If you keep the same pace, one of you is doing a lot more work. One of you is traveling light and the other is traveling ultralight. In percentage alone, the weight you must move from point A to point B (the definition of work) is a larger percentage from bike to bike once you get into UL territory.

Again, I'm not here to vote on where the line is drawn, but I think it's only fair to factor the bike into the equation.

Heck, I'd say 5 pounds at best. Right now, my aluminum 29'er is almost as light as my road bikes and a friend of mine has a FS carbon 29'er that weighs 19 pounds.

But this is a valid point. I think UL road touring is going to have different demands than bikepacking. I just did some of my list for next weekend. Just taking two 29'er tubes is nearly a pound.

So using that logic (which seems entirely sensible to me) we should also include clothes worn, that might push the boundaries up by 5lbs, cycling shoes are usually pretty heavy. I don't have any experience with 29ers so I'll take the 5lb greater weight suggested above.

So now we have the following categories

[table="width: 500, class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]Bikepacking[/td]
[td]Road Touring[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Lightweight[/td]
[td]60 lbs[/td]
[td]55 lbs[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]UL[/td]
[td]50 lbs[/td]
[td]45 lbs[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]SUL[/td]
[td]40 lbs[/td]
[td]35 lbs[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

These might seem a little high, but I think they give some room for various bike/gear/context trade offs

Here's something else you guys might like to look at. The airline conundrum.

The one area where touring ultralight really comes into its own is overseas. Many of the airlines have now imposed very tight restrictions on checked luggage -- for example, some of the airlines we are using at the moment allow you one checked bag at 20kg maximum weight.

Now, that works out to 44lbs, and around 6lbs of that is accounted for if you use a cardboard bike box. So that leaves you a net of 38lbs if you want to avoid checking an extra bag, and want to take on board only a few minor items. The current carry-on limit for most flights we have been on is 7kg or around 15.2lbs.

Those figures would seem to me to be a good starting point, and oddly, nun's little spreadsheet isn't too far form the mark.

And yes I also vote "yes" that bike has to be included in an arbitrary line-drawing on the difference between L, UL and SUL. Because of the airline travel requirements.

I don't agree that most of the backpacking folks count what they are wearing all the time and I prefer to not count it myself.

I tend to count all gear, bags, and extra clothing that is not worn all of the time when on the bike in the base weight. I count the bike, tool wedge with tools and tubes, and empty water bottles, as part of the bike. I do track a base weight, a bike weight, and a combined weight.

I have not found my total MTB rig including the bike is heavier than the road one.

Yes I ran into the "airline conundrum" flying to London and Iceland. I looked at hard sided cases and they just ate up too much of the baggage allowance. I got around it by using a soft sided bike bag that weighed 3lbs. I put as many items into my carryon Ortlieb bag as possible to make sure my bike bag was below the 20kg weight limit and use the remaining gear as padding for my bike. The airline didn't charge me anything for the bag and I don't think they even realized it was a bike. The bike bag packs down to the size of a phone book so it's easy to leave at a hotel, in a luggage locker or post to yourself at you final destination.

Ah this is where we get into apples vs oranges because I include my tubes and tools as part of my gear weight because they are carried in my saddlebag. However, like you I don't count water bottles in my gear weigh because they are always on the bike......I think this is a good argument for including everything in an overall weight. Bike, gear and clothes worn, after all that's what we are moving from point A to point B. If I was 30lbs lighter I think I's also argue for including the weight of the rider. But that would lead to segregation of the portly from UL touring, do we really want that?

Oooo... no. At least, not right now.

So right now my kit with Fargo is 48 to 50 #s without food or water (including my backpack with empty bladder). That does include tools, tubes, cages, bike lube, 3 season clothes not worn, and a rain jacket. It also includes enough calories to get me 50 or so miles, and my Nuun tabs, GPS, phone, charger, 2 sets of batteries, 8 oz of fuels for the stove, etc. and my Dinotte on the bars and Fenix LD20 for my head.

I've worked to get it to 50, without getting any crazy new gear. The Tarptent Contrail took a pound out of my hammock setup. If I ditch my Big Agnes pad for a new Thermarest 3/4 I'd cut some more. And I guess I could start drilling out my brake levers, finding a carbon seat post, get carbon spacers for my stem, get cuben frame bags, a cuben contrail, and a Ti frame. But that a rabbit hole I don't want to go down.

And I need to go tubeless. That would cut some more, but that depends on which tires are mounted.

you can totally knock that down.

if you just put a piece of masking tape on each item, and use a pen to make a hash mark on it when it used, this will quickly give you a reference as to what is actually being used.

things like a stove vs calories... that can be a tough one, especially in consideration of weather. more than likely you can simply ditch the stove and cookset all together.
lights... I just started using a Light and Motion Solite 150. its about 150gm. works well for a helmet light and definitely a rocking in camp light.

bike parts, thats an easy one, being that we are all bike geeks. I'd leave the bike part of the equation for last.

3 season clothing? unless you are actually in wet cold weather, i'd think twice about packing this stuff.
rain jacket? I know it sounds kind of crazy, but I'd think twice about this one too.

for years I've used a Showers Pass Elite 2.0
it doesn't pack down all that small.

I wouldn't hesitate carrying it, and wearing it, if for sure I was dealing with rain on the daily.

usually, by the time i get my stuff together, its fall. and then i go up to the mountains here.
lows overnight in the 20s on one trip. usually 40s. so 3 season clothing was vague, but it varies.

when i do the TD, everything will get optimized for fast / light with the exception of a few things that need to be durable.
yes, the stove will stay home. might on the next trip too. but it will be late fall with friends... so cooking will be for comfort / social.

yes, i know the tape trick. good one you mentioned earlier.
i touched everything i carried last trip at least once. save the spare batteries, extra tube, patch kit, water purification drops, bug dope, sunscreen, and built in chain tool on my multi tool.

winter touring is much more equipment intense, unless you simply avoid stopping.

I've had times when Living on The Road, where I'd carry a 4 man tipi with wood burning stove.

I don't think most backpackers count clothing worn, but the majority (but not all) of the LW and UL backpacking folks do. Like I said, it can get kind of nutty (A guy listed his timex watch on one list I saw just now). I'm more worried about the full weight of the loaded bike, myself. I think for the most part, depending on weather, we're all going to be wearing pretty darn similar stuff. I can't imagine saving more than half a pound between two different sets of roughly similar kit. There are some variables there, but when you're looking at overall percentages, it's just not going to make much of a dent. With bikes, however, you're going to see some big differences.

I won't discourage folks who find it useful to list worn clothes as well. I'm just saying it doesn't matter to me It can be useful, though. I'm pretty sure the list I linked from the TD winner was a full rundown of all clothes, but with no distinction between worn and carried because he's obviously wearing a lot more hiking in the snow vs riding across New Mexico. This would make more sense to me as a valuable metric. I just realized as I was making a list for myself that I was counting the weight of what would be in my jersey pockets.

Tell ya what, just for you folks, I'll put up my list by the end of the week with pictures and FULL weights. Goodness knows I have little else better to do.

I think those are at least a bit high. I added in the stuff I didn't count because I wear it back in and I came up with 31 pounds 4 ounces for my latest list for my mountain bike including the bike and everything on it. That is with just about all the fat trimmed, but no crazy light stuff like cuben fiber stuff. The bike has a light-ish frame, but has only moderately light components. It has 36 spoke wheels and older XT components. Everything is fairly durable stuff. I don't think it is in the SUL range, the lower end of the UL range yes.

Just had some similar discussion with myself. Right now, there is a slight possibility of rain over the weekend, so my heavyish rain jacket (14.35 ounces) is on the list. If the forecast is more favorable the day before, I'll possibly throw it out. I didn't have one on a previous list for a 3 day trip because I knew for sure it just wasn't going to rain.

The stove conundrum. I've considered going stoveless. Hot food on the road, cold food at night and mornings. I find if it's even a little bit nippy (which is the only time I like to camp anyway) I love some hot oatmeal and hot cocoa. And then after 2 or 3 years of fussing with UL alcohol stoves and Heineken can pots, which I thoroughly enjoyed making and testing, I came to the conclusion that it was just too fussy for the ounces saved. So I ended up picking up a really light cansiter stove and a tiny solo pot with a nifty cozy plus lid that made it double as an insulated mug. Total difference in weight was 2 ounces (including a full load of fuel for each setup) and I'm much more likely to use it now that it's less fussy. But still, it's about a pound that I could do without if I was shooting for super simple and planning on getting hot food on the go. For now, we'll call it a comfort item.

adding the weight of the bikes into a weight restriction where most peoples' bikes will eat up half the weight allowance.

people could get stupid and ride 16 pound bikes for touring to try to carry more gear.

that metric of bike weight would be too much of a percentage of total gear allowance to compare how people pack light, what is UL and what is SUL.

it's all really academic (pedantic?) anyway - i've never weighed my stuff! because i'm not that concerned with tallies and lists of gear, etc...but

By riding a carbon bike, you could carry jeans, a three pound tent, and still be considered UL.

including bike weight in the gear list is too weighty a matter.

Yeah, I thought I was being a bit generous.

Sounds kind of awesome. Do you have a link to said list?

Isn't that the point of all the tallies and graphs? Something to occupy you when you're not touring?

Maybe the cutoffs should be based off a 'normal' touring load. The weight of four Ortleibs, an MSR Whisperlight, a two person tent and all the other 'classic touring gear.'

I think that Touring is ultimately up to the individual.
the experience is each their own.

as to UltraLight, it seems that its another one of those elusive goals.
that perfect moment so to speak
or
the holy grail... well... maybe.

just as in many other things in life, we each have a certain point where we as an individual can go to.

for me, touring in the california summer months, I can manage to sleep directly on the ground for a couple of weeks.
snow, rain, and lack of immediate convenience, pushes the necessities to other areas, such as gear and food.

for me, a perfect UL setup is when I use every piece of equipment every day, and its the bare essentials.
when gear, fitness, and focus all come together.

there certainly have been times when laying on the ground, I can not settle into a sleep, wishing for an air mattress.
when you can manage to eek out the calories to a thin line
when your gear load is perfect, and exactly suited to the condition...

You reach the point in the end. There is a difference between the weight of bikes. Bike shops of course, are in the one size fits all business, as stock requires. But if you build from tubes there are differences by rider weight, and they do add up. Not all that heavily, but in a game of ounces there are differences.

You are right. It depends what these terms are here to do. I think the backpacking case there is an assumption among the cognoscenti that lighter is better because a lot of skill, planing and gear innovation goes into getting to these numbers, and in the early days, it was/is mostly do it yourself work. Against that frame of reference adding in bikes that you just bought at the LBS will only cloud the issue. My sense is we are trying to provide a focus on what loads can be. If the only reason one is highlighted over another is that the guy took a racing bike rather than an MTB, then the lesson value is lost.

Yet another frame is athletic. It is admirable to manage your load, but in a handicapping sense, the lighter loaded guy is a wuss for having left behind the kitchen sink. If we want to highlight that aspect, then it should be the all in weight.

I don't care much either way, but I do think that before jumping on some number we should be clear on what part of the whole thing we are focusing on.

For sure, but whether that should be one number, two, or more, is another mater.

Also, bikes are expensive. If we overplay the all up weight thing, people will be discouraged that they don't have a ton of money to spend on a super bike, and possibly be deterred from the whole thing. There is more to be gained by taking the 60 or 80 pound load down to 20, than anything that will happen with the bikes. And if we make it an ultralite bike required to play thing, we will push a lot of people off to one side.

you should easily be able to bunny hop an UltraLight touring bike.
in the dirt you should be able to easily maneuver the bike/gear just as you would expect to a XC bike.
you should be able to easily pick up the bike and walk across/over things like fallen trees, etc...
you should be able to shoulder the bike and have one hand free, and comfortably walk with the bike, while going up a set of stairs.

for all intended purposes, if you can do 100 miles of dirt in 12hrs, an UL touring dirt bike, you should be able to come close to that same outcome.

on the road, if you can do a century with 6000ft of climbing in 8hrs, you should also be comfortable with a UL touring road bike.

The dividing lines on weight for the backpacking crowd were not arbitrary. They came from trying to grind out all excess weight. Then new materials and efforts were expended and SUL became possible. To base our needs on what airlines (which ones) do, is arbitrary. They keep moving the bar. Also, many people do not fly for their trips, so it is irrelevant to them. And it relieves pressure to go beyond airline established numbers once they are reached. Anyone who wants to use various levels and packing lists to prepare for a trip were they fly should have no difficulty.

I'll roll another curve ball at your guys seeing that some discussion is centring on bike weights.

Go fixed gear or single speed. You save the weight of the shifters, convert the handlebars to bullhorns and use bar-end brake levers, there are no derailleur and cable weights. I've got no idea right now how much weigh that would save, but a pound or two, I would imagine.

FG touring is great fun (I've done it in Northern Europe with a relatively light load).

I noted in a thread in the Long Distance Forum that I am considering this route with a cheap but not Chinese CF frame when I get back to Australia.

Yes, the bar is moving all the time with airlines, and it does indeed depend on which ones you travel with. When I first started travelling by air, I think the upper weight limit was 32kg for most airlines. Then some went down to 23kg, and now quite a few are at 20kg.

But then, choosing 20kg, while arbitrary, is no different to the UL and SUL crowd choosing their limits, either. Someone had to decide, arbitrarily, where the cut-off points were.