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It perplexes me that in the latest magazine there are two bike packing articles, one where people ride across a remote area and camp, the other where people go off and stay in hotels.
The first seems to meet my conception of bike packing. the second I would classify as touring.
What do you think?
Is bikepacking media manipulation to sell luggage?
The difference is whether it's on Instagram, surely? 😉
Marketing...bikepacking is the current trending word for touring
If you're bikepacking, you're young, cool and adventurous.
If you're touring.... Jeez Grandpa, what are you thinking?
😉
I'm doing whatever "not camping" is, so whatever that is called. And I'm very happy to be doing so 🙂 Credit Card touring is what I'm sure we used to call it.
On one level it’s non sense. Bike packing is spending hundreds of pounds on tiny bags to strap to your bike to avoid using a rack. When it’s perfectly obvious that the rack is the logical solution. The only downside to using a rack is that people might think you’re touring
In theory bike packing is about taking less stuff and more about the riding. However hotels are in as they are allowed in lots of events.
On a positive note it’s great that people are getting out get for over nighters with their bikes
Bikepacking emphasises the bike bit.
"I'm going touring in Switzerland this summer" - with your bike?
"I'm going bikepacking in Switzerland this summer" - on the road or mountain bike?
For me either is just a bike ride that doesn't finish when you stop to sleep, but carries on the next day (and the next...)
Bike packing is streaming, touring is “I’d like to buy a gramophone “ Gramps
About 50% more £
Is bikepacking media manipulation to sell luggage?
Yes. And bikes. You can't bike pack on a Dawes galaxy. 😉
Lots of overlap.
But, for me, the aim of touring is to cover long distances, or a specific long route, over more than one day. How and where you sleep at night doesn't really matter. A premier inn just off an a-road is fine.
Whereas with bike packing more emphasis is placed on camping, ideally in more remote locations. The distance and route don't matter so much.
That's just my perception, having exactly zero experience of either pursuit.
I used to split touring into off-road touring and touring, which is road based. Both need racks and panniers, it's just the bike that differed and terrain/distance. For me, both involved carrying a tent because as a youth, anything beyond the most basic campsite was beyond reach. But I didn't care, it was great. Could go around the UK or France on a limited budget, overnight somewhere new, meet and chat to different folk. All good.
Bikepacking? Well that's something new, cool and seemingly spendy with all sorts of non-rack based luggage. But you can run a full-suss I suppose, or have the luggage weight better centred in the bike if a hardtail. Lighter probably so suits the new type of bikepacking races that have become popular.
So if you want a good few days/weeks out somewhere on a big trip, nothing wrong with a touring approach. If you want to put down a fast time in the Dales Divide or Highland Trail 500, then that's bikepacking. The stuff inbetween, but without a rack, is touring with bikepacking luggage.
I think.
Hold on isn't bikepacking evolving back to touring( sorry off road biking with mini panniers) all the luggage /rack manufacturers are pushing the new look. About time other alternatives to bungee cord and straps etc holding specialist bags on that are a pain to pack and usually not waterproof. One improvement is the bosses for bags . My take on bikepacking is that it's for broken back roads and tracks and touring is mostly roads but lots of us do both. Where do we have hundreds of miles of single tracks to weave between trees etc for days on end. Touring gear today is lighter and packs smaller and we don't need massive back panniers .
Isn't bike-packing simply the means by which you attach luggage to your bike like a back-pack but for you bike?
Whereas touring is travelling from one place to another.
And camping is staying in a tents.
So one is bike-packing-camping-touring and the other is bike-packing-touring
surely bike packing is slumming in a tiny little tent, which you carry
Touring is basically cycling between 5 star hotels
I'd say there's more similarities than differences but he common or media image of each is different.
The term came from backpacking in the 70s or 80s I think, I have a copy of William Sander's 'Backcountry Bikepacking' which was published in 1982 anyway. He rode on a steel drop bar touring bike with fairly small panniers on it but the book has a focus on wilderness camping and riding off-road tracks. The original gravel bikepacker (in print anyway)?
For me the original bikepacking and lightweight bike travel inspiration came from the Crane cousins and their Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
I know my own road touring trips these days are closer to 'bikepacking' than a lot of trips that are tagged bikepacking on social media etc but maybe it's me who's wrong in how I describe those rides - if I do the same thing but I'm off-road most of the time it seems it's closer to 'bikepacking'. I think I'm just riding, touring... camping out most nights... whatever the bike or terrain. I used to do lightweight road tours staying in BnBs I booked on arrival wherever then got into climbing which meant having some bivi gear, so started packing the bivi gear onto the bike so I could camp out.
So maybe that's the emphasis for bikepacking, the camping out.
Bikepacking is minimising you non biking kit to maximise biking fun, try descending a steep rocky singletracks with panniers, I have done it and its shit, especially if you start to lose traction and the weight at the back try's to overtake you.. Touring is allowing a modicum of comfort for non biking, roomier tent more clothes and kit ect Both have their place and I have done both. These days I do prefer credit card touring as that allows both, but if I wanted to get out into remote areas to ride proper descents I would be bikepacking, if I wanted to just take in the scenery at a leisurely pace I would go touring.
Bikepacking is minimising you non biking kit to maximise biking fun
That's a good way to put it. If so, even when I'm touring I'm bikepacking. I like minimising kit partly for the sake of mininalism, comfort levels vary from 'racing rest only' to 'decent night's sleep and a coffee in the morning', but either way it's as light and compact as possible which lets me ride further or enjoy the trails more.
Touring - on road.
Bikepacking - off road.
If you're not pushing your bike at least once a day you're touring. Or better at planning routes, one or the other.
It's all just semantics - you do you.
Those Rough Stuff Fellowships lunatics from yore were definitely bikepacking, they just didn't know it.
This is the second time this week I’ve had to think about the meaning of two terms, having never considered them before.
So for the record (as if anyone cared), I see bike packing as going for a mountain bike ride, but the ride is longer than you can manage in one day. And like the Mahalo My Dude videos, the idea is to enjoy riding great trails where possible. But out of necessity, you have to carry more gear.
The term “touring” conjours up trips where folks don’t give a hoot about riding excellent or technical singletrack, and may even spend most of their time on tarmac.
Touring - on road.
Bikepacking - off road.
That's how I think of it, and would classify mixed on/off road as bike packing. I have a strong aversion to riding off road with panniers too so the luggage is different.
Bikepacking - a way to ruin a perfectly good ride by making your bike weigh 60lb. You post inspirational stuff on ticktock* like "it's not about the ddestination, it's the journey", despite the whole point of your trip being to camp at the end of it and the ride is harder work and less fun than if you'd just gone for a ride without a small mortgage being required for your restrap bags, sierra designs "sleep system" and a tent that could survive the Rockies so should be fine in Wiltshire, right?
At some point if it's a published route someone will set a sub 24h "FKT" with no more than a tubeless repair kit and a multitool. This will upset people who thought doing it in 3 days will difficult and lead to teeth gnashing about how racing will get the route shut for everyone despite it all being on legal public rights of way and one person riding constantly for 24h is obviously less of an issue than hundreds of wild campers when you think about it.
Touring - a way to improve a rubbish ride by making it longer.
And then there's Audax, on which everyone is in agreement that it isn't cool, but is clearly more hardcore than either because your only options are either don't sleep at all, or get so fit you can sleep without missing the time cut-offs.
*instagram? What are you 30, get with the times grandad!
Can I be radical and say that it doesn't actually matter what you do, how you do it and what you call it?
the idea is to enjoy riding great trails where possible. But out of necessity, you have to carry more gear.
The MTB bikepacking paradox, as TINAS says - By loading a bike you change what a great trail is. You'll find the best trail ever on a trip yet you're on a loaded bike so you can't enjoy it as much as you would on a day ride*.
This is where road bikepackers, sorry lightweigh tourers, or whatever, have it figured out - with 5kgs on a good road-going bike every great road is still a great road.
*really, with only 5kgs on a well-set up FS MTB every trail is still pretty much as good as it is on an unloaded bike, which is why I need a new FS bike before too long.
Bikepacking is touring without a properly setup touring bike like a Galaxy. (TIC) 🙂
And both are good.
Just like '42', the answer lies at the other end of a different and.more fundamental question...
We're they on
- a gravel bike
- a road bike with slightly knobvly tyres
- a touring bike ?
(42 is, of course not only the answer to life the universe and everything, but the optimum tyre width when bikepacking and gravel riding 😎)
42 is, of course not only the answer to life the universe and everything, but the optimum tyre width when bikepacking and gravel riding
OK, Randonneur-Pops : )
(I loved my 650 x 42s for roadpacking)
Cycle touring = Stopping for a picnic lunch.
Bike packing = Chomping an energy bar as you cycle along.
Bikepacking gives me indigestion.
Any fool can be uncomfortable in a field.
One of tbe things that really amuses me in seeing folk tying dry bags to their forks so determined are they to be bikepackers not tourists but unable to get tbe weight and bulk right down All the disadvatages of panniers ( weight on tbe steering and wind resistance) but none of tbe advantages.
I've toured in all different styles. Its all touring.
Its like folk who claim to be travellers not tourists. Yer kidding no one but yourself.
Touring - on road.
Bikepacking - off road.
If you're not pushing your bike at least once a day you're touring. Or better at planning routes, one or the other.
It's all just semantics - you do you.
Those Rough Stuff Fellowships lunatics from yore were definitely bikepacking, they just didn't know it.
So using that definition on this trip sometimes i have been touring ie a road day to a hotel and sometimes bikepacking when taking my bike for a walk up a mountain or riding singletrack all day.
Same kit both days.
cycle touring is what sensible older people do.
bikepacking is not a thing really. is it just a fad/fashion.
but roughstuff-ing is what proper tough sinsible older people do.
we are in the former group, minus the 5 star lodgings. we aim for hostels and chambres. or anything around 40 euros per night.
because i am to old to be shitting in fields and stuff................ ;o)
One involves a Dawes Galaxy and panniers, the other doesn’t?
The shape of the bags.
But we used to go touring on old rigid mtbs, no Dawes Galaxy's in sight.
We also used to do the Polaris Challenge on the same bike, same rack which is by most definitions bike packing.
Blimey what we did on one bike. Mountain biking, commuting, time trialing and some massive multi day trips
Bikepacking is touring.
OK I may tour Coll and Tiree's beaches one a fatbike which requires bikepacking luggage, or take the Galaxy across France with panniers. Both touring.
Then there is the raft.
No rest days if you're bikepacking
There is no difference, it's just a terminological choice. You fully understand what is meant by someone using either term.
Just carry on with your day, it's a language choice that does so little harm that it is essentially irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, there is no need for you to be "perplexed" OP... All is well.
Then there is the raft.
Packrafting is just a weird way to ruin both a good ride and a good paddle in one day 😉
"But TINAS" I hear you cry like a straw man.
"How else would I have been able to paddle that remote Corrie lake?" You sound smug, maybe even posting up some drone shots of you splashing around on the still black water. But...
- It's a Corrie so it's windy
- it's a Corrie so the water is freezing
- It's a Corrie so all the launch points are sharp stones
- It's a Corrie so the view from water level is crap, cliffs on 3 sides and sky on the other.
- It's a Corrie so it's not actually that big and there's not actually anywhere to go, just round in a small circle.
- It's a packraft so it costs more than my bike but paddles like a beach toy
The next big thing will be pack-chuteing, you spend all day slogging up an alp, then base jump off the top rather than enjoy the descent.
*really, with only 5kgs on a well-set up FS MTB every trail is still pretty much as good as it is on an unloaded bike, which is why I need a new FS bike before too long.
+1
It's the counterpoint to TJ's "Any fool can be uncomfortable in a field.". Any fool can overpack and limit their riding.
I live on the KAW and whilst I'm sure everyone mostly has fun, and there's a difference between doing it in 2 days and doing it in 6. There's definitely polarity with some people zipping past with probably ~15l of total storage, and then those with 4x panniers trundling along. They probably both relish their decisions for 12 hours and occasionally regret them for the other 12 hours.
I had 11kgs on this trip in two medium panniers. The only thing i haven't used really is my second pan. I haven't really cooked much.
However i am comfy and hapoy camping with my chair and coffee macine and decent sized tent.( only weighs 1.5 kg)
I carry much less than most tourers and have been riding singletrack
If i had only been out a night or two i could have carried much less.
My all up weight will have been less than many with minimal kit as the bike was nice and light
Its all just a continuum of touring. Folk have always gone fast and light way before the bikepacking term was invented .
Bikepacking the riding bit is part of the fun. When you're touring the bike is just a mode of transport
Shhhhh... Don't tell the bike what you're doing and it'll never know...
I tend to think of bike packing as little bags sprinkled all over the bike and touring as a rack and a couple of panniers. Either may or may not involve camping and either can be on any sort of bike and on or off road (or a combination of both). Depending on the ride, I use an old rigid 1980's MTB, more modern HT or FS MTB's, a dedicated tourer, more recent gravely flavour bikes or even a fairly recent Ti 'light tourer/Audaxy' thing for one recent tour. *They* don't know if you don't tell em...
Not sure it really matters that there is no clear delination, the terms are largely a product of the imagination of Marketeers anyhoo...
https://kickasstrips.com/2013/12/richard-and-nicholas-crane-journey-to-the-centre-of-the-earth/
I think this book probably influenced my approach.
It's a bit like the Kate Moss'ism "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels", "nothing is as luxurious as a light bike".
"nothing is as luxurious as a light bike"
Now that is an absolute truism. I ride mainly road these days and getting the nice bikes out in the next few weeks is a joy to behold. I know aero is currently king but at the speeds I ride, whizzing along on a sub 7kg plastic fantastic after the winter grind is one of my cycling year's greatest pleasures.
I did a multi day ride in the Lakes where we stayed in nice hotels, carried all our stuff with us in backpacks and rode big full suspension bikes. Was that bike packing or touring or something else that a marketing person needs to make up a name for?
It’s marketing to make people think doing what their grandparents did seem youthful and trendy.
Gravel, bikepacking etc is marketing .. then 'Mountain Biking' would be marketing too. Something evolves into a niche and when the niche gets popular it gets a name and the marketers step in to sell to that market. But sure as wheels go round the activity came before the name in every case. I think marketers would be very pleased if people thought they controlled things to that extent but only a foolish marketer would actually believe it.
Now that is an absolute truism. I ride mainly road these days and getting the nice bikes out in the next few weeks is a joy to behold. I know aero is currently king but at the speeds I ride, whizzing along on a sub 7kg plastic fantastic after the winter grind is one of my cycling year's greatest pleasures.
Hmmm...
...Something evolves into a niche and when the niche gets popular it gets a name and the marketers step in to sell to that market...
Well I'm going to propose we get ahead of this one and suggest "Aero-bike-packing" as the next big niche, shortly to be followed by "Aero-Touring" the main differentiators being luggage capacity and CDA of course...
It's not going to be enough to count the grams, we NEED to know how draggy your Bivvy bag is when packed.
"Aero-bike-packing"
Aeropacking.. the 'ultra' participant's unsettling-looking combo of an XC hardtail with drops and tri bars plus a Tailfin rear rack?
It may be fast but I'm definately not in : )
I’m going to claim sure airpacking as my genre contribution
Much like touring except that you take a full dive cylinder with you
Well i thought i knew the difference, bikepacking means carrying a tent / camping and touring means staying hotels or bnbs.
How nieve of me. I now have no idea.
Aeropacking.. the 'ultra' participant's unsettling-looking combo of an XC hardtail with drops and tri bars plus a Tailfin rear rack?
It may be fast but I'm definately not in : )
Google did push me towards an article the other day announcing that Ironman (the only people with more questionable aesthetic fashion sense than ultra-racers) were banning the proliferation of water bottles on tri-bars and limiting it to 2l (and no more loading them down the jersey).
Which got me thinking, bar bags look very un-aero, but do they perhaps just block the wind from hitting the even less aero area around the crotch?
Which got me thinking, bar bags look very un-aero, but do they perhaps just block the wind from hitting the even less aero area around the crotch?
My crotch is highly aero, like an action man. This allows me to obtain uplift and reduce tyre drag.
According to the pros, a shopping basket is the must have bike packing luggage holder.
My crotch is missing, like an action man. This allows me to obtain uplift and reduce tyre drag.
Which got me thinking, bar bags look very un-aero, but do they perhaps just block the wind from hitting the even less aero area around the crotch?
think I recall someone (Probably Jan Heine) doing some not-hugely-scientific-but-still-a-good-attempt tests showing that bag on the front was the best aero place for it - assuming you need a bag, thats the place to go.
It becomes a very, very rough approximation of a front fairing.
Trailer is very areo. Noticably better than panniers
Surely like most things the difference is journalists looking for something new to justify their pointless existence? Might I point people to the book "Bikepacking" by Robin Adshead from the 80's or earlier. (Too lazy to walk upstairs to check inside the cover)
All bikepacking is touring. Not all touring is bikepacking.
And then there's Audax, on which everyone is in agreement that it isn't cool, but is clearly more hardcore than either because your only options are either don't sleep at all, or get so fit you can sleep without missing the time cut-offs.
Audax is where people go if they want to race while pretending not to.
Sportives are where people go if they want to pretend to race while not actually doing so.
Audax is so uncool that it is actually cool in a reverse psychology fashion. Like when a film is so bad it's good.