On a budget but want to start touring...
Originally Posted by
Cat Daddy
So I'm doing a couple of one-day cycling event rides this year with a friend of mine, but I want to start expanding my horizons into self-supported touring, starting with a couple of 2-4 day excursions.
However, due to my current financial situation, I need to make-do with my older Specialized sport/racing bike, which I bought new back in the spring of 2008…
What advice or suggestions do y'all have? What have I missed?
Thanks!
In reply to the basic premise of your thread title, perhaps you may find useful advice from this Touring Forum thread from May of this year,
“How do you guys afford the time and money and company to do long tours???”
Originally Posted by
fuji_owner
I've been dreaming of doing a bikepacking tour for many years now. But I can't figure out how to get started. I mean, I see all these posts and photos about bike touring and camping in all kinds of places.
I wonder what kind of jobs you guys have, that you can afford to take several weeks or months off. I get 3 weeks in a year, and that needs to be distributed among all the vacations. Traveling to all these exotic places means it's not going to be just a Saturday day trip.
I wonder how you came to save up so much money. Don't you have mortgages, bills and other expenses?
I wonder how so many of you have willing and enthusiastic friends or partners who go with you.
Please answer these above 3 questions. Much appreciated!.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
...In Ann Arbor MI in the 70’s I really realized the utility of bicycles for commuting, and
began touring on a five-speed Schwinn Suburban, but soon bought a Mercier [a French road / racing bike] as did my girlfriend, later my wife. We toured in Michigan and Ontario.
In 1977 we moved to Boston on our bikes, as a bicycling honeymoon from Los Angeles to Washington, DC and then took the train up to Boston...
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
… So while this [time now] is my pinnacle of bike ownership, I started out in 1972 as a poor college student on a $90 Schwinn five-speed Suburban with wire baskets that on my very first weekend tour imbued me with a love of cycling that has been my lifestyle since….