Originally Posted by cyccommute

Yes, touring is “touring” but there are different ways to do it and places to ride in. Modern bikepacking gear was introduced (perhaps “reintroduced”) by Revelate Design to fix a problem. Touring on mountain bike trails and rocky four wheel drive roads using a mountain bike isn’t amenable to racks and panniers. Mountain bikes have become race or play bicycles and generally don’t have rack mounts so if you are going to carry gear, you need a different kind of bag to do so. The other alternative is to pull a trailer which is worse than panniers.

”Bikepacking” implies a different kind of touring than road touring. To call it all bikepacking is equivalent to calling all bicycles “10 speeds” or saying that “it’s just a bicycle” when talking about the myriad of different bicycle types. While it’s possible to use a road racing bike for mountain biking, most people would find more enjoyment in using a bike that was designed for the purpose.

Yes, you can use bikepacking gear on a road bike but it’s a really crappy way to carry gear if you don’t need the clearance to ride over rocks. The load to too high. Even on a mountain bike, the bikepacking gear makes the bike a bit squirrelly.



Where else are you going to ride? Honestly, I’d rather ride a tarmac road with traffic over a gravel road with even marginal traffic. I’ve done up to 1500 mile tours. Some were a mix of dirt roads, tow paths, and paved roads. Some...probably most...have been almost 100% pavement. Some have even had parts on the shoulders of interstate highways. It’s not like I can ride up to 1500 miles only on bike paths here in the US.