79pmooney

I have a really simple test for how well I planned my clothing and shelter. Was I warm enough and comfortable on the coldest and/or wettest time of my trip? Did I have clothes along I wasn't wearing? If I can say yes to the first and no to the second, I figured I planned pretty well. (I do allow that I might not be wearing a second set of underclothes that are now filthy.)

There is another factor to consider if you have gotten older. It may require more padding/pillows/comfort to get a good night's sleep, especially if you hit the hay with no alcohol in your system. Sleep is one of those things life is much better with. So there are those of us who choose more weight for that reason.

Ben

Tourist in MSN

I was going to say that I really do not want to eat freeze dried out of the pouch or use a spork with a single cup for all my utinsels, but then you made it pretty clear how you go that light. You do not even bring the freeze dried pouch or the spork.

If I have a choice between eating Clif bars for a month and eating some good food, I will take the good food.



***

In August I met three different parties of bike packers, I was mountain biking while car camping. One of the groups had to do a 6 mile detour for water earlier during the day because they were so concerned about weight that they ran out of water. The other two groups were seriously dehydrated from running out of water before they made it to the campsite. One of them, I gave him half of one of my water bottles because I was afraid he would not make the last two miles to get to the campsite.

I am not saying I enjoy carrying too much weight, but if I finish the day with one extra full bottle of water, it does not bother me at all that I carried an extra pound and a half of water for that day.

chasm54

I don't really accept the premise of the OP. Ultralght touring isn't unpopular. I've toured in a variety of styles, from an expedition tourer with 40lbs of gear, including two-person tent and all the trimmings, to a roadbike with a saddlebag weighing less than 10lbs. My question is, what do I need to stay comfortable? If I'm camping and self-catering, my enjoyment is increased more by having a decent sleeping bag/pad and roomy tent than it is compromised by hauling a few pounds extra. If I'm credit card touring and staying in B&Bs or hostels, I'll take only a couple of changes of clothing and enjoy the sportier ride. But I see no particular virtue in being spartan for the sake of it, and I'm not sufficiently interested in saving a pound or two to go out of my way to purchase the lightest possible equipment.

nun

I think ultralight is getting more popular simply because it's easier to buy bags and gear that are suited to it. Also lighter bikes are available that are suited to touring. When I've toured a lot of other tourists are interested in my set up and amazed that I have a tent, sleeping bag and stove in my saddlebag. They are most envious when climbing hills. I keep my gear weight to around 20lbs and use a saddlebag because that's what I did back in the 1970s, I never seriously considered panniers. I like the lightweight approach as it allows me to enjoy the cycling more, makes travel on buses, taxis and planes easier and also makes camping more efficient.

Booger1

Some of the places I go,I carry 16 pounds of water.....

indyfabz

If you believe those are the only two choices than you don't know anything about camp cooking. I usually eat local foods for breakfast and/or lunch and cook a quality dinner. I have never eaten ramen noodles or anything like it while touring. For certain logistical reasons, I skipped the cooking equipment during my tour of the Black Hills in June. Finding quality meals that my body runs well on was a challenge. Nothing like going to a salad bar and finding many of the items slathered in mayo or ranch dressing. I would much rather carry a full cooking kit and make pasta with something like sautéed spinach, onion, fresh garlic olive oil and some sort of protein, like sausage or chicken.

mdilthey

To quote you, Don't assume that the rest of us have to follow your system, either. Being ultralight and being unprepared or uncomfortable are not necessarily tied.

How much money you are willing to spend on gear has a HUGE impact on weight. An ultralight down sleeping bag that is of a "certain" quality and weight-to-warmth ratio can easily top $500 or more, depending on the temperature rating. My ideal 3-season bag is at least $350, though the one I use is actually a $300 synthetic (and thus, is slightly heavier).

I don't like your example with the sleeping bag. it's like complaining a tire doesn't work when you bought the wrong sized tire for your bike. My "ultralight" sleeping bag weighs less than 3lbs, but it is rated to 15º, so it's REALLY warm. It's ultralight, and it's warm. Bringing a 45º bag on a trip that is colder is user error, not ultralight failings.

An ultralight shelter, like say, the Contrail can be perfectly comfortable and resilient. Bike Grease and Coffee used one for all of South America without failure. Yet, it weighs less than a couple of pounds and stuffs away to the size of a large orange. Everyone's comfort level is different so I hesitate to mention this, but as I suffer from claustrophilia, I adore my bivy bag, and it weighs far less than a tent and packs to the size of a grapefruit, and is BURLY as bivy bags go. Totally waterproof and durable.

Cook kit: my titanium pot, pot lid, spork, pot scraper, canister stove, fuel canister, cleaning sponge, and stuff sack weigh very little altogether and pack in a little kit that is smaller than some Starbucks collectible mugs (they get bigger every year...).

I'm not refusing comfort, refusing warmth, refusing to cook, or refusing to carry multiple day's worth of food or a large quantity of water. I am spending a lot of money to optimize those processes. My touring weight went up since my first tour, in tandem with independence and self-reliance.

LeeG

Nearly all my touring in my 20's was ultralight and the choices aren't binary between energy bars or good food. Actually energy bars were pretty rare. What I did was stop at a grocery store before camp to make a picnic of a variety of foods for dinner and light breakfast for tomorrow. It could be stuffed in pockets of my jersey, bundled onto the rear rack or carried in an ultralight backpack. Same with water, I'd drink up as much as I could at the end of the day, fill the bottles, buy an extra pint or two of some kind of food/hydration then soft pedal to camp. Always made sure I had a bottle to drink before bed and a full bottle to start the day assuming more water was less than an hour away.
A Swiss Army knife and bandana makes a fine lightweight kitchen.

elcruxio

Nah. I guess people who can't make them work are just using the wrong kind of system. If you get it right, you'll sleep like a baby.
And the hammock needs to be pretty level. If it droops too much it means you only have one position to sleep in (on your back) and that's not going to work. I sleep on my side and even though it's a hammock it works fine.

mdilthey

As a frequent hammock sleeper, some hammocks give me the best sleep of my life and others, I simply cannot sleep at all in. Not all hammocks are created equal!

fietsbob

Buff is narrow focused . Its just His Opinion ..

Rob_E

+1

This is not to say that I'm an ultralight tourer. But there are enough folks on this forum cheering for the ultra-light side, that I would not consider it unpopular.

Why isn't it popular with me?

1. Money
2. Comfort
3. Experience

Money, of course, because the lighter the gear, the more it costs. Sure, I could also ditch weight by jettisoning gear, but if I've resolved to take my [insert item that 90% of bike tourists consider unnecessary here], then the only way to lighten my load is to get the lightest version of my gear. Sometimes it's a question of buying better gear or going on the trip. My penny jar isn't full enough for both (and it's heavy).

Comfort because I don't bike just to bike. I bike to go places and see places/people, and if I can't be comfortable off the bike, then I probably won't go. I consider every bike trip to really be an excuse to sleep in my hammock. I know there are lighter systems, but I've never found one more comfortable. A sweaty, cotton shirt doesn't feel good to bike in, but a dry, cotton shirt feels good to sleep in. I misplaced my pillow, but when I find, it goes back on the road with me, too.

By experience, I mean that I know what kind of experience I want to have. I could save a lot of weight by staying in hotels, but in addition to sacrificing money and comfort, I would sacrifice the experience of camping, which is one of my motivations. I could eat in restaurants or eat food that didn't require cooking, and so leave a whole other pile of gear behind, but I enjoy preparing a hot meal in camp. Getting out of my hammock and fixing up a cup of coffee in the morning is a joy. It's also more weight than what I need to carry.

So I don't think ultralight touring is unpopular in general, and definitely not on this forum, and I don't think it's bad way to go. But sometimes I want a pillow, a camping chair, a cold drink, and a little music. For me the challenge isn't in seeing what I can go without, it's about doing all the things I love, and also travelling by bike. Unfortunately "all the things I love" sometimes weigh more than twenty pounds.

staehpj1

Considering that any kind of touring is a relatively small niche in the grand scheme of things, it would be fairly easy to argue that any and all bike touring was unpopular. Since I have met hundreds of bike tourists and of all of them only a couple might barely be considered ultralight, it seems a pretty fair statement to call it unpopular.

I have found ultralight backpacking to be pretty unpopular as well.

staehpj1

Not sure what your point is, but sometimes so do I even when going ultralight. It never really occurred to me before but I guess that sometimes I have had more weight in water for a long dry section than I was carrying in gear. For me that is usually limited to a day here or there where there will be no opportunity for resupply for a 24 hours or more.

nun

I really think that "ultralight touring" is a bit of a misnomer......it's just touring without a bunch of useless heavy stuff. When I got back into touring I just didn't see the need to carry a bunch of stuff and started out with a saddlebag and some stuff sacks. Over the years I've adjusted things and by putting the Contrail tent fly and my 30F sleeping bag in compression sacks everything now fits nicely into a Carradice Camper saddlebag an an Ortlieb handlebar bag. I've never been cold at night or during the day because I have selected my gear carefully. I prefer to travel with just a couple of bags, but others prefer to carry more, there are no rules here, just preferences.

nun

I always carry 2 liters....so around 4.4 lbs, I can easily carry another 2 liters in my saddlebag making a total of 8.8lbs.
Going over Rainey and Washington passes this year in really hot weather I was ok with 2 liters in bottle cages and a coupe of soda bottles in my back pockets.

djb

this is an important point, being comfortable for a given type of weather you are going to be in. I would add "sleeping comfortably" as well, as for me getting a good nights sleep is really important, so sleeping bag and camp mat are always going to be important items to me.

I certainly know that with me, a certain amount of laziness comes into play. A for instance is footwear, instead of actually going out and finding and buying some light "post ride" shoes, I've taken shoes I already have, same goes for my tent, its over 4lbs but am sure I would sleep well in a smaller much lighter one, but just havent spent the money on a one person super light tent that I would only use a few times (whereas our 2 and 3 people tents in the family do get used a number of times in the summer).

this summer I ended up not doing a camping bike trip on my own, so just never got around to this stuff and other stuff, but as I have said before on this forum, seeing how folks have gone with less stuff has inspired me to get the amount down, but then again, I'm fine too with my usual 30-40lbs of stuff that Ive toured with going back 25 years.

Its all good, and any time spent on a trip out on a bike on nice quiet roads is always good, no matter the details.

tarwheel 

How many lbs is considered ulltralight? I rode the GAP-C&O Canal trails the past two summers with about 20-25 lbs of gear, but don't know if that's considered ultralight -- although it certainly is when compared to those with 50-100 lbs of gear.

This forum tends to focus on cyclists who do fully loaded touring. However, many cyclists ride supported or credit card tours with very light loads. Most of my supported tours have been ridden with little more than a seat bag, and credit card tours with loads ranging from a seat bag to one set of panniers.

Buffalo Buff

I had a full on tent with me on my last tour, and the one before that it was a hammock / tarp / bug net. Never camped out on tour in the rain or exposed to bugs, no idea why people think ultralight means mosquito city.

Buffalo Buff

I've toured through about 20 states now and never had even half a day where I couldn't find food. Even in rural West Virginian mountain country I could find a gas station with those ****ty pre-packaged sandwiches, if nothing else.

Can you show me a post I've ever made here implying other people nee d to follow my system? I don't recall doing so?

MassiveD

That guy isn't a real ultralite tourist, he has too much gear. Some of the fabrics are heavy. All you need is the same pack they use for the hiking strapped to the rear rack. Some people have the core load down to 6 pounds, 9 pounds can be done cheaply at the same durability levels as normal gear. The result is one looks just like half the people riding bikes out there. But I always overstate for emphasis (which is a bad habit). What I am really saying is that how do you know a guy is ultralite or not, without knowing more than you can see just passing.

I'd call this guy ultralite since he was cycling half way around the world, and he had the gear to climb everest. But maybe he had a 22" TV in there somewhere:

Buffalo Buff

You took that line way too seriously, I've cooked steaks, pizza, salmon filets, soups from scratch, roasted apples and all sorts of things when camping. When I'm bike touring, I'm more interested in covering ground and seeing cool sights than I am playing betty crocker in the woods

Buffalo Buff

Yeah man I like to eat absolutely nothing but clif bars the entire tour.

I stop by those roadside fruit stands and get fresh fruit. I buy bananas and apples at grocery stores for breakfast. I stop by delis and buy a few rolls, some meat and cheese for lunch. I grab subs and bolthouse farm smoothies for dinner. I snack on all kinds of delicious nuts throughout the day. Dried fruits, jerky, chocolate covered granola bars, etc. Plus at least one meal at a restaurant a day. Last tour I had sushi, lo mein, shrimp poboys, smoothies, craft beers, seafood gumbo, crab buffet, some amazing bbq sandwiches etc. I ate good as hell and never had more than a pound of food on me at a time.

Regarding water, I just carry my two regular water bottles, and try to never use the second one. When I'm in the middle of a big city or something I keep the second one empty, when I'm in more rural areas I always keep it full. I think out of the two weeks of my last tour I only needed the second water bottle once. I'm ok with carrying some extra water too, that's one thing I would never, ever want to run out of.

MassiveD

That's the problem, they are cheap, they are light, they strangle trees, what isn't to like about them. Except you have to be a fanatic about them to get them to work for you. I have a Hennessey, can't sleep in it. I wish I could because they about double the number of places you can stealth. But I just can't afford another cult.

Buffalo Buff

They're also nice for how small and light they pack down. On my last cold weather tour I used a grand trunk ultralight with a marmot sleeping bag, slept snug as hell. Had a tarp too but never needed it because it didn't rain.