Squeezebox

I've been here a few days. I'm a crossover from the hiker forum.
I'm an ex-road racer. I've done some road touring in the past. I've never ridden a mountain bike. But from hiking want to explore that option.
So my big question is why is there only 1 bicycle touring forum , instead of dirt touring, gravel touring, road touring separate?
Just asking.

saddlesores

most tours will include some of all of the above.

touring community is too small to segregate into subspecies.
....well, except for "those guys"....

psy

There are other forums such as Bikepacking and Bike Expedition - Mtbr.com among others to explore such subsets of the hobby.

*not sure if that was taboo to post a link to another forum but it's not one we have here so, there it is.

jamawani 

I've probably got about 100,000 miles touring - and I do a chunk of dirt combined with hiking on my longer tours.
There are endless possibilities when you add dirt - especially in the West.
Also, some parks allow you to ride fire roads - esp. Canadian National Parks.
I've biked into Yosemite, gotten the concession company to run my bike up to Tuolumne, then hiked up the John Muir.
There's a shuttle service that will take your bike to the other side of the Grand Canyon, I've hiked it 6 times.
It's all up to you.

Machka 

Too much division. It is actually better to have larger forums that are more active than a whole bunch of mini-forums which have very little activity.

Aside from which ... I suspect that most of us do a combination of that on a tour.

I can say from experience that when I spent 3 months touring Australia a few years ago, I cycled main roads, back roads, gravel roads, trails, and all sorts. We also stopped and hiked several times.

spinnaker

Agreed. This forum is all ready broken down into WAY too many sub forums. Some of those other sub forums might have some posts that might me of interest to me but I don't bother checking them as there are just too many to check. We don't need yet another forum.

tarwheel 

The touring forum isn't very active as it is. If they added subcategories, it would be dead. Besides, many tourers do rides on roads, gravel and trails.

antokelly

My god a true adventurer.that's some serious photo.

Tourist in MSN

I agree with the others, my gravel tours and road tours differed by using different tires. Otherwise, not much different.

If you are credit card touring, that is essentially road riding with a rack top bag or maybe a pair of light panniers, to many of us that is not really the same as the kind of loaded touring most of us do, thus it gets little mention here. There are occasional threads on credit card touring or fully supported touring or vehicle supported touring, but such information is clearly in the minority and a separate forum for that might be pretty lonesome.

I think it would make sense to have a separate bikepacking forum since the equipment is so different for that, no panniers or racks but instead frame bag and some other things that I do not even know what they are called. Bikepacking is pretty new and rapidly evolving, I would not be surprised if a forum here for that gets added in a few years. Because those bikers travel so light, their camping gear differs from what you typically see most touring bikers use. Many of them use fat bikes or suspension bikes, so there is less common ground with conventional touring bikes. Most of the bike packers I have seen also wear a small backpack whereas the vast majority of conventional touring folks would never wear a backpack. It is a very different style of bike travel.

More on bikepacking here:
Home - Bikepackers Magazine
Bikepacking.net forums - Index

Machka 

Even with that, I'm not sure that there would be a need for a separate forum. From what I can tell, it's not much different than the ultra-light cycling threads that pop up now and then.

Have there even been bikepacking threads started here? Maybe there have been and I just haven't noticed.

Rowan

It might appear that way, but if you do some searches for historical photos of bicycle adventurers, you will find it's about a century into it. Except back then, they carried a bedroll, a billycan, flour, tea and sugar, wore boots and dungarees and cotton shirts and hats.

Their bikes were very easy on the angles, and had balloon type tyres and leather saddles. Oh, and I think they were single speed and the roads they travelled, if they existed at all, weren't sealed.

mrv 

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/ - seems to cover every type of touring very well. And I think the keeper of that site is closely associated with the keepers of this site.
- and if you're looking to spend lots on bike-packing, this website seems to cater to those with cash: Bikepacking Routes, Gear, Inspiration - BIKEPACKING.com
The images there are really outstanding, I think.