fishboat

It's been a long winter for the last month already.

robow

I for one am proud of the boys, it's not easy dragging out a topic like this for 4 pages and still not reaching a consensus. Maybe by 5 ?

CargoDane

Nah, can't be bothered anymore. Some people very much wants commonly used terms in use for a wide variety of things to have only a very narrow definition - to the extend that they try to argue that it is the people using it in that very narrow definition that coined the term.

cyccommute 

Perhaps their attitude has something to do with it being a parked domain now.

We can have discussions about how much stuff to carry and how to carry it but if someone else is carrying your gear, it’s “supported touring”. If you carry your own gear from a tooth brush and a credit card in your back pocket to pulling a camper trailer behind the bike and/or living off road kill, it’s “unsupported touring”.

saddlesores

luggage? in terms of cycling? there are two options.

1. duffel bag or suitcase you throw in a van on a supported tour, or

2. hard case ya packs your S&S frames in to save, ummm, airline luggage fees.

Happy Feet

Yes, but we don't talk about luggage in terms of the bags we put on our bikes, even though, as Dane points out, technically they could be considered such by a random cyclist, as luggage is just the word one uses to describe something you put your travel stuff in - however, within the community we wouldn't traditionally use that term. Other than cycling, who ever uses the word "pannier" or can even pronounce it. Yet that's what we call our luggage.

Another example of cycle specific terminology is the use if the word "saddle" instead of seat. Most every other example of the place you sit on an inanimate object is called a seat. A saddle is something one puts on an animal. Yet in cycling we refer to the seat as a saddle, even though it is positioned on a seat post within the seat tube.

Clipless pedals have clips that we clip into. Older riders remember the origin of the terminology but every once in a while a new person gets totally confused by specific use of the terminology within the community.

Makes no sense other than some words or phrases are employed by user groups to indicate specific sort of things within that group. As I was merely trying to point out, a fully loaded touring rig, as described within the community, generally means a certain sort of thing and not just any design filled to capacity. Dane is stuck on the literal interpretation most likely because he hasn't heard the term used coloquially.

robow

How about this, which takes the "luggage" question out of it.

Unsupported= you're on your own if things head south
Supported= there's the potential of a van or SAG following that can come to your rescue if needed

mev

I guess that excludes a lot of Canadian cyclists

djb

this whole thing makes me laugh.
I go on a british bike forum sometimes and recently, some guy put up a thread basically asking what to do and what to wear when one stops at a cafe and has to be outside and its cold?

the interwebs is a hoot sometimes.

Doug64

There is a bike review article in the Dec/Jan issue of Adventure Cyclist magazine using the term "fully loaded " in the context that many of us understand the term. The sentence is at the top of page 42, left hand column.

There is also a letter from a reader, Literary Anarchy, that could have been written for this thread-- page 57.

alan s 

Supported bike touring is for wussies who can’t carry their own stuff. Real men, women and children carry their own stuff.

RohloffRoller

Don't disagree.

IPassGas

Unsupported biking...

djb

hey, I just saw winkies!!

Miele Man

To me "unsupported" means I'm on my own when riding or touring. I'm responsible for all my food and shelter and cooking and any minor repairs to anything.

Cheers

Miele Man

Or for folks trying bicycle touring for the first time or two to see if they like it? LOL VBEG

Cheers

indyfabz

Then there are things like Cycle Oregon 2002. We crossed the entire state in 6 days of riding, with one rest day. The night after the first day of riding we camped on a cattle ranch with dried cow pies everywhere. Got down below freezing that night. Ice on my tent fly and poles. I did the 114 mile option on day 3. Someone died on the long climb of the shorter route. Day 4 was a century for everyone. I ended up averaging over 90 miles/day.

robow

That's not happening for me anymore. I hate getting to camp and being so tired that I find it difficult to even set up my tent.

indyfabz

But it was fully supported.😀

GamblerGORD53

Last July I found a young couple doing a way overboard unsupported 2 week ride, when I was riding a century.
They were stopped by a gas station, so we chatted about both our tour bikes. He had a Marakesh long TT. He was riding where there's a town just about every 25 miles. They said they were carrying all the food for the 2 weeks. LOL. Practicing for a world tour I think. So I ended up trying to lift his bike by the seat tube. It wouldn't budge a mm. LOL. 5 years ago I could lift my 120 pounder over a 2 foot high wire in Vietnam.

Then I started thinking I want one of those frames. I found out they quit making them last year. Bugger.

staehpj1

Wow, That would definitely make me decide against doing a trip if carrying that much food was in the plan. I know that in these pandemic times it would avoid the need for contact, but even packing very carefully two weeks of food has to be over 30# per person and more likely over 35# and that is packing as if for backpacking. Different strokes and all that, but I'd find riding with all that to suck and if I was unwilling to put on a mask and shop every few days I wouldn't be touring (I'm not).

I tend to avoid becoming a pack animal at all costs. When backpacking I avoid carrying more than 4 days of food and try to travel where water is available frequently. Bike touring I don't carry more unless I have to. Canoe tripping I still don't typically like to carry a lot, but am more likely to especially if there are no long portages involved. Rather than get overloaded in one activity I might switch to another or even switch to some kind of day tripping if I need to. As a result, during the pandemic I have just been walking and paddling my canoe locally. We have been looking at some overnight and longer canoe trips, but I am not even looking at any bike tours at the moment, maybe late 2021. I might be considering bike tours, but for some reason for anything less than 1000 miles or so I'd rather just do day rides or stay home. I am weird that way.

mev

There aren't too many places in the world you would need two weeks of food... unless you were off-road backpacking or similar.

I've cycled around Australia, across Russia, across South America and unless you were cycling outback regions of Australia (unpaved) it would be tough to find spots in any of those places requiring more than four days of food across a long gap with nominally paved roads. Largest amount I carried was eight days worth to get me from Prudhoe Bay to Fairbanks but even in that case, I could have worked things to require less food to be carried.

Generally speaking, I don't need much more for a multi-month trip than I do for two weeks of cycling. Clothing gets washed, food gets replenished. For shorter arid period water can be heavy particularly if it becomes hot. Also finding high-quality spare parts can be concentrated in larger cities and getting clothing for very extreme weather. However, after making checklists for a extended expedition, I can reuse them for shorter two week trips and find myself still carrying many of the items on the list.

andrewclaus

I know a guy here in Colorado who has hiked the 500-mile Colorado Trail unsupported. Though one can walk into several towns along the way (Breckenridge, Leadville, Silverton), hitch into several more, and get mail drops at several on-trail locations, he eschewed all those and carried something like 50 pounds of food (and burned off 20 pounds of body fat). The really crazy thing is, after doing that, he's thinking of attempting a yo-yo (round trip) unsupported hike some year soon. He knows he probably can't do it, with a 100 pound food load, and I think it's bat-**** crazy, but it gives him a goal and a purpose. There's no competition or recognition, he just wants to try it.

Trips like this are why for some there's an important difference between "unsupported" and "self-supported."

Pratt

Unsupported = Not wearing a jock?
(See IPassGas above)

dgodave

"Unsupported".

Thats when no one approves of you taking off and going bike touring.