Road Bike Touring, and touring panniers
I would like this post to serve two purposes:
1) to guage the level of interest in touring here in Utah.
2) to learn hear suggestions of what people are looking for when buying a touring pack.
First then with the touring aspect. I love touring and would love to further discuss it within the forum. I have done over 5 months of bicycle touring in the last three years during my summers while out of school. I rode from Canada to Mexico, or border to border along the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) in 2004, and then last year I rode from Amsterdam to Lisbon, with all the weaving it ended up being over 3500 miles. All of this was non supported, meaning we all carried our own things on our bikes using panniers, or a BOB Trailer.
I would recommend touring to anyone! I think it is one of the most freeing things that anyone could do, It is GREAT!!! I plan to tour throughout my life, and may even take a short trip up to the Oregon coast this summer and bike down that, just to take a break from life!
Second, touring bags. So it be known, my motives on asking for this feedback are purely selfish, and am doing it to better guage how I should go about producing touring products. I am going to start a touring line of bags, and am looking for more ideas...
One of the things that I look for most is that they are waterproof! but I do not really have any ideas as far as what else to offer on them. If anyone has suggestions of things that they would like to see in a rear touring pannier, let me know.
Thanks,
Dale Majors
www.bikewagon.com
