Camping vs. Touring | Rivendell Bikes

Bike Camping. How it's different from touring, and why you may actually have time to do some of it. And about the bike camping gear we like, use, and stock.

Mt. Diablo, California, USABike camping and bike touring are alike enough to require the same kind of gear, but bike touring emphasizes the journey, and you stop only so you can refresh yourself and do it again the next day. Bike camping emphasizes the destination and what you do once you get there, and you just happen to get there on a bike.
If you have to work for a living and don't have summers off, bike camping is easier to fit in, and the easiest way of all is with Sub-24 Hour Overnight (S24O) trips. You leave on your bike in the late afternoon or evening, ride to your campsite in a few hours, camp, sleep, and ride home the next morning. It's that simple, and that's the beauty of it. You can fit it in. It requires almost no planning or time commitment. In the past 9 years I've done more than eighty of them, and I'm no planner.
The S24O is like the movie Groundhog Day, because you get to refine your style over and over again, without major suffering or consequences. You can take notes in the evening about what you should've brought and what you didn't need to bring. After a few of these, you'll have a kit-of-gear that works for you, and how to modify it for conditions.

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