Periodically Denis Kertz creates a survey and circulates the web link to the International Bicycle Touring Mailing List (also known as Phred). The survey is usually only available for two or three weeks and provides touring cyclists with the chance to give a bit of information about their touring equipment and methods.
This year Bicycle Touring 101 provided a link to the survey direct from the Bicycle Touring 101 home page to assist in the project. Now that the survey has been summarized Denis has provided the some summary information about the results. It's quite interesting to read about what other people use for touring especially if you are considering obtaining bicycle touring equipment for the first time.
While what works for someone else may not work for you is sometimes true, at least from looking at both the high level and detailed information in Denis's survey you can see what works successfully for others.
The following links take you directly to the results from the last two surveys:
2005 Touring Bike Survey
2003 Touring Bike Survey
The remainder of this discussion focuses on the 2005 survey results. These results are based on 187 responses, compared to 227 responses in 2003.
The results are available in a detailed, tabular listing as a web page or an Excel spreadsheet (spreadsheet does not include any names, email, or URL references). These results are also available in various summaries (eg, bike list, pannier list, gearing choices, etc).
The detailed listings are large files (sizes shown on web page) that may not be suitable for folks without high speed access, whereas the summaries are much smaller web pages. In any event, the details and summaries are both available at the above link.
Thanks to all who took the time to participate in this survey.
Here are some tidbits of interest from these responses (keep in mind the total of 187 responses):
All but 21 responses were from North America (usa & canada) and 21 (11%) responses were from women.
Most bikes were classified as touring bikes (118) with the next closest category recumbents (19 = 10%), all single bikes except for 8 tandems.
Trek (28) and Cannondale (18) were the most popular bicycle brands.
Chromoly/steel frames/forks (121) were the most common followed by aluminum frame & chromoly/steel fork (26) and 31 bikes were noted as custom frames.
Drop handlebars (121) were the most common followed by straight with bar ends (21).
SPDs (101) were the most common pedals followed by platforms (44) with or without clips.
Brooks (78 with 50 some form of B17) was the most popular saddle followed by terry (11) and selle italia (10).
Cantilever brakes (83) were the most common followed by v-brakes (49) and calipers (24).
Bar-end shifters (73) were the most popular followed by integrated brake/shifter (52).
622mm/700c wheels (92) were the most common followed by 559mm/26" (39) and 406mm/20" & 559mm/26" the most common recumbent.
Continental tires (60 - mostly top touring) were the most popular followed by upcoming schwalbe (26) and panaracer (12). 32mm (27), 35mm (21) and 1.5" (14) were the most common tire widths.
Arkel (21), cannondale (14), and ortlieb (12) were the most common handlebar bag brands (apparently 40% don't use any handlebar bag).
Blackburn lowrider (25) and tubus tara (12) were the most popular front racks with about 25% not listing a front rack. Blackburn (49) and tubus (28) were also the most popular rear rack brands.
Arkel (28) and ortlieb (19) were the most popular front/rear pannier brands.
33 responses listed some kind of trailer with the bob yak (11) the most popular.
12 responses listed the use of some form of child tow, either trailer or trailer cycle.
70% of responses listed some form of mirror.
85% listed a cyclocomputer with cateye (71) far and away the most popular brand.
Standard battery (61), rechargeable battery pack (37), and generator (18) were the breakdown for powering the primary front headlight. Standard battery powered LED (98) was the most common rear light.
Submitted by Denis Kertz
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