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| Setup: touring is 4 panniers, bikepacking is the typical bar, frame and seat bag. Watts (effort) and rolling resistance are identical in both setups, only weight and aerodynamics are variable. Added into total time is a very modest +20 minutes per day for bikepacking to resupply. Race mode assumes less time. Times are based on modest 50mi days. |
One of my favorite past times is seeing how long in a social media post with a loaded touring bike it takes for someone to ask "how much does that weight" and "that's a lot of stuff for a...tour" .
A few things to keep in mind before I get into the actual data.
Your base gear is mostly the same for a weekend, week, cross state, cross country or around the world tour. Depending on how remote the longer trip is you may bring more repair gear, or more of this or that. But it's also likely you'll filter out some stuff that is more faff than it's worth. While some people would say that's what you should be doing to get the load light for every trip, in cycling weight doesn't matter very much. Bikes are very efficient, and unless you spend all day climbing in the alps, weight just doesn't matter. Aerodynamics and rolling resistance actually have a greater influence in most cases. So bringing that saw to help build a nice fire and a chair to sit around it on a weekend trip isn't going to matter much. But on a month long trip, having a fire and camping might not be a nightly priority. So those things might get left behind. You may also need more things on a longer (remote) trip. Like a way to charge devices and charge devices that charge devices. Like a solar panel and extra battery storage.
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| Photo: (C) loadedtouringbikes.com |
For me, I prefer not to spend time on my trip time stopping at a store. There's three reasons. Dietary restrictions, cost and time.
Even if the first and second don't apply to you, the third is actually relevant to anyone. I was listening to a podcast with Ted King and he and Jan Heine (owner of Rene Herse) brought up something I already knew from virtually any sport, or even just driving a car over a distance. Time lost by not moving is time that is virtually impossible to make-up. If you stop for a few hours on a drive, no matter how fast you drive you cannot make that time back up. If two groups of travelers start out at the speed limit, one stops for an hour the other doesn't. It's very unlikely the second car catches up without significant risk of a speeding ticket. We also know this is true in car racing. It's why having the best pit crew is almost as important as having the best driver. Pit stops matter!
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Photo: (C) Evan Christenson Insta: @EChristenson |
The same applies if two equal riders are riding together, one stops for an half and hour extra each day for food and the other just keeps plugging along, there is virtually no way -regardless of bike weight, aerodynamics and rolling resitance- that the rider who stops finishes with or before the rider who doesn't.
So bringing everything you need on a weekend to week long tour actually will have the more laden rider finish in front of the bare bones rider (at the same effort level), even at speeds as fast as 18mph, which is quite fast average for non competitive touring/bikepacking. The only rider that finishes ahead, the speeder who rides fast and rarely stops but for the bathroom and maybe a quick Coke grab out of the convenience cooler. That strategy isn't valid for most bikepackers. It's hard to do it in a race, and even harder when you aren't competing.
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| Refueling in Arlington, VT on a 65 mile, 6500 vertical gain NY/Vermont gravel grind |
Data and how I came up with these numbers:
My data basically normalizes energy expenditure (effort= input watts) over identical terrain which in this case is the Erie Canal. I normalized rolling resistance between the two riders which you could argue is unlikely to be true, but let's assume the rolling resistance difference in the real world is very marginal (it's 12lbs difference, not 100lbs) if the touring rider uses an appropriate tire higher volume (fast rolling premium tubeless, latex or TPU tire). If they are riding 25mm Gator Skins, I imagine the losses will be significant with a big load.
With riding identical low rolling resistance and used commonly believed to be true watt penalties to calculate aero losses with each setup in this worked out to be about 10-20 watts or about 3-5% lower speed at the same effort (watts).
Weight only worked out to be a few watts no matter what calculator I used, and I knew this to be mostly true from when I rebuilt my road bike a few years ago and realized dropping 1-2lbs had virtually no benefit UNLESS I was climbing the steepest mountains all day, and to convince myself that titanium bottle cage bolt and lighter seat mattered, I literally calculated best case climbing the steepest roads I could map out in calculators, I actually still have the screen shots of the 15 second savings. But when sanity caught up, it wasn't enough to fret over as a non-competitive cyclist. And when you had to go down those hills, the heavier bike actually was faster. Of course, descent increases average speed much less than ascent, so they don't cancel each other out.
The results:
- The rider at 12mph with bikepacking rig is the baseline, the rider with panniers at the same output is really averaging 11.6mph in my calculations based on aerodynamics and weight.
- For 15mph with the lighter bikepacking rig, the touring rider (with 4 panniers) is riding at 14.4mph, again, watts/effort/rolling resistance is the same. The losses are weight and aerodynamics.
- And 18mph bikepacking rig is 16.9mph in kitchen sink touring mode.
From here we can calculate time to ride 50 miles per day (average speed and miles). And compare the times. The bikepacking rig with minimal food is faster because it's more aerodynamic, not because it's lighter. However, once we add extra stops for food (and I was very conservative) the bike touring rig wins. And remember, I'm only assuming the bikepacker buys food and cooks at camp side by side with the bike tourer. If the bikepacker doesn't choose to eat at camp, these numbers increase quite a bit. You absolute cannot make up restaurant stop time, this I keenly know from long distance drives.
Eating at restaurants vs camp would change these numbers significantly. Minimum I'd estimate if say fast food was 3 meals a day, would be 60 minutes, vs the 20 extra i worked in. 10 minutes from order to reception and scarfing down your burrito or burger and coke another 10 minutes. Of course that is incredibly fast. Ordering ahead only saves a few minutes unless you can order and ride at the same time. Crashing also cost time so I would recommend pulling over to spend 5 minutes ordering.
For me, I'd rather spend the time (and money) I would spend shopping enjoying my campsite and downtime. I can also spend more time on photography, site seeing, and grabbing a beer when I want to, not because I have to...and still meet my mileage and time goals.
I also understand for a lot of people, perception is everything. If the bike looks fast (and I'll admit bikepacking bags look sleeker and are modestly faster if everyone adheres to the same stops), you are perceived to be fast. However, fast is total trip time, not perception. And the less you stop, the faster you are, and no perception is going to change that.
Looks fast(er)...
...IS faster
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