Bicycle Touring & Camping Equipment Guide List

Although I have a nice Bianchi road bicycle, it is not suitable for touring of any kind so in March I went to Toga Bike Shop in New York City to buy a real touring bicycle. The staff was great and fit me to the bike and set everything up like Specialized cycling shoes with SPD cleats and rubber soles that I could also walk in, front and rear bicycle touring racks bicycle touring panniers to hold all the gear, a bicycle helmet... just right.

Before I discovered Toga, every other bike shop tried to sell me a mountain bike because they didn't have access to real touring bicycles or didn't want to bother trying to get one. Toga special ordered my bike direct from Cannondale and it only took about a week to get so hold out for a REAL touring bike. Don't accept a mountain bike, a short wheelbase road bike, hybrid or sport bike as a substitute as they are not suitable for loaded bike touring no matter what the salesperson tries to have you believe.

Loaded long distance touring requires a long wheelbase frame that has plenty of braze-ons to mount racks for the panniers-both front and back along with three water bottles. Touring also requires beefier cantilever brakes and stronger 36 spoke wheels than your average road bike. I didn't realize until I undertook the trip how much abuse the bike would take even with my body weight of only around 160 pounds. My rear wheel, as beefy as it was, needed truing throughout the bike ride due to the extra weight being hauled and all the potholes.

Here are the items I ended up getting for the bike trip:

• Cannondale: T2000 (T-2000) road touring bicycle with a gear range of 42/32/22 in front and 11-30 (8 speed cog) in the rear for a total of 24 speeds
• Blackburn: touring racks (front and rear)
• Jandd Mountaineering: Mountain panniers (front) and Large Mountain panniers (rear)
• Sierra Designs: Orion CD two man tent
• Therma-Rest: Staytek sleeping pad with the Therma-Lounger option
• Slumberjack: Superpacker Reg. Synthetic sleeping bag
• Mountain Safety Research (MSR): XGK II ShakerJet Stove
• Specialized: cyclometer, helmet and cycling shoes along with assorted cycling jerseys, tights and shorts
• Last but not least: ME!

I've provided the above list to give prospective bike tourers an idea of some of the items required on a bicyle tour of this kind, but it is in no way complete or perfect. Please note that many of these items are discontinued now, but the above list will give yuu an idea. I spent a lot of time researching and a pretty penny by buying the above items new. If I had to do it again I would definitely consider buying used on eBay and save a huge amount of money.