The summer is drifting to a close, I haven't had a vacation yet (work, work, work: ain't I noble?!) and I'm starting to get an urge to do some touring. Maybe the California gold country or, perhaps, the Oregon coast.
So, the question arose: has anyone done any touring on vintage lightweight bikes? If so, it brings up a number of questions that might be fun to discuss:
1. What is the history of touring on older bikes? Did bicycle manufacturers produce products designed for touring, or did people just adapt what they had? If the former, what was available? If the latter, how?
2. If you were planning to do a serious tour on a vintage bike, how would you outfit it? Is there a particular frame you would use, or would you modify (ouch!) one? If so, how? What components?
3. Has anyone on the list gone touring in the 50s-70s, or more recently but on pre-1980 bikes?
4. Is anyone besides me interested in this kind of thing at all? Or do we just discuss racing endlessly?
Certainly, there has been some degree of long-distance bicycle travel in the past. The US Bikecentennial in 1976 included coast-to-coast trips by large numbers of people. I also occasionally encounter a story of someone who did an extraordinarily long trip by bicycle at times when it just wasn't the kind of thing people did--for example, a guy in Pakistan who claimed to have biked around the world in the 1950s. (As it turned out, he didn't quite do the whole world--but he did get as far as Saudi Arabia.) There's also the popular book "Miles From Nowhere" by Barbara Savage, which describes a world tour in the 1970s.
As for hardware--I noticed that the Trek 520, a highly respected touring bike, was first produced in 1983. There is one on eBay right now, #3694150617. Nicely made, although not top-of-the-line components; much like the modern version in that respect. Also, a recent eBay auction (#2262121409) was for a 1974 Schwinn Paramount, modified and tastefully updated for touring.
Steve Maas
Long Beach, California, USA