I was out for a ride with some friends and when we stopped for coffee, the subject of bikepacking came up. Moments after we started discussing places we’d like to go bikepacking one of them stopped and asked me, “What’s the difference between bike touring and bikepacking?”
The first thing I said is that part of the difference is simple terminology. Bikepacking sounds hip. Bike touring conjures images of helmets larger than construction hard hats and orange flags atop fiberglass poles waving in the wind.
Of course, it’s not so simple as that.
The big difference is where the load is carried. With bike touring, the idea is to get as much of the load down low as possible. Panniers do a remarkable job of lowering a bike’s center of gravity. I can remember times when I was doing better than 40 mph on my touring bike with four panniers, coming down some pass in the Rockies and was able to sit up, drink my bottle, use both hands to peel a banana or tear open a granola bar and eat without being hunched over.
Having bags wider than your shoulders isn’t a problem because you’re riding on the road.
With bikepacking, the idea is to get the load as narrow as possible because bikepacking is generally considered a mountain bike activity and often the riding takes in singletrack. Having a pair of panniers that spread 18 or 20 inches across can be a problem on a narrow trail. And dragging cloth panniers through poison oak should be a non-starter even to those who aren’t allergic.
The one place where the load can afford to be spread wide is at the handlebar and the thinking there is that if you can get the bar through, anything attached to the bar will also get through. So that’s why we see frame bags that fill the entire front triangle or saddle bags the size of a fire hydrant. The load is narrow, if high.
The two approaches result in different effects on handling. Bikepacking setups result in a higher CG, making the bike more reactive in some ways, but less so in other ways—lots of weight up high means the bike leans in more quickly, but lots of weight on the handlebar slows steering. With bike touring, someone using four panniers can dance a jig and the bike will keep going straight. The good news is that with the weight down low, the bike is still pretty maneuverable when it needs to be, so long as the maneuvering can lean in to leaning.
And that brings me to what I think is the interesting crossover point between bike touring and bikepacking.
More and more people seem to be striking out on fire roads and logging roads, as opposed to either paved roads or singletrack. In this setting, I think bikepacking setups aren’t really the way to go. First, if you’re using panniers, you can simply carry more and they easier to load. If you add a handlebar bag, that can be devoted to food, easy phone access, spare batteries and other essentials. With bikepacking, your tent is getting strapped to your handlebar.
Having ridden both ways, I’ll say that if I were to do a bikepacking trip that involved singletrack, no question, I’d use my bikepacking bags. No question. However, were I doing a traditional tour, it would be panniers all the way. And if I were doing a bikepacking trip with no singletrack? Panniers. If I wanted to keep my load light, I’d simply run the two front panniers and handlebar bag, but if I needed to carry all the things, like tent and sleeping bag and some cotton so I didn’t look like a freak walking into a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, I’d load all four panniers.