Like John above I'm old enough to have been biking for more years than I care to remember. I've done quite a number of long(ish) trips not only by bike but also by other methods - car /van / 4x4, backpacking, fly-drive etc but over the long run it's the bike trips that stand out. It's not all been wine and roses - some of them have been disasters, but they've been memorable.

Usually if I'm planning a trip my first decision will be whether I can use a bike. Often there will be a reason why I can't such as there's four of us so a car would be more sensible or I've got a month and I'm going to Japan so it's going to have to be a plane but for quite a few a bike is the weapon of choice.

Which bike I choose has been a decades long game of La Ronde. At the moment I'm in the part of the cycle that says smaller and lighter is better than bigger and faster so I'm planning a downsize from my current hard luggage 600 single to a soft luggage 250. I've been round this cycle at least three times before though and toured on everything from two up on a Honda C50 (not a good idea) to a GoldWing and back again. At the moment I'm planning a Eurotrip on a 70's Honda 400/4 (small and light) but longer term there's a US coast to coast with my wife on an 1800 GoldWing on the horizon so that may be everything coming round full circle again.

Quite why I should be so bike centric is something I've puzzled over for many years. I know a number of people who think the same as me and others who think that long distance bike trips are more torture than travel. I can rationalise it and say that it's cheaper than four wheels and gives you more freedom than backpacking but it's equally possible to say that it's the worst of all worlds - no weather protection or security and you're still stuck with a large lump of metal subject to legal requirements. No real answer but I'll be clicking the traveler on a bike box.