IT ALL BEGAN 40 or so years ago when my brother and I took a three-day, two-night overnight ride in the Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin.  Neither of us really knew the first thing about bicycle touring but we were young and fit and our complete lack of experience and the knowledge it brings didn't really matter (to us).  With a couple pairs of panniers borrowed from my brother's colleagues, a bit of gear, and a couple changes of clothing we set off from his house in Madison to have an adventure.

And we did!  I still remember certain details of that trip with great fondness (and a few others far less fondly but that's the spice that makes for the adventure, isn't it?).  I don't recall for certain now whether I rode my own bike or one of his but I think it was on my Raleigh Record Ace.

The Record Ace

The Record Ace was my first "quality" bike (as compared to the bikes of my extreme youth, a Sears single speed "newsboy" type bike and Schwinn "Collegiate" five speed).  I bought it in 1979 at high school graduation and rode it extensively until I got married in 1985 and spent some of our wedding money to upgrade (substantially) to a Trek 620 touring model which I eventually christened "Scout".

Scout

Scout set the standard for what I look for in a touring bike, and to this day my opinions have hardly budged.  Had it not died a deferred death of wounds received during a theft attempt I might still be riding it and not be researching the marketplace.

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In his final configuration (I made many changes over time) Scout was steady, reliable, comfortable, and perfectly suited to my needs and riding style.

He was the essence of simplicity, built using standard, readily available components that didn't feature a great deal of complexity or proprietary designs.  (This was at a time when the bicycle industry still had and lived by common standards, rather than an infinity of one-off components made with proprietary, non-interchangeable parts with built-in obsolescence as it is now.)

A 175 mm Sugino triple crank (52/40/28) and wide-range rear cassette (something like an 8-speed Shimano 12-30, I think), Shimano Mountech II front derailleur, and Suntour Superbe Pro long arm rear derailleur drove the wheels.

Friction shifters mounted on the down tube were dead simple, virtually bulletproof, and indestructible.  Campagnolo ergo brake levers were comfortable and provided plenty of pull to squeeze the Weinmann 710 side pull brake calipers (again, if I remember aright, all these years later) firmly against the rims.

Had something gone "sproing" while I was on the road, I could have walked into virtually any bike shop in the country (or around the world) and found a replacement or a suitable substitute.

Sadly, I was apparently not the only person to appreciate my faithful companion.  While he was securely locked up outside a Metro station in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC, someone tried to steal him by yanking on the crossbar of my U lock.  They didn't get the bike but did succeed in dealing him what ultimately became his mortal blow: they dented the seat tube.

Over the ensuing decade and a half the dent gradually flexed under thousands of additional miles of riding, some of it relatively "spirited" and hard.  As when you flex, bend, and twist an aluminum drink can often enough, eventually the stress riser zone created by the dent spreads and becomes a weakness and ultimately a point of failure.  The same proved true of the Reynolds 531 steel tubing in Scout's frame.

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Odysseus

With Scout departed into the sunset on the Great Touring Road in the Sky, I began a search for a replacement.  After fantasizing for a while about a high-dollar bespoke ride, in 2007 I ultimately settled for a more budget-friendly alternative, a Bike Friday New World Tourist that I call Odysseus.

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One factor, apart from price, that went into my choice was that since their bikes are basically hand-built anyway, Bike Friday will make a made-to-measure frame at little or no extra charge so I could get what amounted to a semi-custom, made-to-measure bike at a fraction of the cost of the competing makes and models.

Another consideration was that Fridays are designed and built to simplify the problem of traveling by air with a bike, which I thought at the time I bought him would be something I'd be doing "in the future".  They disassemble, fold, and fit into a standard-size Samsonite suitcase, enabling the traveler to check and fly with the bike without any drama or oversize/overweight airline luggage charges.

As a bonus, Bike Friday offer an optional adapter kit that turns the suitcase into a trailer.  What could be easier than flying into your destination, unpacking and assembling the bike and trailer, dumping the remainder of your luggage (clothing and touring gear) into the suitcase/trailer, and pedaling away from the airport?  No taxis, no awkward transfers, no bike box to dispose of or store... just show and go.  In the extreme case, you could even conceivably get yourself to and from the airport from which your journey began in the same way.

At the time I made my choice this seemed very appealing to me, as it placed very few limits on where I might choose to go riding.  Over the years, as air travel with odd and oversize luggage has gotten both more inconvenient and more expensive, Odysseus still seemed to have been a really good choice although I've only once flown with him.  In that one instance I didn't use the suitcase-to-trailer option so, had my wife not been on hand to return home with the suitcase, I'd have ended up with a more conventional (and disposable) carboard bike box anyhow.