Great words Alpinum.....I think deep down, that we all feel a bit like that, but I, for one, can't always do the big stuff.
For me, I like to leave my house on my bike, and return under my own power...l despise having to get a train somewhere, or driving somewhere to start a ride. I can't bring myself to go to 'trail centres', when Epping forest is only about 25 miles from me...miles of trails and tracks, plus ample opportunity to make your own!
We do the odd 'epic', as the blokes I work with call them, and I enjoy them, but all I really want to do, is leave my house, turn left, and ride my bike for a bit, sleeping where and when the need takes me. I'm limited by my work rota though (I'm a firefighter).
So, I make do with riding down to see my old mum, a bit of a mooch through Epping, and home, for husbandly chores!

I'm rambling a bit, as Henry westons has got a grip on me!

Having bikepacked Le Jog (well I considered it bikepacking) I had a lot of time to ponder what bikepacking means to me. I am, I admit, fairly new to bikepacking.

See what others think.

I recall stu’s T shirt of a couple years back “take the path of most resistance”, well, to me bikepacking is along the lines of the “path of minimum comfort”, though admittedly that wouldn’t read so good on a t shirt.

Save a bit of weight here, a bit there, stripping out all those unnecessary items of comfort that just serve to add weight with little need or purpose.

Start early, ride long, often finish late (sometimes after dark). Don’t stop for any reasonable length of time. The ride is the journey (not sat still in a cafe watching the world go by).

Many times on Le Jog I was asked by tourers how I could ride with so little, I would counter “why did you *need* so much?” Didn’t actually wear the second jersey. :)

It’s odd, two weeks on the road with very little stuff and I didnt really miss anything; back to normal life, sat in my house and surrounded by my “stuff”; makes one wonder how much of it is actually necessary.

What’s the difference between a tourer and a bikepacker??? About 5kg.

Three years ago when I did my jogle I reached Inverness, decided that I had some unnecessary kit and posted home more than I carry in total now!

If quite like to do another end to end with my bikepacking setup, so much less pain up the hills

Always educational and thought-provoking to read "what is BP" threads. Agree with much of that Asposium, especially the 'weight' bits which most of us align with. Will gently push back against the 'no watching the world go by' criteria though . For me that is part of the ride that is the journey. Two of the largest circles on our BP Venn diagram are what I call, for want of better words, the 'sport' one and the 'mooching' one. It seems I'm more in the latter circle and you in the former. Of course, one hopes, indeed assumes, there's mutual respect and room for both in our little BBB church-or-chapel which is perched on one of the outer, more eccentric, reaches of the wider cycling world . And equally there are many overlaps between our various BBB circles. So, what are the other circles..... .... tarp/tent/bothy/bbag... take-food/buy-food....maps/gizmos..... etc etc etc..

Not sure it's a Venn diagram at all TBH, more like one of those 'squirt random paint colours on a spinny-round bit of white paper and see what you get when it stops' thingies at fairgrounds.

I've a foot (pedal?) in both camps. Sure the ITTs get the headlines and you do get that "I properly pushed myself" type satisfaction but I'm equally happy to pootle around with hardly a care in the world. Yes there'll be a destination in mind but I don't have to be there for 5pm or whenever unless it's the last ferry! I'm biking head up and if I see something interesting I'll stop and watch whether that's a Pine Martin running across the road in front of me (on an ITT as it happens) or watching a pair of finches chasing a cuckoo away from their nest.

At the WRT and JennRide weekends there were quite a few from the Venn diagram "sporty" circle out for a ride with their partners presumably because they just enjoy it.

It's not so much a Venn diagram as a continuum. Yes there'll be a few on both sides of the fence who only do "their thing", but for the vast majority of us it's some sort of mixture of varying proportions.