I tend to travel fairly light. Keep in mind this picture is from my Florida tour this past Spring. It was hotel stays so all I needed to carry was overnight and off-bike clothing in the seat bag. My left fork carried half-gallon of water and right fork had electronics, charging cables, and personal effects.

I have toured on 2 different recumbents, a Lightning P-38 and a RANS Stratus XP. The RANS is a much more comfortable ride as I found a loaded P-38 really back heavy. I currently tour on the RANS.

Over the years I've had a few.  Let's start with the late-and-still-lamented Scout, a mid-80s Trek 620 that I bought while still in grad school, with some of the cash we were given as wedding gifts.

Before Scout's demise, in 2001 we added the first recumbent tandem to the fleet.  It's a Vision R85 model built by the now-defunct Advanced Transportation Products company in Seattle.  We took this bike, "Elsie" (Lawn Chairs On Wheels), to England, the Loire valley, and Burgundy in 2002, 2003, and 2005 respectively.  These were all supported trips, so the panniers were just there to carry jackets, rain gear, food, and sundries.  Our primary luggage rode in the van the organizers provided.

The increasing hassles of traveling by air with such a beast finally induced us to part with it between the Burgundy trip and a tour in Tuscany in 2008.  We sold Elsie to some friends and replaced it with Abner, a Bike Friday Doubleday.  Abner's taken us to Tuscany (2008), Alsace (2011), the French Atlantic Coast (2012), Puglia (2014), and finally the Isere Valley in 2019.  Like our other European trips these were all fully-supported affairs so the panniers were once again just for toting "incidentals" during the day.

(As an aside, after our friends divorced a few years after we sold Elsie, we bought it back because we prefer it to Abner for general riding.  It just won't fly with us anywhere, so we have them both.  I really ought to sell Abner because our days of European touring have probably come to an end, eliminating the need for that bike.)

Stepping back a moment in time to 2007, I finally replaced Scout with a Bike Friday New World Tourist I've christened Odysseus.  I thought at the time it'd be a great way to do fly-and-ride trips, using the optional conversion kit to turn the travel suitcase into a trailer for my gear.  In the end I never did that, opting to use panniers instead.

After my month of touring on Odysseus in 2022, I became convinced that a different bike would be a better alternative for me.  After considerable research, I settled on the Phinney Ridge model from R+E Cycles in Seattle.  Their bikes are all made-to-order, so "bespoke", though I make a (probably artificial) distinction between them and a completely custom bike since the R+E approach is to begin from a standard frame size and add components of the customer's choosing from a menu of options.  They're happy to deviate from their menus by customer request, but I found their options to be exactly in line with my taste and preferences so that wasn't necessary.

Meet the newest member of my stable, Serenity.

I don't have great pics of me with my bikes, simply because I'm usually the photographer and haven't always taken as many selfies as I should have for the sake of posterity.  But I have a few.

My first "real bike," upon which I commenced doing some adventurous touring was a 1974 Motobecane Mirage;

Note the toeclips, frame pump, "safety" brake levers, and friction shifters located on the stem.  My girlfriend lived 45 miles away from my home in Little Rock in the foothills of the Quachitas near Harris Brake Lake, and even though it was hilly I could ride that distance in less than 3 hours; hey, I was young and motivated.   My riding clothes in those days consisted of gym shorts, t-shirt, and running shoes; I did lots of out-and-back overnight tours of 100 -200 miles with little more equipment than shown above.  Also note the lack of a helmet; I didn't start wearing a helmet until 1978 0r 1979.  When I moved to Tulsa in 1977 for work, I commuted to work on this bike until it was stolen.   This is the only bike I have ever had for a significant time that I rode without a leather saddle. 

Next up is my 1978 Schwinn Super le Tour.  I only recently parted with it by donating it to a good cause.  Note the downtube friction shifters, toe clips, and Brooks leather saddle.  I was wearing a Bell helmet by this time, it's just not in the picture.  My "jersey" in this picture is a Philippine wedding shirt that I wore at the wedding of a friend who married a girl raised in the Philipines; each shirt is similar but made slightly different for each member of the wedding party.  What to do with such a shirt after the wedding? - mine became a bike touring jersey, of course. 

A picture I like better for that bike is the one shown below, but it doesn't show much detail.  My bike is in the middle with the blue shower cap (storm just ended) and the yellow Kirtland Tour handlebar bag.  I'm a lifetime member of the League of American Wheelmen (LAW, now called the League of American Bicyclists but it will always be the LAW to me) so it was a pleasant surprise to find my bike on the cover in Feb 1981. 

This is getting long and the wife (yeah, that's the girlfriend noted above) says we have pizza, so I got to wrap it up.  In 2008 I bought a new-in-the-box 1981 Raleigh Super Course (lost in a bankrupt warehouse for 27 years, discovered when the warehouse operation was sold) and assembled it.

I added fenders, a Brooks saddle, swapped the narrow handlebar for a 46cm Nitto Noodle with leather handlebar tape, changed out the toe clips for SPDs, and totally redid the drivetrain with new cranks and a compact double chainwheel setup.  Here's a picture of the bike with everything but the Honjo Hammered Aluminum fenders;

I rode this bike on Freewheel 2008 and the Hotter-Than-Hell-Hundred, and used it for my daily rider for years.  It was fun to ride new old technology, but it truthfully isn't near as lively as a modern road bike. 

Running out of time, finally here is my touring bike that I have ridden on every self-supported tour since 2015;

The bike above is built on a Surly frame, but every single component is custom, including the hand-built wheels, so call it what you will.  It's a solid-as-a-rock touring machine with low gearing based on a compact double setup, and uses a SON dynohub for 24/7 lights.  I formerly used it for touring and commuting but only use it for touring now that I have retired.   

My first "touring" bike was a 1981 Italian Viner . I put "touring" in quotes because it's actually a racing bike, but when I bought it I didn't know anything about frame geometry. Even so, I took it on numerous trips for fifteen years. 

In 1997 I bought a Bruce Gordon, and have been using it ever since.

Way back last century.  Pic taken somewhere between Haifa and Afula in northern Israel. 

The bike is 1979 Ernie Clements Falcon Olympic.  Fitted with Karrimor rack and panniers. My first tour was from England to Israel;  and this was my first touring bike which I used for over 30 years.

I sold it a few years ago. 

1) Lucy in Banff National Park 

2) Lucy at the Delta River in Alaska

Love your Bike Fridays! :)  I have a Pocket Pilot that I bought in 2005, and it's been all over the world!  It's my favorite bike!! :)