The How, Why, Where, and What I Ride Survey

[T.W. Day]

I don't see temperature as an issue in SoCal. It's never colder than 40F, so all year is riding season. The only time I didn't commute on my motorcycle between 1983 and 1992 was when I was commuting on my bicycle. In Minnesota, there are folks who can make the same argument, but I"m not them.

Websters says,

Touring
1: participation in a tour
2: cross-country skiing

Not particularly helpful. I really like "just going somewhere" for pavement traveling. All I get out of the "sport touring" designation is either a sportbike with bags (Ducati) or a regular touring bike with sport plastic and a more aggressive riding position (ST100). We have this labeling crap in music too. It's for the marketing people and the suckers who care about marketing.

[Elk]

All I get out of the "sport touring" designation is either a sportbike with bags (Ducati) or a regular touring bike with sport plastic and a more aggressive riding position (ST100).

This seems to cover it. 

I suspect those that make a big deal of sport touring are probably the same people that claim they have a sports car after buying an Audi S4 or BMW 3-series.

What did the people that emailed you about sport touring say?

[T.W. Day]

  "What did the people that emailed you about sport touring say?"

"Apparently you don't care about sport touring." And so on.

[T.W. Day]

Due to problems with Survey Monkey, I had to move this survey to Google Docs (thanks Chris).

You'll find it here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFdTRjVMYnFTcW1OU21PTC1BRmRNM2c6MQ

[Ray916MN]

The difference between sport touring and touring? I think the difference is related to what type of roads each group likes to ride.

Sport touring folks like to ride the twistiest bits of pavement they can find with scenery a secondary consideration if a consideration at all.

Touring folks like to ride the most scenic roads they can find with twisties being a second consideration or in some cases something to avoid.

The commonality is both groups like to ride bikes with a bit more focus on comfort, as opposed to performance and like to take multi-day trips covering hundreds if not thousands of miles.

Every once in a while a pure touring rider will show up at an MSTA event and complain that the route is too twisty and challenging to be fun for them to ride.

[Cam]

I am completely clueless on how sport touring is different from touring. For me, adventure touring has to include at least a few thousand miles of dirt.

It's obviously a subjective topic without any clear-cut definition, but for me adding "touring" to any riding style implies covering a long distance.  You kind of suggest that with your qualification on adventure touring.  So generally speaking, my own personal classification would be:

Touring   =   Long Distance Cruising
Sport Touring   =   Long Distance Sport Riding
Adventure Touring   =   Long Distance Dirt/Off-Road Riding

Of course, this greatly depends on how you classify the base riding styles and even how you would define "long-distance".

[vince]

Every once in a while a pure touring rider will show up at an MSTA event and complain that the route is too twisty and challenging to be fun for them to ride.

Do you remember that time I showed up on my Goldwing for a Slimy Crud or Rockton or something like that, and I could not keep up and you had to come back and find me.