I liked your contribution to this thread because it, while relevant to the thread, actually brought in touring ;-}. I have also experienced, and really appreciated, kindness from people who thought I was homeless. Of course, in Southern California, I also experience being invisible because so many people thought I was homeless.
Recently, I've been getting ready to start a tour on a Crank Forward (CF) bike, a 2007 RANS Fusion, that I bought in April. As part of that, I've been doing all of my recreational riding on that bike. I have not seen any other CF bikes in Asheville so I got a lot of questions about how I got into that type of bike. I tell folks about the Donut Ride you took me to and how Danny -?- (Moni's younger friend who Moni and I rode with on Rt 66) showed up on a RANS CF bike he had ridden, overnight, from the end of that year's Freewheel to OKC to get a chance to visit with me. That was my first exposure to CF bikes. Years later, I got to ride one in NC that a friend who has a used bike store had acquired. They are very easy to ride and very comfortable. Now they are very popular in Florida with older folks like me, So I decided to try one for touring.
I'll be leaving tomorrow, heading for Bloomington, IN which, because of good friends who moved there to live near one of their sons, has been on part of my US tours for the many years since they moved. They are both dead now, but their son is my friend and I'll be visiting him. I was last there on my way up to Canada during my 2019 tour which I chose to shorten after I developed spinal stenosis. It took a while, but I managed to get over the stenosis just before the COVID pandemic started ;-{
In October 2019 when I still had stenosis, we visited our kids and grandkids in Germany. The best way I had for reducing the stenosis pain was an hour or two of strenuous bike riding each day. Like many German now, my kids have e-bikes and I enjoyed riding them, so, after we came home, I researched e-bike conversion kits and ordered one. Now I have done three e-bike conversions and I especially like the results on the CF bike. So, starting tomorrow, I'll be heading for Bloomington on my loaded CF bike. It should be an interesting tour. There are multiple challenging factors: CF, e-bike, stormy weather, and the fact that I'm 75 years old and haven't toured in almost two years, so it should be interesting!