I imagine that I’m similar to most of the people reading this. If I asked you what is the worst thing you can picture happening when travelling with a bike, I suspect a lot of people would mention a broken frame. That was certainly what I thought would be the worst thing that could happen. In hindsight though, having had it happen, it turns out that there are ways to get through whatever challenges come up. I relied on the kindness of strangers and colleagues alike and still managed to have a pretty amazing adventure.
Start with a plan, then change it
This story begins, as all adventures do, with a simple plan. For years I’ve been working on a review of the FSA K-Force WE groupset and this year a new 12-speed version hit the market. As the release timing started to look like it might align with the Sea Otter Classic, I saw an opportunity.
With Sea Otter pulling people to drive to the Monterey area of California, I knew I could find someone to take my gear with them. I wanted to test the groupset in a way that no one else would and this gave me the chance. I was going to ride from Los Angeles to Monterey to test the groupset while also taking in the beauty of the California coastline.
The only catch? I don’t have time to spend slowly making my way up the coast of California and enjoying the scenery. I needed to do it in as few days as possible. After a bit of investigation, it looked like all I needed to pull it off was two days, early in the season, covering roughly 282 km / 175 miles each day. No problem, right?
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I heard warnings about trade winds in California but I ignored that and got to work planning. The first thing I needed to do was work out the route. This wasn’t an organised event so no one was going to figure out a route for me and I started with an old Ted King video. He rode South through California once and I knew whatever route he used must have worked well enough. I found it on Strava and, while it was only a rough start for my ride, it was a start.
The first thing I did was pull the route into Ride With GPS. Once there, I changed the start point to my hotel in Burbank and started examining the rest of the route. I noticed that King had taken some dirt roads here and there, because of the RWGPS road surface details, so I looked for other options for those right away. I also needed to change the route through Los Angeles so I could…
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