Tandem Cycling - Disneyland or BUST!

hey all,

so i thought i'd start a thread on my quest to do a long touring ride with my family on our trident periscope from the SF bay area to disneyland this october. i say disneyland or bust and i mean just that, i'm not quite sure my girls are up for this adventure but i'm determined to make it happen and to get them both outside of their comfort zone.

we still have a few training rides to do before i start booking hotels so we may bust just yet but so far they are still in for the whole idea and we're all excited to make it happen. i'm not worried about my ability to make the trip, i'm no killer cyclist but i'm in the best cycling shape i've been in in a long time and although i've spent most of my saddle time on a mtn bike i've always had the wanderlust to do bike touring. i recently did my first solo weekend tour from SF to monterey for the MotoGP races and i really enjoyed it. i plan to allow for a good amount of time for the ride so we can take it slow. hoping to average about 50 miles a day while taking days off roughly every 2-3 days.

so this thread will show my prep for the trip for both us and the bike, and hopefully if we get our sh*t together it will chronicle our ride down the pacific coast bike trail.

i'm open to all suggestions and feedback about setup, route and gear. i've decided i don't want to take a bob trailer so we will be fairly limited on luggage space. we will have the typical ortlieb bags in front and back along with a front handlebar bag for me and large duffel for the top of the rack. my wife is going to attempt to make a large frame bag to fit in the middle of the bike, i'm excited to see that come together.

since i feel most threads without pictures are boring, let me start this off with a few pics of my first steps of prep.

step 1: get a rear rack, seems easy right? well i found one, but the short seat stays on our bike meant that i had to fabricate custom brackets for it. it was easy enough to do and i have access to a nice shop with powdercoating equipment so they came out super nice and the rack is very solid...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3409.jpg

step 2: address my wife's first and biggest concern about the trip...our saddles. i had tried out a brooks swift saddle on my cyclocross/road bike and i admit i didn't fall in love. they take a lot of adjustment to get right and the swift model is especially stiff. but i read a lot of people not liking the swift and loving the b17 so i took the gamble and ordered three saddles for us, one sprung b17 "flyer" for me and two b67's for the girls. they both were very skeptical when they felt the saddles out of the box, but thankfully we all loved them after the first ride. the b17 is way nicer than the swift in my ass's opinion

that said, there was one unforeseen problem with them. the sprung models have a cross brace at the bottom of the springs and these hang down fairly low so they were causing interference with my wifes stoker stem. meaning i'd have to move her bars down like 1/2" or more, which would not make her happy. so i went to OSH bought some steel rod and shaped a new cross brace that has an arch in it to clear her stem. it came out great and worked perfectly. i shaped it with nothing more than a table vice and a few misc tools. since i was going to powdercoat it black i decided to mediablast the chrome springs and hardware from the B67's while i was at it so i could powdercoat them black to match my B17. i was bummed that the powder i had was a bit glossier than the brooks rails, but it's hardly noticeable and i'm very happy to have them matching now.

powedercoating...
http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3744.jpg

the new cross brace on the bike...
http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3785.jpg

B67 springs and hardware now black...
http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3786.jpg

the seats look great on the red trident. we have named our bike The Hogwarts Express (since it's a big red train of a bike) so the brooks go great with that theme. i've got some faux leather bar tape on order that matches the brooks to further the classic look. the brooks tape looks great, but with 3 bars to wrap i'm not buying $200+ worth of bar tape!

for those who missed the pic in the photo thread here's the whole bike and my stokers on our first training ride. 16 mile loop on 1 and stage rd, 1500 ft of climbing.

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/highway1.jpg

anyway, that's it for now. i'll show off the tape when i get it. until then i'll be pouring over my Adventure Cycling maps.

Sounds like you have a neat adventure ahead of you and I look forward to seeing how things shape up for you. As far as the Brooks saddles, their comfort over a long ride is really hard to beat as far as I'm concerned. I especially like the way you dealt with the clearance issue caused by the brace on the rear of the sprung frame. That is a neat solution to the problem and is nicely executed. :thumb:

Quite the adventure. Have you done any long distances on the trident yet?

Quite the adventure. Have you done any long distances on the trident yet?

nope, nothing long distance yet. only local rides that are like 20 miles or so. we're going to do a few longer day trips in the next couple weeks to see how they hack it. i tend to be a "go big or go home" kind of guy :)

I admire someone who is handy with their hands and tools. Good job on the mods you've made so far!

Adventure is an important part of my life. I think it makes life worth living, and it brings families closer together. Balance that with the idea that if your girls aren't smiling at least 2/3 of the time, you're doing something wrong.

Best wishes!

I admire someone who is handy with their hands and tools. Good job on the mods you've made so far!

Adventure is an important part of my life. I think it makes life worth living, and it brings families closer together. Balance that with the idea that if your girls aren't smiling at least 2/3 of the time, you're doing something wrong.

Best wishes!

thanks! i totally agree that adventure is an important part of life and i would say it's probably one of the biggest thing i want to instill in my daughter. so far i think i've done a good job at that. three years ago we sold our house and moved into an RV and have been travelling the country ever since. even though we've been to many places and seen many things i'm looking forward to slowing down and seeing thing by bike. my daughter is pretty excited about the trip, almost more for the idea of camping every night than for dland.

this weekend we're planning on doing a longer coastal ride, maybe half moon bay to pacifica and back. the one thing i learned from our first longer test ride is that i'm going to start us out on the coast. we're currently staying in the SF peninsula and getting to the coast means a 2600-3000ft climb to get to the coast. as much as i want to ride from our doorstep i think making the first day the steepest and tallest climb of the trip might be very bad idea. the current plan is to start in San Gregorio at 1 & 84 it's a junction that has some meaning to us since it's where i met, proposed and married my wife (on the beach) :)

so one feature i wanted to add to the bike was some water cages for my wife in the middle stoker position. since we plan on making a frame bag for her section of the bike frame that leaves her with no place cages. i had bought a Profile double cage seatpost mounted setup for my ride to Monterey and it looked like it would fit between us on my seatpost. however when i went to try it i realized my post was too small for the bare Profile mount and too large for the standard adapter bushing that Profile includes with the kit.

so i hit the shop today to make a new bushing that fits my seat post. the aluminum stock i got had the perfect O.D. so i just had to bore out the middle. sadly i got the bunk lathe (someone beat me to the better one) and the inside bore turned out a bit lopsided and i didn't have any extra meat on the outside to just go with it and make it all evened out. no biggie, it still fits and works well.

here's my new bushing and the original bushing, should have gotten larger stock so i could have made a lip, oh well...
http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3793.jpg

mounted on the seatpost, we'll see if it works tomorrow
http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3794.jpg

going for a 30 mile ride tomorrow to see how the crew holds up, i'm praying for some sun on the coast...but i'm not holding my breath :)

I haven't done a ride down the coast, but have read several pre-ride and post-ride reports. It should be quite an adventure. One thing I noted in others' write-ups was the sparsity of motels and such and I noted your mention of "booking hotels" so I'm sure you're already working this part of the problem. Good luck!

I haven't done a ride down the coast, but have read several pre-ride and post-ride reports. It should be quite an adventure. One thing I noted in others' write-ups was the sparsity of motels and such and I noted your mention of "booking hotels" so I'm sure you're already working this part of the problem. Good luck!

yeah that's true, i meant mostly the hotel at disneyland. for the rest of the journey will most likely just camp or stay with friends. my daughter is super stoked on the idea of camping, although i'm sure my wife would appreciate a real bed and shower every now and then.

well our ride last weekend went great and the girls held up well to the longer ride. adding the seatpost mount bottle cages to my seat worked well for my wife, although we had to get the shorter regular sized bottles...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3798.jpg

the trident is a bit of a bike rack hog :)
http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3801.jpg

here's the crew looking happy to be nearly to the end...
http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3804.jpg


sadly this long weekend has hit us all with a cold so no rides this weekend. i did however get some time to add the brown Charge tape to all the bars and i'm really happy with how it came out. wrapped over the existing tape for the stokers but only did a single layer for me....


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3862.jpg

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3863.jpg

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/IMG_3865.jpg

Congratulations on the ride. And you've outfitted the quad beautifully!

check it out, before i had modded my Brooks saddle so my wife's stoker stem could go up higher i had emailed Brooks to ask if it would be ok to fabricate a different shaped piece. they didn't respond fast enough so i just did it, but they finally got back to me and when i showed them what i did they posted it on their blog...


http://blog.brooksengland.com/wps/brace-yourself-for-andrew-payne-problem-solver/


the writing style is a bit dramatic, but it's amusing :)

as for our dland trip, so far it's still go. we got dragged down with work and being sick so we haven't been riding, but i've been working on the planning. here's what i have planned out so far, we're going to start in La Honda, which is a bit inland, just south of half moon bay (we board our dogs there and used to live there, will keep car at friend's house)



54 miles
La Honda -> Capitola
sleep @ New Brighton SP


45 miles
Capitola -> Monterey
sleep @ hotel?


37 miles
Monterey -> Big Sur
sleep @ Pfeiffer Big Sur SP

* rest day *


48 miles
Big Sur -> Plaskett Creek
sleep @ Plaskett Creek CG


36 miles
Plaskett Creek -> Cambria
sleep @ San Simeon SP


52 miles
Cambria -> Pismo Beach
sleep @ Oceano CG? or Pismo SP?

* rest day *


44 miles
Pismo Beach -> Lompoc?
sleep @ hotel?


56 miles
Lompoc -> Santa Barbara
sleep @ hotel?


54 miles
Santa Barbara -> Malibu
sleep @ Point Mugu SP


36 miles
Malibu -> Santa Monica/Venice Beach
sleep @ hotel?


46 miles
Santa Monica/Venice Beach -> Disneyland
Disneyland!

i tried to keep the days short on miles, but it's a bit tricky since there isn't always a good place to stop. any tips or advice on these sections? looks like Lompoc -> Santa Barbara is the biggest climb, but just over 1000' doesn't seem horrible. it always looks worse on the adv map's elevation profile. would love any tips on where to camp or stay.

Sounds like a great trip Droo... and the bike looks beautiful!
Brent

thanks brent! we got over being sick and doing some travelling for a wedding and finally got to do some more riding on the bike today. i sort of threw them into the fire and we did a 50 mile ride. it was maybe 10 more than my wife (Silvia) was ready for, but i think on a touring day she could handle 50 a little easier. we got a bit of a late start so our breaks were relatively short and near the end we were chasing sunset. we went along hwy 1 from pescadaro to davenport and back. it was nice and sunny for most of the ride which was a welcomed change over our last coastal rides.

so this was our last go/no-go ride for the Dland trip and so far i think it's still a go. it's funny our daughter complains about going for the rides but always seems to be having a blast when we're doing it. so i think she's ok to go. Silvia was a bit worn down by this ride which has me a little worried, but i think we're going to look at extending the ride down to include another rest day or maybe two short days back to back. the hard part about the coast is sometimes there just isn't much to stop and see 40-50 miles between two points. today was really fun tho, saw lots of wildlife, including an owl on the ride home. clearly a good omen given our bike's namesake, The Hogwarts Express.

this week Silvia is going to try her hand at making a frame bag (maybe 2) for the bike - i'm very excited to see this come together. we should also be getting our ortlieb bag set via UPS (aka the brown Santa) so i'm excited to get that on the bike and see if all our camping gear will even fit - 3 people's stuff on 1 bike is tight fit! hopefully the frame bags will give us the overflow room we need as i'm not really keen to buy/use a trailer. the bike is already LONG enough!

although we always get comments on the triple today was pretty funny because we had three different people ask to take pictures of us with our bike. one was from a group of brits on a support tour from canada to mexico, which was pretty cool. anyway, here'a pic i took from today at pigeon point lighthouse...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/lighthouse.jpg

Wow, hope you guys have a great trip!!! I would love to plan something similar for our family on the east coast but haven't had the opportunity yet. Love following your prep & planning!

Epic! There are so many people who won't even DRIVE down PCH because it's just "too long!"

I wonder how many people have those Amazon Camelbak water bottles...

Wow!
You are a brave man. I am so envious of your family adventurous spirit and your free time.
What a great family adventure! PCH is an awesome ride the last time I was there 20 years ago.
I would love to do that trip again one day, hopefully next time with wife and kid.
Keep us updated on your trip.
CJ

Sounds like quite an adventure. Have fun!

ok, so after saturday's ride i've re-planned the trip to shorten some of the days. i'll post our new itinerary when i get a bit more sorted, but the new plan only has one day over 50 miles (54) and that's the first day where the first 8 miles will be a downhill ride to the coast from La Honda and the rest relatively flat. it will mean a bit less time at disneyland than i hoped, but not much. plus i'll take another day off work, which i'll be more than happy to do :) all in all, i think it will be for the best too as it will give us a lot more time hang out and play the tourist.

so this week Silvia is getting started on the frame bags and i'm super excited to see them come together. yesterday i made cardboard templates for her. at this point we're only planning on doing the rear and middle frame sections since i still need a place for water bottles. first step was some cardboard templates...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/framebags1.jpg

the cutting and sewing is in progress now...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/framebags2.jpg

i also got a few goodies in the mail. first up is this little water bottle holder for my daughter. although the double bottle holder i put on my seatpost is nice for my wife, it was also expensive! because of the frame bags i need to relocate some water bottles so this Top Peak holder is a cheap way to move my daughter's bottle out of the frame area. i also got some cheap zefel side release cages, but the jury is still out on them. they are easy to use, but almost too easy. worried about bottle ejections.

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/waterbottle.jpg?s

i also got this cheapie rubber flashlight holder. i wanted a better headlight than the sort of commuter one we have been using, but i really didn't want to fork over $200 for a light at this time. i do have a nice and powerful JetBeam that is pretty on par with most of the nicer LED bike lights. not as powerful as the bigger ones, but better than the cheap ones for sure and it has a strobe function which is pretty hard not to notice. since we won't have plugs ever day i didn't want a rechargeable light either which most high end bike lights seems to be. anyway i was going to make something like this but it was like $5 on amazon or something and it looks like it will work just perfectly...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/flashlight.jpg

finally, we're going to re-purpose an safety flag from our old trail-a-bike, but the orange flag/ball were a bit boring. so Silvia made a new flag, which i'll show off later, and I transformed the old orange antenna ball into a Golden Snitch to go with our bike's namesake, the Hogwart's Express...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/snitch.jpg

more pics to come soon. the frame bags are in the works right now and the ortliebs are on the way. i even think i can use my crazy long rear rack supports i made to mount more water bottle cages too. i'm just waiting for the ortliebs so i can make sure they won't interfere.

ok, so the UPS guy has been busy and so have i! we finally got our ortlieb set and they look (and work awesome).

since i plan on using the rear panniers on a motorcycle as well i opted for black bags but got a the large tote bag for the top of the rear rack for better vis...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/newbags.jpg

the monster loves the bags already...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/relaxedstoker.jpg

i also got a set of fenders as well. i got the plastic bike planet ones, so far they look good and think they will work out perfectly. i did have to trim the rear one a tad where the rear rack brackets interfere a little bit. no big deal.

now that i have our Golden Snitch antenna/flag pole ball, i needed a place to mount the flag. so i dumpster dived in the aluminum scrap bin at Techshop and found just enough to make a bracket. i didn't get any action shots of me milling it, but here's a little before and after...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/flagmount1.jpg


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/flagmount2.jpg


my wife made the new flag and it looks great, we're still undecided about if we're going to put something on the flag...


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/flag.jpg


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/flagmount3.jpg


the other thing i fabricated was some mounts that allow me to mount water cages to the rear rack support. since my daughters feet are so small i have a little more space for mounting things near the pedal path. these to brackets allow me to carry more water which was somewhat dislocated by our frame bag...


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/cagebrackets1.jpg


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/cagebrackets2.jpg


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/cagebrackets3.jpg


the bottles end up a little cramped, but no matter they are just for back up supplies. you can also see i have a small handlebar bag mounted above the bottles, this fits in there a bit weird so it may move, but hopefully it can stay there. i plan on using that as my tool/tube bag.

the next mod i did was a bit funny. after mounting the ortlieb handlebar bag i did not like how it sort of sits right there near the bars killing my only available bar space for mounting lights, etc. i had seen the aftermarket bar extenders or whatever for mounting things but i decided to just make my own from an old stem and some scrap tubing i had left. i wish the tubing was a bit longer, but it works. after doing it the first time i realized i wanted the bag even lower and moved some spacers around to get the desired setup.


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/frontbag1.jpg


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/frontbag2.jpg


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/frontbag3.jpg


the coolest thing we did tho was make a custom frame bag. it was a rocky project as the first attempt was a bit of a blunder as we put the zipper in the wrong place (had the bag upside-down), but thankfully we had lots of extra fabric so my lovely wife kept at it and made a killer bag...


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/framebag1.jpg


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/framebag2.jpg


she may make another one, but we'll see how the packing goes first. thankfully the big yellow bag holds a TON of stuff. almost all the camping soft gear fits in there, 3x sleeping bags, 3 person tent, 2x sleeping pads and 3x chair frames for bed pads.


finally the last bit of fab i did was to pimp out my daughter's doll seat since her doll "Peach" is coming with us on the ride. it was fading and pink, and i wasn't down with it's nasty look. so i painted it black and will cut some reflective stickers for it. i also made a bracket for it so that the 2" strap that holds down the yellow bag will also hold down the doll seat...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/dollseat1.jpg


http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/dollseat2.jpg


should work out nicely.

got disneyland days booked, only a few more bits to figure out and we leave like next week...yowza!

Between your efforts and your wife's efforts, you have an amazing bike. Now you just have to get it to Disneyland. Best wishes on a great adventure!

Amazing work! So a question, is that truck (with the lift gate) your workspace?

Amazing work! So a question, is that truck (with the lift gate) your workspace?

thx!

nope that truck is my house :) about 4 years ago we sold our house and bought an RV and have been full timing ever since. the lift gate goes to the garage in the back where i keep all my toys, a DR350 motorcycle, his and hers mtb bikes, my road bike, the tandem and my daughters bikes. since i built a wall in the garage to create my home office in one part of it, my toy space is only a meager 4x8' space...it's a tight fit...

http://planetpayne.com/photos/the-rv/our_RV/second_remodel/img_1946.jpg

the workshop i use is a local coop like machine shop/wood shop called Techshop (http://techshop.ws) they have a few different locations in CA, detroit, and austin i think. it's a great place. they had one start up in PDX, but i think it closed. it was like their first attempt at franchising and i think it didn't work out, but if i recall correctly i think a PDX one is in the works again.

ok, so a few more touches to the bike. first up i added some more reflector action. first i added a snazzy stripe down the middle of the rear fender. it looks great even without reflecting and works great at night.

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/reflecto1.jpg

i also added some white reflecting tape to our flag pole in a striped pattern. i think it came out really great and will definitely be eye catching. in this pic the red stripe looks a little weak, but that's only because i kept my flashlight sort of off center so the reflecting bits wouldn't get blow out in the picture...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/reflecto2.jpg

finally, you may have noticed in my previous picture of our snazzy frame bag that one velcro loop wasn't attached because it was right where my seat tube water cage mounts. well i added some bushings to set the cage off the frame a bit so i could run the strap underneath it. it works out great and i did the same for the rear end of the bag where i'm going to add some cages since my wife has run out of time to make another bag (we've got ANOTHER wedding to attend this weekend).

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/framebags3.jpg


you may also noticed i swapped out those side release Zefel cages for some Lezyne ones i had on my road bike. the Zefels were just too loose for my taste, but i'm happy with the Lezyne cages i feel they work really well with the insulated camelbak bottles.

still need one more trip to REI for a few loose bits, but we're just about ready to hit the road!

Yeah, the maker space failed spectacularly (unfortunately). I had not head that they are attempting to reboot. I hope it works out better this time. Could we get a few shots of your RV? It looks like it's based on a truck/bus frame vs. traditional RV frames.

Yeah, the maker space failed spectacularly (unfortunately). I had not head that they are attempting to reboot. I hope it works out better this time. Could we get a few shots of your RV? It looks like it's based on a truck/bus frame vs. traditional RV frames.

yeah i had heard the guy who tried to franchise ended up being a bit flaky/odd. it's too bad too, it really is a great place and PDX seems like an obvious place for one.

here's our RV, it's a "Super C" based on a Ford F650...

http://planetpayne.com/photos/the-rv/our_RV/in_the_wild/img_1573.jpg

if you've got time to kill you can watch these two vids i made showing off all the mods i made to the rig...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI4DQ052Ym0


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB_bIblYqbg

ok, so back on topic! we're all packed up and ready to hit the road early tomorrow. Disneyland here we come!

i did a few last min mods to the bike, but i'll post those up later as i need to wrap some stuff up and get some sleep. here's a sneak peek at a little decal i made for my stoker's top tube...

http://planetpayne.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/photo-670x640.jpg

i made "pedal damn it" stickers for my the adults on the bike too, but thought this one was funnier.

although i'll hit the forums a few times i'll be posting a bulk of our updates on our family blog...

http://planetpayne.com/

thx everyone for your support and kind words. wish me luck...i'm gonna need it :)

hey all just thought I'd say hi, we're still on our trip and everyone's holding up well. we're just north of Santa Barbara and just passed the 300 mile mark with a little less than 200 left. my iPad crapped out after day one so uploading my camera pics has been a bust but oh well. it was a refurbed lemon and I'll get it replaced later.

as for the trip we're on schedule and luckily the rain hit us at the right time and we only had to adjust a rest day by one day. the next day we got a minor soaking, but nothing dramatic. I'll post full details when I get back to the world of real computers. so far it's been a great trip!

It's good to hear that you and the girls are doing well!

If you give me a start point and end point I'll be glad to suggest a route from the coast to Disneyland.

Have fun!

It's good to hear that you and the girls are doing well!

If you give me a start point and end point I'll be glad to suggest a route from the coast to Disneyland.

Have fun!

thanks! we're planning on staying in manhattan beach the last night then riding straight to the Californian at dland.

Here is a route from the Manhattan Beach Pier to the Californian at Disneyland:
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1815645

You can download GPS routes from the RideWithGPS.com website if you want.

I am confident that you will like the route along the Manhattan Beach coast bike path. Bicycle and pedestrian traffic can be heavy, but I guess you'll be riding there on a weekday morning, so that shouldn't be much of a problem.

I am also confident about the route from about mile 20 and on, because I have ridden along those streets. In fact, I ride frequently along Ball Rd and Cerritos Ave as part of my regular weekday rides. I'm a little shaky about how to get from the last public street you'll be on (Walnut) to the Californian, but it looks like you'll be riding through a Disneyland parking lot, so it shouldn't be a problem. Ball, Katella, West and Harbor are CRAZY in that area, so please avoid them. Once you're on Disney property you'll get plenty of attention. I just wish I could see the looks on the faces of the staff when the three of you pull up on your rig!

Unfortunately, I am not confident about miles 8-20, because I have never ridden there, and I know nothing about 223rd St in particular. If you have a chance, I suggest you spend some time checking out that street using Google Street View. In addition, I have asked for help on the Southern California forum, so hopefully some suggestions will come from there. You can read my post at http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/852757-Manhattan-Beach-to-Disneyland

Best wishes, have a great time, and be safe!

There are some responses on the Southern California forum, but after reading them, I would still use the route that I have linked to on RideWithGPS.com.

Again, best wishes, have a great time, and be safe!

hey all!

well we made it there and we made it back on the train. the bike boxes don't look too mangled so i imagine the tandem survived the ride. the rest of the trip went pretty well and i'll post more details and pics later.

we had a few problems after my last post, mainly my front shifter crapped out and stopped downshifting. finding info on the web was too much of a pita b/c most shifting related post on the web revolve around poorly adjusted setups whereas mine was clearly some kind of problem with the shifter or maybe cable since it stopped giving any clicking noise/feeling when downshifting. thankfully this happened -after- the last big climb of the trip and it would downshift if i released all tension so i could manually downshift it by releasing tension with my cable couplers. eventually i just left it in the middle ring and would just downshift to granny using the coupler's threading. we stopped at one shop to get it checked out and both mechanics thought the cable was fraying at the shifter, but it checked ok so they blamed the shifter. it sucked, but it happened at the best possible time so we just rolled with it. it was just a bummer because it killed our ability to carry our downhill momentum further.

thanks for the route mwandaw, it worked great. we met someone while en route who suggested del amo over carson, so we went with that since i went past carson to hit a Chipotle for lunch anyway. 223rd was a good route and was part of the adventure cyclist route as well so that was no problem.

i'll have more pics later, but for now here's a pic we got at disneyland. it took some sweet talking to get the bike past security but once they believed our epic tale they escorted us in for a quick photo shoot in front of the main gates...

http://planetpayne.com/misc/bikeforum/tandem2disneyland.jpg

Great photo, great trip, and a wonderful post to follow. Thanks for sharing your adventure.

Very awesome. It has been fun following you and your fam on your adventure.

Wow! I'm glad that you made it to Disneyland in good shape. What an adventure, even with a busted front derailleur. The picture looks great, and I'm glad that you got from Manhattan Beach to Disneyland without trouble. That route had to be a lot different than riding down the coast!

What are you going to do when the girls say they want to go to the Grand Canyon or the Canyons of Utah? (Oh yeah... that's what the RV is for!)

Nice job!
Congratulations to you all.
Brent

thanks all, it was a super fun trip. with lots of great memories. i'm still working on sorting out the pics, but i'll let you all know when i've posted them up.

cheers
andrew

Congrats!! That's a trip you won't soon forget.

hey all, i finally got all the pics and blog post up for our trip. it's a bit of a read, but we really wanted to remember the trip so we got pretty detailed with our post. Some post are by me, others by my wife. it all starts here....

http://planetpayne.com/blog/2012/10/day-1-la-honda-to-santa-cruz/

if you don't want to read all our blabberings you can go straight to the pics here...

http://planetpayne.com/blog/other-travel/?album=Bike_Tour_to_Disneyland/

thanks again for all your help, encouragement, and support.

to steal a line from old honda motorcycle ads, "you meet the nicest people on a tandem" :)

Droo, I gotta tell ya, when I first started reading this thread I said to myself no way. No way areyou going to be able to ride with your wife and daughter that amt distance. But, then I read your blog! I should have never doubted. You are obviously a can do guy!!! As is the rest of your family!!! Good stuff!!!



Hat's off, I'm glad you had a great trip!!!! Congrats!!!

hey tom,

thx for the kudos! my wife will definitely agree with you about me being a can do guy. i'm just lucky she goes along with my crazy ideas. i was worried about the girls lasting that long, but it really wasn't too bad at all. i think the key to success was just keeping the daily mileage down. i knew after our 50 mile training ride that they were pretty spent after 40 miles and i had to give up on the idea of going 50-60 miles a day. plus we did it in october so it meant the days were shorter and our daylight was limited. it's like i told my wife, "anyone can bike tour, some people just go a lot faster than others". once you accept the family bike touring experience is going to take longer and go slower the miles really aren't such a big deal.

it's funny, my daughter put up a lot of fuss before the ride and at one point was very against the whole thing but i knew she'd come around. when we are riding she isn't really pushing that hard so the strain on her was very minimal and in the end she had no other option. sure enough once we got on the bike she really didn't complain or fuss. in the end she turned her negativity into cheerleading. she would peek around mom's shoulders to see the miles on the GPS and count down each mile..."10 more miles to go...wooo!". which was really her way of saying, "10 more miles till i'm off this thing and watching cartoons in the hotel...wooh!" but still, she kept a positive attitude.

i think our next touring ride might be a bit shorter the girls did like the bike camping aspect so would be cool to do some short weekend tours.

cheers
droo

I have read about half of your blog about the trip, and I also want to say CONGRATULATIONS for a great achievement. I have a feeling that you are a little crazy, but that's a compliment. I'll also bet that you and your wife have an appreciation for your accomplishment, but your daughter won't get it until she's about 25. Then she'll be busy instilling a sense of adventure into her own family.

Good job, Dad!