Originally Posted by
mattcalifornia
Wow - that's some kind of bike trip. Many questions. Mostly: how did you manage to take over a year off? Very jealous. And, give us a list of all the mechanical failures and lessons learned, if any. How big are your legs now?
Yeah, it was quite the trip. I was lucky enough to retire early, age 56, February of last year. I could have done the entire perimeter in less than six months but I didn’t ride in the rain, and I enjoyed some time off in Texas and Florida, a week on the beach in Port Aransas and a week at my sisters in Vero Beach.
Mechanical failures…My biggest issue was my press fit bottom bracket. It decided somewhere in North Dakota it didn’t want to play anymore, was creaking and sloppy for hundreds of miles before I finally found a Wheels Mfg. threaded replacement for the Money well spent. Other than that, just the typical maintenance items..3 sets of brake pads, 2 shifter cables, 3 chains, and four sets of tires. I started with a partially worn set of WTB Byways. Those lasted until Montana where I picked up a set of Terravail Sparwoods. Those didn’t last too long and I picked up another set of Byways in California. Those got me to New Mexico where the goathead thorns ate them alive and I had a bike shop in Silver City replace them with Schwalbe Hurricanes. Hated those tires with a passion so I had a new set of Byways shipped in Texas and those just got me home
.Lessons learned…listen to the locals. Put Slime or run tubeless in the Southwest, those goatheads will destroy your tires and sanity. Carry spares, tubes and brakes. I put a new set of brakes in right before the Rockies and by the time I got out of the Cascades they were smoked. Only carry enough food for 20-30 miles worth of riding. No need to carry pounds of food, it’s readily accessible almost everywhere. In the instances where it is sparse, use common sense. Also, ride the Pacific Coast Highway, the whole thing. If you don’t get killed you will have the most incredible memories of the west coast. Don’t get to wrapped up in planning for the day, it’s not going to work out. I planned two routes everyday..where I wanted to end up and a bail out in case of issues. You need to be good with maps and adversity, know your bike inside out and be able to repair everything yourself. Mechanicals always happen the furthest from help
Legs are bigger but not mutant bigger, calves are definitely Hulk like now. If anyone is interested, I kept a journal and when I got home published it under the title
”Keep the Lonely Places Lonely”. It’s available though Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and BookBaby.com at the end of August. 720 pages and over 1,000 pictures. It includes all my gear and what worked and didn’t. Final tallies were 323 days, 10,520 miles and 386,000 feet of elevation.