Our first live show of 2020 wraps up the Kessel Run tour with my ten takeaways. From there I announce the big spring tour—The Missing Link! Plus more on episode 200 and a west coast meetup in March. Originally broadcast February 21, 2020.

Live Video Replay

https://youtu.be/CQjg-8IbH74

Housekeeping

Hey, I'm presenting at the National Bike Summit's Active Transportation Leadership Retreat March 14th. National Bike Summit is the biggest collection of bike advocates and it happens in DC. This will be the first time I'm lawyering it up in the bike advocacy space, so it's going to be fun.

Fellow Star Wars nerds! I have the Disney audio but need some time to distill it. Look for that in March.

The Kessel Run: A Central Florida Bike Tour Takeaways

Reminder to check out part 1 in PSP 194 and part 2 in PSP 195.
1 - Central Florida doesn't expect a bike tour, but I've found it to be better cycling than its reputation

2- Urban riding is great training for bicycle touring amongst motorized vehicles

3 - Disneyworld and Airports: not super bike friendly unless they are

4 - Ride With GPS is a fantastic tool for riding in "new to me" places, but spending some time with Google Streetview can demystify spots that look gnarly on a map

5 - I don't think I'll ever stick to one style of touring and Florida proves me why

6 - Four seasons FTW

7 - Ultralight does not mean ultrastupid - I got lucky with the way the rain went considering I forgot my rain pants. Double check and use a pack list, don't just assume everything is in your bags like I did!

8 - Off-road opportunity in Florida appears to be abundant

9 - Bromptons are great, and require less maintenance but I got very lucky on the seat post (broken clamp before, itty bitty screw after)

10 - Yes, you can absolutely ride with a lightsaber on your rear rack.

Unveiling The Missing Link bike tour

I'll be flying to southern California with my Brompton to ride the one piece of the California coast I missed in my 2014 tour and connect two dots between Anaheim and Oceanside that I bypassed by train. It's a short link in an otherwise uninterrupted chain. It's the missing link.

2014 ride was dominated by camping but towards the end there is a long stretch of southern CA with limited camping. Combine a dwindling budget with a reticence to deal with a question mark of Camp Pendleton access, I decided to bike inland for a cheaper hotel stay, add some miles through Los Angeles, and take the train past Camp Pendleton to get to  the next campground.

Camp Pendleton access has been an issue since 9/11 and in 2014 the system was practically a day-to-day assessment I didn't want to deal with.

Now, the system in place is arguably worse, but the way around the base is clearer - Interstate 5 is legally available for the 6 or so miles. Permits are available at the south gate, but I've decided to just go with the flow and ride 30 minutes rather than get a ride down to get the permit and go back north again. Arguably a minor challenge—the cycling should be easy, but the zooming cars are a concern— but with wide shoulders I feel comfortable with the choice.

On my train ride down in 2014 the views from the Surfliner made me regret the decision to be on a train. Now I get a chance to ride the coast along  a truly iconic stretch of beaches in Orange County and south.

Will be riding the Brompton and forgoing camping again (there aren't great options in this stretch).

Will tackle this in two days of about 50ish miles each. First stretch includes a lot of trail time along the Santa Ana River to the coast to rejoin the Pacific Coast route. Then I'll be sticking on that for the ride south.

I plan to wrap up in San Diego but the link completes well north of there in Oceanside, which gives me an out via a fast forward if the need arises. Whether I wrap up in SD or Oceanside, I have a train to take me back up to Burbank to fly back, because LAX is apparently a disaster these days 😉

I never considered my 2014 ride to be incomplete—ride your ride I always say. But I do look forward to completing the missing link.

Possible meetup opportunity in San Diego - it would be a Friday night 3/27 probably in the Gaslamp area. If you're interested check out the details at pedalshift.net/sandiego and give me a heads up so I can be in touch. Not a late night because this guy has a stupid early train!

Episode 200

• You may have noticed the numbers of the show are getting tantalizingly close to 200.
• Episode 200 will be Part 1 of The Missing Link.
• Considering the earliest episodes of the show were preparation and execution of my 2014 ride, I can't think of a better way to celebrate 200 episodes of the pod than this tour.
• Look for it in early April.