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Topics - Pat

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Hi - My wife and I did a preview drive (yes in our car) of part of the Pacific Coast Highway south of Monterey.  We can across two single lane restrictions due to road repair work.  The first was on Map 47, near Rocky Creek.  The second was on Map 48, near Lucia.  There is a bike button to push for the lights, presumably making them longer.  Both spots were extremely constricted.  The road width appeared to preclude a car and ANYTHING else coexisting on the lane - in other words, no passing room, from a car approaching from the front, or the rear.

What is the community experience with riding through this?  For instance, on Monday afternoon, the Rocky Creek stop was not staffed, and relied on light control, causing me to wonder if a heavily loaded bike would actually have time to get through the uphill toboggan run without getting creamed.  The second stop, near Lucia, was staffed, shorter, and more likely to be successfully negotiated.

Thoughts?

Pat

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Routes / Allegheny Gap
« on: January 19, 2013, 05:30:55 pm »
Hi - My wife and I are preparing to do the Allegheny Gap, probably from Pittsburgh to DC in the late spring, or early fall.

We live in California, and are ramping up our research.  Any thoughts on books or websites beyond the obvious would be appreciated.

We would like to use our Truckers for the ride.  We are used to them, they have sturdy racks, and we can haul all of our camping stuff.

QUESTION:  What are the trail surfaces like.  Can we use 35C wide tires?  Or should we be thinking about using our mountain bikes?

Thanks,

Pat

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Gear Talk / Generator Hubs and USB Devices
« on: January 19, 2013, 05:19:16 pm »
Hi - This is probably an old topic, but it is new to me.  I didn't quite see what I was looking for.

BASELINE CONFIGURATION:  I just bought a new wheel with a Sanyo Sport Generator NH - H27,  6 Volt, 3 watt.  The documentation isn't answering my questions.  Powering front and rear lights is straight forward

ACCESSORY QUESTION:  What is required to recharge iphones, gps units, batteries, etc?  (I am seeing a number of products with lots of $$$$)

Thanks for your patience if this is old ground,

Pat

4
Hi,

Last week, my wife and I were touring in Washington State.  We found ourselves back down in Vancouver, getting some work done on her bike.  We were then faced with how to get from Vancouver back to the ACA route, outside Longview, where Coal Creek Road merges in with Washington Highway 4.  I had appealed for help, and many of you responded - thank you very much for your advice - I never felt more happy to have joined ACA - you are a wonderful support group!

The route we decided on was to take back roads paralleling I-5 from Vancouver up to Longview.  I used the GPSIES.COM website to map it out, from the Vancouver Library, and confirmed it with the Google Maps in WALK mode.  I was unable to load the route into my Garmin, so fell back on, of all things, writing down the turn-by-turn directions -- that is so yesterday.

We were pleased with the route, and there were a lot of twists and turns to keep us entertained.  Overall, except for one small section that was almost our undoing, everything was a remarkably easy ride.  The one section that was extremely difficult was between Woodand and Kalama.  The only choices seemed to be Green Mountain Road, or I-5.  At the time, I did not appreciate the climb (and lots of pushing) we did to traverse that four miles or so.  Only after the fact did I wonder if we would have been allowed to ride onto I-5 and take the easy way around.

QUESTION:  Does Washington State permit riding on I-5 at that point?

Thanks,

Pat

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Gear Talk / Tire Failure - Not Sure How It Happened
« on: July 07, 2012, 01:51:12 pm »
Hi - My wife and I recently did the Washington State portion of the PCH.  We had intended to do much more, but the rain continued to fall.  So, we decided to regroup and try Oregon in a week or so.  Anyway, my wife's Surly had a strange failure.

Background:  We bought her Surly via Criag's List, and put new tires on, back in March.  We began training, staying almost exclusively on good paved surfaces.  I could get the exact distance from the logs, but we certain put less than 1000 miles on the tires, with about 250 miles under various loads.  We've always been careful about the tire pressures.  I did a general check of her bike before we left, and did some general tuneups.

Tour Preps:  We took the Starlight up, with the bikes safely boxed in their AMTRAK boxes.  We unpacked and assembled the bikes in Portland, and rode to our motel.  The next morning, we rode back to the station and took the Cascade up to Seattle, rode to the Bremerton Ferry, and on to our motel.  I don't think the bikes were ever out of our sight.

Touring:  The first tour day was from Bremerton to Shelton, with rain and drizzle most of the way.  The second morning, we were trying to do at least Shelton to Elma, also in the rain.  Almost immediately in the ride, my wife noticed her rear wheel was rubbing against the brake.  So, standing in the rain, I looked it over, noticing the wheel was a little out of true.  Thinking I could work on it when we got to our next hotel (since camping was slipping away in the rain, I opened up her brakes a little and we set out.  After about 20 miles, she blew out her rear wheel.  I looked the tire over closely as I replaced the tube, looking for something that would cause the blow out.  I saw the damage to the tire and knew the old dollar bill trick would never work.  So, we hitched a ride to Elma, and eventually got another tire (a whole different story).

More Bike Work:  She had several loose spokes, which were tightened.  But her rear wheel was making "funny" noises.  We rode to Centralia and caught a train down to Vancouver, since Centralia has no bike shops.  They repacked the rear hub and put in new bearings, and professionally retrued and retensioned the wheel.  And then, no more problems.  They thought that, since her wheels were in almost pristine shape, but had sat around in a garage for a couple of years, that maybe they had never been properly tensioned, and somewhere on one of our two legs in Washington, the right bump or the right hole came along and loosened up the spokes.  But they couldn't figure out how this would have caused a tear in the tire (too bad I didn't know the relationship of the loose spokes to the tire damage locations.

If this has worked properly, you should be able to see the damage to the tire.  I was really surprised, and immediately looked my bike over, since I am running Michlin City Proteks on my Surly, although I have a 700 and she has a 26.  Anyway, it was kind of strange.

Lesson Learned for Me:  Always check the wheels and tires, every day.  Never take it for granted we can get to the next stop.  And a spare tire can be a life saver.

Thanks,

Pat


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Routes / Help - Is there a safe route from Portland to the sea?
« on: June 26, 2012, 12:36:43 am »
I am sorry if this is an old topic - I am on tour, and only have a Kindle, and topic searches are torture.

Is there a reasonably safe bike route from Portland to the sea?  We were on the PCH tour.  The hub on my wife's bike required a real bikeshop, so we took AMTRAK from Centralia to Vancouver.  We are in the "now what mode ".  We really don't want to go back ul to Centralia (getting really bad vibes from there and just want to movenon.

Thoughts????

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Gear Talk / Help. needed in Elma Washington
« on: June 23, 2012, 06:33:41 pm »
Hi - we are on tnd ran into a tire problem.  Somehow, my wife's 650 X 35 ripped near the bead and is ruined.  The dollar bill trick won't work and we need a new tire.  Elma has no bike shops or any source of tires.  Looks like I am riding to Centralia and back (round trip 70 miles) unless someone can think of a better solution.

Again, I apologize if I used the wrong forum.

Pat

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Routes / Mexican Border to San Diego AMTRAK
« on: April 14, 2012, 02:03:08 pm »
Hi - I am looking for recommendations on how to get from the end of the PCH (at Border Field State Park) to the San Diego AMTRAK Station.  I could just rewind part of the ACA map and redo the Silver Strand (maybe into the wind).  Has anyone done surface streets in San Diego?  Is the traffic bad?  Are there parts of town to stay out of?

Thanks,

Pat

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GPS & Digital Data Discussion / Garmin DVD vs Card
« on: March 13, 2012, 11:25:37 am »
Hi - I've looked through the GPS discussions regarding Garmin (since I have a 705), am new to Touring, and hope to do the PCH from Seattle to San Diego this summer (this is my first big retirement project), and may try to do the North German Plain next summer from Calais to Warsaw with some excursions through some of the Baltic Capitals.

I get that the DVD for the USA allows for "off GPS" trip planning on my PC, which sounds like a good idea.  But, before I order the DVD, I have a question about what can be loaded onto the Garmin.  I fully expect I will be able to load the route as a course, and it will display nearby Way Points (any number of web sites and other programs support that as well).  But I have never seen the added map detail from the other sites (I use GPSIES mostly).

QUESTION:  Will I be able to load the entire map to Garmin (assuming my card is big enough), or will I just get the particular route information that I have built up?

I am sorry if this has been specifically answered already, and I missed it.

Thanks,

Pat

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