So, I pretty much just looked at the video Path Less Pedaled did about bike camping from Los Angeles, and did the same thing, minus the public transit.
I happened to have a few consecutive days off in LA, while on a big country/pop tour, so I brought along a new acquisition, a Surly Traveler's Check that I found on ebay a while ago, and took off for Leo Carillo State Beach/Park.
I started at the Omni Hotel on Olive in Downtown LA. The 15 miles of city riding each day were tedious, but I felt safe. I suppose I can write them off as "transport stages." After making it to Venice, I headed up the various bike paths that run along the beach until they ended, and then took to the PCH. There was a decent amount of traffic, although hitting the busy parts of the PCH fairly early on Saturday and Sunday mornings meant that I dodged a lot of commuters, and meant that the city riding was also taking place during less congested times of the week.
The PCH was great, except that it's a goddamned parking lot. No, seriously, you can just park your car in the shoulder and go do whatever, so the PCH is literally a parking lot. Some people park too close to the traffic lane, leading to some tight squeezes with traffic, but I never felt like the situation was out of control. Once you get to Malibu, some hills start, but they're not too bad, unless you're an out of shape audio tech from Flatsville Ohio. I walked the last 1/3 of the first big hill because I messed up my shifting, but for the rest of the trip, including some seriously steep sections of Olive in downtown LA at the very end of the trip back, I stayed on the bike. The granny gear got a rather extensive workout, and I definitely pushed too hard in too high of gears on some hills on the trip out to Leo Carillo, because my left knee spent all of the afternoon telling me to go do something indecent to myself, and most of the trip back to LA too. Exactly the same as what I experienced at the end of the GAP/C&O trip. I think it's just overuse, and if I spent more time on the bike, and maybe did some exercise to specifically strengthen my knees, I'd be fine. Although it could also be a bike fit issue, but I think that because I have such a sporadic riding schedule, it seems like sudden onset bike touring is my problem.
The Hiker/Biker sites at Leo Carillo are as great as advertised, and although I made it in way before anyone else because I left LA at 7:00 AM, the bike tourists all showed up later in the afternoon. A trio of friends from Utah/North Carolina, a Californian man that saved up enough to quit his job and bike for a handful of years while he worked on his writing, and an Israeli man, who now lives in Vancouver and was pretty happy to be close to San Diego, where he's ending his trip. Talking to everyone got me pretty excited about maybe someday cycling the northern bit of the Pacific Coast, which has been in the back of my mind for a while now. I can do without LA, having seen it now, but Vancouver to San Francisco, maybe with a detour into Portland, sounds pretty awesome. My knee disagreed with the unstable nature of the sand and rocks of the beach itself, so I spent most of my time burning things in the big fire pit in my campsite and reading.
You might notice that there's something missing from this pile of gear. A real sleeping bag. I just brought a bag liner because I figured that southern California was pretty warm in the summer. That was a pretty big assumption, and it turned out to be a pretty poor one. I ended up wearing a t-shirt, a jersey, the long sleeve smartwool bit, and my socks and legwarmers to sleep, and I was still super cold. I had to curl up in a ball on my thermarest and tuck my head inside the bag liner so that my respiration could maybe warm my legs to not be shivering like mad. I even put the rainfly on my tent despite the perfectly clear night to try and reflect some warmth back in on myself. I might have been better off just wrapping myself up in the rainfly.
The Camp Store had beer, not cheap, but about what you'd expect to pay for a Fat Tire at a decent bar. ($2.99)
I do wish that I'd brought the Brooks, but I don't think that on that frame, which is maybe one size too large to be optimal, with the saddle height that I need, I'd have been able to use the Revelate "Pika" bag. I used all Revelate Designs bags, a harness and large pocket up front, supplemented by a Mountain Feedbag. A Tangle framebag, and the Pika in the rear. I did wear a backpack, although if I had wider handlebars, and had brought a larger dry bag, I could have probably gone without it. The backpack was my little REI Flash 18, which is super versatile, and one of the better values in carry that I think you can find today. I had a small 50 oz camelback bladder, a book, a midweight Smartwool top, and my phone/wallet bits in the backpack. It didn't feel too burdensome, although biking without a backpack feels the least burdensome of the backpack options.
My new/replacement Benchmade knife was useful for processing some firewood that I had to buy into smaller bits so that I could actually start the fire, but it's a much lighter model, the 530, than my missing Mini Griptilian, and feels a bit less satisfying in your hand when you're working with it. However, it does look nice.
