A new bike

Once I decided to do the trip, I knew I was going to need a new bike – a touring bike.  I’ve been a road bike guy for my entire life and, in fact, I just recently purchased a new road bike – a Cannondale CAAD 12 aluminum frame.  (I was actually forced to buy a new bike because the frame on my old bike cracked!!)

I did quite a bit of research on touring bikes and finally settled on a Surly Long Haul Trucker.  It is a bike that has been around a while and has been designed from the ground up to carry a lot of gear and ‘keep on truckin’!   It has a steel frame, wide tires, three chain rings to include low ‘grandma gears’ for grunting up those hills with a load and lot of ‘braze ons’ for attaching racks, etc.

I went to Topanga Creek Outpost to get fitted for my bike and I must say, it is an awesome bike store for touring and mountain bikes.  It is a very unique bike store but these guys know their stuff – and they have a cool dog named Rover!!  So, now I have a new bike but as I found out, getting the bike was just the beginning of a long list of things needed to make this trip a reality.