Adventures in Florida

Jim Merrifield

Riding in Florida has been good if restrictive. The sun has been shining, the birds chirping, the tortoises strolling. My miles have been pretty much all endurance oriented as my left knee has been bothering me a bit after doing some longer intervals on Tuesday. Life is good - except I had been doing most of the miles on the bike trail just behind the motel. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the trail is 46 miles long. It is a destination for a LOT of people. People come to Florida and ride this trail or some of the other long trails. Small wonder - most of the roads have NO shoulder whatsoever. So the riding has not been exciting. That is mostly fine as I am easily amused but when Jan and all her paddling buddies decided to travel to the Weeki Wachee River on the eastern coast, I started to think about a road trip. In the past, from the Weeki Wachee, we have gone to a sea food restaurant near Crystal River for all-you-can-eat garlic crab - yummm! So I suggested that I ride to the restaurant and meet the folks there.

Looking at some admittedly older maps, I found a couple possible routes. I had a chance to talk to a couple cyclists on the bike trail about whether there were any good routes to the eastern coast. I was told the roads were sketchy. Hmmmm. The map I used showed some roads as bike routes. The more northerly route went thru Crystal City and the route looked potentially complicated. The more southerly route seemed like it might be more straight forward. It was taking me thru a state forest which sounded like it could be nice. "Trail 12" looked like a straight shot thru. Now, there are a lot of roads in the area called Trail thought the number had me a little concerned. Well maybe it was a hard packed dirt road. I checked out the route on google earth but it did not tell me much. Southerly, it is. I headed south, zigging and sagging thru the residential areas for maybe 25 minutes before I finally got to Trail 12. I rode right by, expecting a road. Hmmmm? Is that it? Yep. I considered a change of plans but that was totally back the other direction. How bad could it be??? Trail 12 was basically a jeep road and for the first half mile, it was OK. I was wishing I had a cross bike but it was OK. Then I hit the sand. Remember I was thinking hard pack dirt. I now do not think there is ANY dirt in Florida. It's ALL sand. I'd walk for a little while and then get back on when the trail firmed up enough to ride and then repeat, over and over and over. Glad I started out early! And I did not have a map so was not sure how far I had yet to go. At times I was riding thru the woods where the sand was covered with some vegetation and I could kinda ride. My poor bike! FINALLY started to hear traffic. I was SO happy! I was in the woods easily 3 times longer than expected. But I was soon to be on a road that was designated on my map as a bike route.

I now think that map was indicating where drivers could go if they wanted to try finding cyclists to hit. My long anticipated road was 2 lanes, 55mph and NO shoulder. YIKES! And NO OPTIONS even if I was willing to go on side roads. So I put my head down and hammered to GET OFF THAT ROAD. 5 or so miles then AH! There is my turn (finally) - surely this road will have a shoulder! NOPE! Same kinda road. The only improvement was that there was not a 6 inch drop off on the side of the road. And there were a few times were I pealed into the grassy shoulder just to relax for a bit. FINALLY, I got to the Sun Coast Highway. I remembered THIS road had a shoulder. Not very wide and traffic was flying by me but a shoulder none the less. In comparison, it was paradise! Eventually, I got to my turnoff and saw my first "Share the Road" sign. I had to laugh. I had thought the day was going to be scenic and this was finally it. The road wound for 8 or 9 miles thru salt marshes. Lots of sea birds, sea grasses waving in the breeze. Nice! And cold beer and crab waiting for me! Will I do this again? Perhaps but it will be the northerly route :)