Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Florida

In December of 2015 I headed to Florida for a few days to escape the cold in Reno. I stayed in Orlando, but drove over to Cocoa Village to ride the Intracoastal Waterway Century route.

Florida Route

Florida has a reputation for bad drivers and leads the nation in deaths of cyclists, so finding a good route was important. Unfortunately, this trip was sort of a last minute thing and I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to research. Good routes seem a little bit difficult to find. Most of the information out there is related to "bike paths," which most of you might know as MUPs, which are really not much more than glorified sidewalks.

I flew into MCO and rented a bike from Bikes and Blades. The bike was a Raleigh RX 1.0, which was listed as a road bike but was actually a cross bike with slick tires. No big deal. It was worthy for the road. The crank was a 46/36, but this is Florida, so there was no need for a smaller small ring. I'm not a strong guy, so the 46 didn't hold me back. In general I hate renting bikes on vacation, but Bikes and Blades made everything easy and their hours actually fit my schedule very well. The price was reasonable, too.

The rental bike and the rental car. They almost match.
The rental shop was right on the West Orange Trail, so I got in about 50 miles before I headed off to the hotel. It's been a long time since I've ridden on an MUP and this ride reminded me why I hate them so much. Riding the MUP really is like riding on a sidewalk. Pedestrians aren't paying attention and every street crossing becomes more dangerous than it would be if you were riding on the road. I was actually considering doing my century on a different bike path, but this ride made me reconsider.

I came across the ICWC website and it seemed like a decent route. Often times when I'm out of state I'll just find a local organized century and ride the route solo. This has worked well for me in the past, but obviously isn't a foolproof solution. Just because a route is good for an event doesn't mean its good on its own. You never know if portions of the route have a police escort, are closed to traffic, have a ton of warning signs, etc. On top of that, there's an increased perception of safety when you're riding in a huge group. I say "perception" because there's no way of knowing for a fact that riding in a group is safer. However, there are portions of the RAIN (Ride Across Indiana) route that I wouldn't necessarily choose to ride on my own but feel perfectly fine on event day.

Anyway, I decided to just go for it. As bad as Florida's reputation is, I'm simply not one to be afraid of riding in traffic. The route ended up being a decent one. I would say it was good, but not great. For the most part I felt safe, but there was one section towards the end (somewhere around miles 60-70) on S Tropical Trail that was narrow and had a lot of traffic. Maybe I was just hitting it at the wrong time. Looking at the map, I doubt there's an alternate route that would have been any better.

My biggest complaint would be the portion of the ride near Cape Canaveral. Talk about a tease. There I was, riding on NASA Parkway on this neat little stretch of road in the middle of the river. It was super windy, but I could see these neat looking NASA buildings off in the distance. As I got closer I even saw an old rocket straight ahead. Maybe all of this riding in the wind was going to be worth it. All of the sudden there's a right turn and the route leaves all of that stuff behind. What a disappointment. I wish I would have kept going on NASA Parkway. Then again, maybe it just ends at a parking lot and you can't really see much. This is probably one of those places that's better seen off the bike.

The last 25 miles or so were great. Highway 1 had a bike lane and that final stretch on Rockledge/Indian River was very scenic and had almost no traffic. Best of all, the weather was fantastic. It's been a cold winter here in Reno, so I was happy to be riding in just shorts and a jersey again.

For some reason most of the pictures I took didn't get saved. Here are the ones I do have, plus a turtle and a gator I saw while riding west of Orlando the next day.




Turtle (blurry phone image)
Gator. I was coming from the other direction and almost ran over its tail. I wasn't expecting a gator in the road.

Gator

Alabama

In the summer of 2015 I rode across the country. As part of that, I rode across Alabama. Here's an overview of the route.

Alabama Route

Here are the Strava Links for both days: Petoji Day 20Petoji Day 21

Day 20
Day 21
Both days included portions in other states, but more than 100 continuous miles in Alabama. Here are the logs for each day.



Day 20

Welcome to Alabama. Only 2 states left to go. The day started out hot, but rain came rolling in later on and things cooled off considerably. More importantly, there was less of a headwind along the way. I was coming off of a short (83 miles) day on day 19, so I was feeling pretty fresh out there. However, Day 21 was the last big day left at 168 miles, so I was careful to save a little energy for that.



Another waste of a good shoulder




Day 21
This was the last long day and once it was over I knew I was actually going to achieve my goal of riding across the country. I had a few long days before this- 178 on Day 5, 175 on Day 7, and 180 on Day 13. The same rules applied on all of them: don't fall behind nutrition and hydration.

It was foggy early, which was fun and added to the scenery. As the day went on the fog wore off and it got hot and humid. By the end of the ride there were storm clouds in the distance and I saw a rainbow. There was a little bit of everything on this ride. It seemed fitting that the day would end with a rainbow. Petoji was almost over and my pot of gold was just within reach. I only had 121 miles on Day 22 and 60 miles on Day 23.














Welcome to Georgia


It's been on my mind for a long time!





Rainbow

Rainbow