Tallahassee's fifth year of Riding For Hope

Last year I did the metric century course at the Ride For Hope, around 60 miles. This year I dropped down to the 40-mile ride. Following that trend, next year I'll be doing the 15-mile ride, and after that, the "Family Fun Ride." The Ride For Hope currently has no shorter choices than that, but by 2013 they may have added more options.


As it is, Ride For Hope seems to be all about options and variety. In addition to the routes that I mentioned above, riders could choose a full century, 100-miles. And in keeping with offering variety, for this year's fifth annual event, the staging area of the race moved from Celebration Baptist in Killearn Estates to the fairgrounds on the south side of Tallahassee. This meant five new cycling courses for 2010. The metric century course didn't look terribly attractive this year, staying on the coastal plain south of Tram Road and thus including lots of straight and shadeless stretches of road. It also seemed over 60 miles long, which was more cycling than I felt I could enjoyably do that day.


The century riders took to the road at 6:30am, and the metric century group at 7:00am. Those of us in the 40- and 15-mile rides got to wait till the relatively civilized time of 8:30am before starting. The 8:30 group was refreshingly free of riders with delusions of being Lance Armstrong. A few were casual enough to ride comfort bikes, or fine old machines with lugged steel frames. On the other hand, there were people so wary of the 40-mile distance that they were carrying huge supplies of "GU" or some other carbohydrate paste and were talking about feeding schedules. Actually, a couple of pre-ride breakfast biscuits from King McHardee's would take you the distance, but maybe some folks just like eating paste.


The 40-mile route took us out of the fairgrounds onto Paul Russell Road and then down Zillah Street to Tram Road, where we headed east. Tram gets its name from having been a railroad (or at least a logging tram), and is almost utterly flat, following the north edge of the coastal plain. At that time of morning there was quite a bit of shade, at least until we crossed US 319 and arrived in the Southwood area. At Southwood we lost the 15-milers, who turned north onto Four Oaks Boulevard. Beyond Southwood the scenery along Tram Road was dominated by planted pines and Tallahassee's Southeast Farms wastewater reuse facility.


Around ten miles we got to make our own turn to the north onto W. W. Kelly Road, which took us out of the coastal plain and into the red hills. The ride ceased to be flat, but the slopes weren't severe. The road was too open for there to be much shade, but the scenery included residences and small farms. Gardenias scented the air. At one point we passed a procession of Corvettes of various vintages headed for a Corvette show at one of the farms. Just as we were wondering about all the sports cars, they were probably wondering about all the bicycles.


A traffic light marked the intersection with US 27, which we crossed to arrive on Chaires Cross Road. Approaching Chaires we also crossed the canal through which Lake Lafayette drains into the St. Marks River. Chaires itself was picturesque, shaded, and tiny. Even on a bicycle, Chaires is a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of village. Just north of Chaires we stopped at Chaires Park, a chance to get some water and a handful of cookies while taking a break in the shade from our bicycle saddles. Oh, and the park also has indoor plumbing.


Leaving the park, we headed north to Buck Lake Road, where we turned east. Somewhere along Buck Lake we crossed the St. Marks River, but I couldn't say if it was the dry ditch or the stagnant, fetid gully. We crossed it once again after we turned and headed back west on Capitola Road, but I couldn't identify it there, either. I'm not sure why maps indicate the St Mark River that far north because it is quite often dry as far south as Tram Road, but geographers and hydrographers must have their reasons.


Capitola Road took us back to Chaires Cross Road, completing a small loop in the Chaires area. From here we were going to be retracing our route back to the fairgrounds. This time around, the convenience store at US 27 looked like a good place to stop for a cola. The sky was starting to cloud up, and back on W. W. Kelly Road it started spitting rain. The shower had ceased by Tram Road, but then heavy rain started falling around Southwood. Shortly after I left the four-miles-to-go water stop, the rain stopped again, leaving behind wet pavement and a road smelling of crushed toads.


Back at the fairgrounds I had a little trouble figuring out how to get to the finish. In my defense there was no arrow or sign indicating that we were supposed to go in the Monroe Street gate, but I should have been able to figure it out from the sign reading "Bicycles Only." Certainly everyone else figured it out. Eventually I did, too, and made it to the exhibition hall where we got food, fluid, and shelter from the next rain shower.


The organizers reported that 430 riders participated in the 2010 Ride For Hope. The event raises money for the Tallahassee Memorial Cancer Center, and will be back for a sixth annual edition on 10-11 June 2011. Look for me on one of the slow bikes.


Links:

• Some photos from the 2010 Ride For Hope
  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2863391&id=5215641&l=6a88cf52cd
  
  
• 2010 Ride For Hope 40-mile route
  http://tinyurl.com/2010-Ride-For-Hope-40-Mile
  
  
• Ride For Hope Tallahassee web site
  http://www.ride4hope.com/
  
  
• Trouble Afoot! coverage of the 2009 Ride For Hope
  http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2009/06/2009-ride-for-hope.html
  
  
  

Walking on water--hiking across the Apalachicola

If you're through-hiking the Florida National Scenic Trail or you have some other reason to be walking across the Florida panhandle, you're eventually going to have to cross the Apalachicola River. Some river crossings on the Florida Trail are a bit iffy. At St Marks, for instance, the trail simply stops at the banks of the St Marks River, where a small signs advises you to "Hail Boat to Cross." Crossings of the Aucilla and Suwanee rivers are on highway bridges. The crossing of the Apalachicola is also on a highway bridge, the eastbound span of the Trammell Bridge, which carries traffic on SR 20 from Blountstown to Bristol. But you don't have to worry about sociopaths in motor vehicles trying to knock you into the river because the bridge has a dedicated lane for pedestrians and bicycles.


The hiker/biker lane was included when the eastbound span was built in the late 1990s. Before that, the Trammell Bridge was an old two-lanes-with-no-shoulder span that dated back to the 1930s. I remember riding to track meets in Panama City on a school bus back in the 1970s; going across the old bridge could be thrilling. The old bridge is now the westbound span of the bridge, with no room for pedestrians or cyclists who want a long and healthy life. The hiker/biker lane on the eastbound span, though, is a model of safety.


For one thing, the lane is separated from motor traffic by a low concrete wall. This isn't a typical highway bike lane, with only a four-inch painted line between fragile bicycles and hurtling tractor-trailers. A breakdown lane and a wall divides the human beings from speeding tons of steel. Your protection from motor traffic assured, you can turn your worries to the river, 55 feet below. Another low wall separates you from the drop into the Apalachicola, but this is topped by a high railing. You could still fall into the river if you heaved yourself up onto the wall and then climbed to the top of the railing, but I don't think that you could call it an accident.


The exact length depends on how you want to measure it, but the biker/hiker lane across the Apalachicola is about 1.6 miles long. This distance will probably inspire someone to think of staging an out-and-back 5K across the river, but forget it. The lane is quite narrow--"ordinary sidewalk width," the signs say--and eastbound runners would be sure to interfere with westbound runners. Because the Apalachicola River marks the boundary between the Eastern and Central Time Zones, it might be interesting to do a "Time Warp 3K," where the runners start on the east side of the bridge and finish before they started (according to local clocks) on the west side of the bridge. Or at least it would be interesting if there weren't a possibility of eastbound cyclists needing the lane at the same time as the westbound runners. Then it would be too interesting.

Best just to leave the biker/hiker lane as a safe way for the non-motorized to cross the Apalachicola River. For Florida Trail hikers, it's not much of a wilderness experience. But even the Appalachian Trail crosses the Little Tennessee River on the spine of Fontana Dam, which, as one of the largest concrete structures in the world, is hardly a woodland.

Links:

• Florida Department of Transportation page about the SR 20 Apalachicola River bridge project
  http://www.dot.state.fl.us/Structures/botm/sr20/sr20.htm
  
  
• Photos of the old Trammell Bridge in the Florida Photographic Archives
  http://ibistro.dos.state.fl.us/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/x/0/5?library=PHOTO&item_type=PHOTOGRAPH&searchdata1=Blountstown%20Bridge
  
  
  

The Washboard State Revisited

Last spring I berated the state of Georgia for having bike lanes along its highways that weren't really bike lanes. The lanes are covered with deep grooves designed to wake up a motorist who has drifted to the edge of the road, hopefully before he continues to drift off the pavement, across a ditch, and into a tree. This is a good thing for motorists, but I wouldn't pretend that you could ride a bicycle in such a warning lane. For these cruel parodies of bicycle lanes, I dubbed Georgia the "Washboard State." You'd especially notice the lanes on US 319 north of Tallahassee, where at the state line an acceptable bike lane in Florida became the Washboard from Hell in Georgia.

But earlier this month I discovered that Georgia can get it right.

On US 27 between Lumpkin, Georgia and Louvale, Georgia there is a wide, paved shoulder that is signed as a bike lane. The washboard grooves are there, but they only take up half the lane. The rest of it is smooth pavement, a surface decent enough and wide enough for bicycles to actually use. As a bonus, the warning grooves are between motor traffic and bicycle traffic. If an eighteen-wheel rig wanders over into the bike lane, the driver will be alerted by the vibration from the rough pavement. This is much better than the typical bike lane, where the driver's first indication that he had drifted too far over was the gentle thud of a cyclist against his vehicle's grille. It works even better the other way, keeping bicycles from straying out into motor traffic. So far as keeping bicycles and motor vehicles safely separated on the highway, it's not as good as the three-foot high concrete barrier that I'd prefer, but it's better than a four-inch wide stripe of paint. Like all bike lanes, it's a resting place for road kill, trash, broken down vehicles, and other obstacles. But as bike lanes go, it's nearly as good as anyone can do.

Links:

• The Sunshine State and the Washboard State (April 2009)
  http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2009/04/sunshine-state-and-washboard-state.html
  
  

Run, Bike, and...Swing?

"Run, Bike, and Swing for the Cure" was the name of the event that Boot Camps to Go held on 24 October 2009 as a benefit for the Sharon Ewing Walker Breast Health Center of Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Swing? In America, run-bike-and-swim triathlons are common, and run-bike-and-canoe events are not unheard of. What athletes were swinging that morning at the Industrial Drive location of Boot Camps to Go was kettlebells. To the list of exercise weights including dumbbells and barbells, add the kettlebell. A kettlebell is a heavy lump of metal with a handle attached. Track and field fans will find it reminiscent of the implement used during indoor season for the thirty-five-pound weight throw, but everyone else will look at it and see the profile of a cauldron or a kettle--hence "kettlebell."

"Marathoners have taken a full two minutes off of their times by adding kettlebell exercises to their training," I was assured by Laurel Blackburn of Boot Camps to Go. I neglected to ask whether the marathoners were going from 2:12 to 2:10 or from 5:01 to 4:59.

After an instruction period for novices on how to do kettlebell swings, the athletes started the event. First, they ran a loop of about 0.6 miles around Industrial Drive. After completing that lap, they bicycled around the same loop. After bicycling a lap, it was onto the gym floor for a set of swings with the kettlebell. After you put down the kettlebell, it was out the door to repeat the whole run-bike-swing formula again. The number of run-bike-swing circuits each athlete completed from 11:00am to 11:40am was recorded. The flyer promised "...one of the most intense workouts ever." After a couple of laps, most of the participants looked as if they would agree. And most everyone was there for a workout. You didn't see a whole lot of racing shoes or carbon-fiber-and-gossamer racing bicycles, just good solid equipment that you could build up a sweat with.

By noon everyone had returned to the gym floor for awards. The top team award went to a group of four athletes who accumulated thirteen run-bike-swing laps among themselves. Their teamwork, however, fell short of agreeing on a team name. "Name? I dunno," they shrugged. Cheryl Derstine was the top woman with three laps, and Paul Peavy the top male, also with three laps. At the end of the awards ceremony, Laurel Blackburn presented Judi Taber of the TMH Foundation with a generous check for the Sharon Ewing Walker Center.

Boot Camps to Go plans to make this annual event. Next time I'll show up early enough to learn how to swing a kettlebell.

Links:

• Run-Bike-Swing Photos
  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2738018&id=5215641&l=23048b60d0
  
  
• Boot Camps to Go
  http://www.bootcampstogo.com/
  
  
• Sharon Ewing Walker Breast Health Center
  http://www.tmh.org/cancer.cfm?id=199
  
  

Memoir of a casualty of the "Bradwell Bay of Pigs"

The tale of the Bradwell Bay of Pigs ride begins back in 2006, the first year that I rode in the Capital City Cyclists Spaghetti 100 off-pavement ride. The Spaghetti 100 also includes 100-mile and 100-kilometer road rides which are, so far as I can tell, typical road rides. In fact, because most of the road routes are in south Georgia, and Georgia seems determined to strip every tree from the entire right-of-way of each of its country roads, the Spaghetti 100 road rides don't really seem appealing--unless you're attracted to bicycling long distances on a solar-powered griddle. A hilly solar-powered griddle.

But the off-pavement ride is unique. It's not a trail ride or an off-road ride, but a ride mostly on dirt roads. For 100 kilometers (closer to 65 miles, actually) you get to tour red-clay country roads through game plantations, past cotton farms, and mostly shaded by sprawling live oaks that were old when De Soto passed this way with his Spaniards. I've done the ride every year since my first time, and I've searched unsuccessfully for another event like it.

It became clear that if we wanted another great off-pavement ride we'd have to make it.

For me, part of the charm of the Spaghetti 100 was that it takes place mostly on roads that I ran on back in the 1980s when I was training for marathons and shorter races. Another place that I used to do long runs was the Apalachicola National Forest, which is covered by a network of hundreds of miles of unpaved roads. Some of these are so sandy that they were unpleasant to run on and you certainly wouldn't want to bike on them, but many miles (given good weather) are as firm and smooth as any Georgia clay road.

Ace Haddock, a fellow veteran of the Spaghetti 100, lives in Sopchoppy. I suggested to him, "Why don't we ride from your house back to Tallahassee some time? I could have a pot of chili waiting."

Ace thought it over. "Why don't we ride from Tallahassee to my house?" Apparently Ace is not as impressed with my chili as I am.

I scouted possible routes and we talked to people who might be interested. Ace noted that we'd probably end up going by the Bradwell Bay Wilderness Area and named the event the "Bradwell Bay of Pigs Ride," evoking simultaneous images of fiasco and of the Apalachicola National Forests herds of hungry feral hogs. But the one thing we never did was ride the Bradwell Bay of Pigs. It had to be in cool weather. It couldn't be during deer season (really, it couldn't). It would be best when the weather wasn't too dry. It had to be when everyone interested was free to do it. We should probably drive the route first.

Almost two years went by.

It was late September and the 2009 Spaghetti 100 (October 17) was approaching. "You know," I said, "we should probably do some off-pavement rides before the Spaghetti 100."

"How about we do the Bradwell Bay of Pigs after the Prefontaine 5K?" returned Ace.

"I'm not running the Prefontaine 5K," I said. "I'm running the Quail Trail 5K in Pebble Hill. Why don't you run that and we can ride from Beachton to Boston and back after the race?"

"Do you know how far Boston is from Sopchoppy?"

"Well, I could do it after the Quail Trail 5K, but I wouldn't be able to start before noon."

Surprisingly, Ace didn't see anything wrong with this. We agreed to start on Aenon Church Road near the old Aenon Church cemetery. Todd McMillan joined the party. He was coming from a FSU vs. USF tailgate party, and showed up about quarter after twelve.

"Damn it, you didn't leave without me!" he grumbled.

We set out about 12:30. There was a direct route that was about 30 miles to "downtown" Sopchoppy, but it included quite a few miles of extremely sandy roads and more pavement than we wanted to ride. Instead, we decided on a route that was closer to 40 miles long, covered roads that I remembered as having good footing back when I ran on them, and actually took us by the Bradwell Bay Wilderness Area.

View Bradwell Bay of Pigs, 26 September 2009 in a larger map

We started south on Aenon Church Road, which is also National Forest Road 370. This was paved for about two miles, at which point the pavement mysteriously ends and the fun could begin. Another mile took us to the end of Aenon Church Road and a right turn onto National Forest Road 358. This took us down a hideously sandy slope, which probably would have been worse if the weather had been drier in September. As it was, only Ace made it to the bottom without being forced to dismount. At the end of the sand was Silver Lake Road, which we followed for about half a mile to National Forest Road 301.

We stayed on 301 for nearly seven miles, heading west most of the time. The first mile was sandy, but after that the surface was mostly firm. This brought us to the intersection with National Forest Road 360 and our first stop, about 11 miles into the ride. My body was telling me to bail. I wasn't feeling that bad, but I wasn't feeling good enough to be only about a quarter of the way through the ride. I had plenty of water along, but I hadn't been drinking enough after the 5K and before the ride. Big mistake. I remarked that Highway 20 was just about a two-mile ride to the north, and that I might just pedal up there and call for a ride.

"You're going to Sopchoppy if we have to drag you," encouraged Todd.

It looked like I was going on to Sopchoppy. Anyway, we'd be crossing Highway 267 in a little over three miles; I could always call for help there.

Actually, I was feeling deceptively good when we crossed the highway and thought that maybe I could gut this out. At least I'd try, seeing as how I was the only one who knew the route till we got closer to Sopchoppy. Anyway, there were two hunting camps coming up, Buckhorn and Brown House. One of them had to have water, right? In fact, I was sure that I remembered a pump at Brown House Hunt Camp.

There was no water at Buckhorn.

There may have been a pump at Brown House in 1976, but there wasn't one in 2009.

This should be a lesson to all future riders of the Bradwell Bay of Pigs route to carry all the water that you need and then some. What was left of the three quarts I had brought along no longer seemed sufficient. I was quickly becoming the anchor on the expedition.

Between Buckhorn and Brown House, after about eight miles on 360, we reached National Forest Road 309, where we turned right. For some people, it may help to mention that 309 is kind of a southerly extension of Helen Guard Station Road. For the rest of you--it's just another National Forest road. There are many of them. As Bill Bryson remarks in A Walk in the Woods, "mostly was the Forest Service does is build roads." This particular part of 309 is unusual in that it is punctuated by a couple of stretches of pavement, each about a tenth of a mile long. Back in the 1970s, signs indicated that these were test patches--places where the Forest Service was seeing how different types of pavement held up over time. The signs are gone, the test is most likely over, but the test patches remain to befuddle travelers through the Apalachicola National Forest.

Just over 22 miles into the ride we reached an intersection with National Forest Road 348. I wasn't sure whether we turned left here or continued straight on 309. I hadn't worried about where we turned off of 309 because I felt that it was close enough to Sopchoppy that Ace would know where it was. Ace, on the other hand, felt that the turn was close enough to Tallahassee that I would know where it was. Todd, meanwhile, felt that he could kill and eat both of us and have enough energy to find his way out of the forest.

Ace called for directions.

Todd's phone signaled a message. It was a sports score alert; USF 17, FSU 7. We weren't the only ones having a bad day.

Ace determined that we had to turn onto Forest Road 348. We did so, and a little over three miles later crossed FH 13, arriving at the border of the Bradwell Bay Wilderness Area. The road was good and seemed to have benefited from a recent light rain. More rainclouds protected us from the sun. We spotted dozens of trees marked with white bands, possible homes for red-cockaded woodpeckers. The road paralleled the Ochlockonee River (but not close enough for us to see it), following it downstream. Hey, that meant that we were going downhill. Things were looking up, right?

It started to rain.

Fortunately, the rain never got hard enough to make the road sloppy. If anything, it kept us cool. Just past 31 miles 348 turned a little bit too much toward the east, and we turned right onto the more southerly Forest Road 349. This took us to Forest Road 365, or Oak Park Road as indicated on the street signs. We reached pavement. The off-pavement adventure was over, but we weren't done riding yet. There was a stop at Grimes Cemetery, the final resting place of George Roddenberry, a soldier in the American Revolution. Or at least the final resting place of his wife and children; I was thinking too much about the future possibility of Coca-Cola to concentrate on the grave markers. Without the prospect of an unknown number of miles to Sopchoppy to distract me, I have to wonder how a Revolutionary War soldier found his way down to Florida. After all, Florida went from Britain to Spain after the Revolution, and it was a number of decades before the United States was able to wrestle it away from Spain. However, British loyalists might have fled to Florida during or after the Revolution--and I don't remember anything on the tombstone indicating which side Roddenberry fought for.

At 38 miles we reached Railroad Avenue. Railroad Avenue runs along the route of the Georgia, Florida, and Alabama Railroad as it passed through Sopchoppy on its way south to Carrabelle. You can see a deep cut made for drainage along the west side of the road, a relic of the railway. The GF&A Rail Trail may pass here some day as part of its 53-mile route from Tallahassee to Carrabelle. Tell your children, because I don't expect it to happen in your lifetime or mine.

A mile-and-a-half of wet pavement littered with frog carcasses brought us to Rose Street in Sopchoppy, a block away from a convenience store that sold buckets of fizzy water with sugar in it. Google says it was 39.6 miles from where we started. Just less than another mile took us to Ace's hideout near the Sopchoppy River, where he burned food for us on the grill and demonstrated his award-winning mullet cannon. The Bradwell Bay of Pigs Ride was over. Next time I promise to drink more water.

Modest Proposal #3,978

Clearly, the following signs have been less than effective in promoting safety for bicyclists:

Perhaps they should be replaced with these:

After all, it's clearly just a matter of putting up enough of the right kind of signs. Placing speed limit signs along the highway results in traffic moving at a safe speed; enforcement has never been necessary.

Links:

• Lots of new signs
  http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/2009/07/sharing-road-on-killarney-way.html
  
  
• Some people who treat this serious subject seriously
  http://www.3feetplease.com/
  

Sharing the road on Killarney Way

Earlier this summer the city of Tallahassee did some repaving work on Killarney Way. After all the heavy lifting was over, and you no longer had to worry about one lane being four inches lower than the other, it was time for finishing work--digging up the manhole covers, painting lane lines, taking down the "Road Construction" signs, and adding new signs. A week or two ago, I noticed that some "Share the Road" signs had been added. Quite a few "Share the Road" signs, actually.

As it turns out there are now seven "Share the Road" signs on Killarney Way going east from Thomasville Road to Shamrock Drive. There are seven more going west from Shamrock Drive back to Thomasville Road. The signs aren't evenly spaced, but I managed to crack the code--there is a sign after each side street to the right. That is, a sign each after Thomasville Road, Limerick, Longford, Kilkenny, Tullamore, Raymond Diehl, and Foley going east, and a sign each after Shamrock, Killarney Plaza, Forsythe, Clare, Clare, Monaghan, and Monaghan going west. An enormous bicycle icon in reflective white paint looms on the pavement next to each sign.

That's a lot of signs on a 1.4-mile stretch of road, enough so that it's nearly impossible to drive any distance on Killarney Way without passing at least one of the signs. Beyond Killarney Way on the east, there are no "Share the Road" signs on Shamrock Drive, so I suppose drivers might feel free to bully cyclists; there is a similar lack of signs past the west end of Killarney on Maclay Road. Fortunately, in my experience automobile drivers on Shamrock and Maclay have been civilized enough to share the road without being prompted.

A bike lane might have been more effective, but the signs certainly can't hurt. Killarney Way is wide enough for bicyclists and motorists to coexist, so maybe we'll be able to share the road.

2009 Ride For Hope

I heard that there were over 300 bicyclists in Tallahassee's fourth annual "Ride For Hope" on 6 June 2009. That's not a fact that for which I could give testimony, even though I was there, because there were more accurately five rides for hope--a 100 mile, a 100 kilometer, a 40 mile, a 15 mile, and a five mile. Starting times were staggered, with the 100-mile ride and the 100-kilometer ride starting at 7:00 am, while the 40-mile riders and the 15-mile riders started at 8:30 am, and the five-mile "fun ride" started at 10:00 am. Because I rode the 100-kilometer route, I saw very few of the people in the three shorter rides. In what seems to be cycling tradition, the posted distances were very approximate. The 100-kilometer ride, for instance, came in at about 59 miles or 95 kilometers, while the 15-mile course included a free bonus mile and was actually about 16 miles long.

The starting time also turned out to be approximate, but we were sent off about 7:10. From Celebration Baptist Church the route headed onto Centerville Road then north, quickly losing 100 feet of elevation as we descended to where Lake Kanturk drains under the road. Unfortunately, we were going to have to give all that elevation back on the last mile of the ride.

The course went from Centerville Road right onto Roberts Road, right onto Crump Road, right onto Miccosukee Road, left onto Miles Johnson Road, and right onto Chaires Cross Road. Then after fifteen miles of pedaling we were in the village of Chaires, the location of the first stop. Not that you had to stop, but I was glad for the excuse. I wasn't alone. If nothing else it was a chance to get a drink and visit the plumbing, both of which were available in Chaires.

After the stop we proceeded through Chaires, crossing the railroad tracks before turning east onto Capitola Road. Passing through Capitola, we headed onward to Lloyd and the second stop. Arriving at the Lloyd stop, it turned out that one of the 100-milers I had been riding with had a stuck brake and a flat tire. I was wondering how I had been able to keep up. However, from Lloyd, the hundred-milers were turning south, while the hundred-kilometer course continued east on the Old Lloyd Road. There was another stop a mile past Lloyd, but a mile was too early to make another stop, even for me, and even though the bananas looked tempting.

There is not much good to say about the Old Lloyd Road. I suppose that the pavement is good, and the scenery is fine, but the road is wide open, exposed to the sun and wind. The terrain is mostly rolling, but as you head between Interstate 10 and US 90 there is one major uphill (where I geared down and took it easy). No, there is not much good to say about the Old Lloyd Road, except that it eventually dead ends into US 90, at which point you've finished half of the 100-kilometer course.

US 90 is also known as the Fred Mahan Drive, after Monticello pecan tycoon Fred Mahan, who donated thousands of plants for beautification of the highway right-of-way between Tallahassee and Monticello. Unfortunately, after a commemorative plaque was erected in 1953, maintenance on the landscaping was minimal, and most of the plants are dead or strangled by kudzu or muscadine vines. Even so, Mahan Drive is an attractive stretch of road. We turned left onto it and headed west, passing what was left of Mahan's plants, some blooming crape myrtles that were added more recently, and Lake Miccosukee. We also had to pedal in and out of the Lake Miccosukee basin, but those slopes were surprisingly gentle. Best of all, there was a bike lane along the highway, clear save for a dead possum or two.

Last year the course had left Mahan Drive on Sunray Road, but this year we had to push on to Old Magnolia Road. Apparently too many cyclists had complained about the pavement on Sunray. I had enjoyed it myself, but I had been riding a steel hybrid with 2.125" tires, while the whiners had probably been riding carbon-fiber insects on pencil-thin rims. In deference to the road bicycles, we traded the oak canopy of Sunray Road for a few more miles of Highway 90, followed by a right turn onto Old Magnolia Road. There was another stop at 39 miles, near the corner of Sunray Road and Old Magnolia Road. Real food here; sandwiches and strawberries. The gentleman staffing the stop lived here, so we talked about his goats (a cute pair of youngsters) and the roads in the area before I climbed back on my machine to push it for the last twenty miles.

We turned left onto Rococo Road just before the unpaved section of Magnolia Road started (which is beautiful, but the road bikes can't take it), and then right onto the Veteran's Highway. I went by three cyclists getting a flat tire fixed on Veteran's Highway, then arrived in the village of Miccosukee, where a rest stop was getting packed up. Was I really that far back? In Miccosukee the route turned left onto Moccasin Gap Road, where I overtook Jeanne O'Kon and two other cyclists who were doing the the 40-mile ride. I rode with them to the next stop at Bradley's Country Store. There was ice cream at Bradley's; there was no way I was skipping that stop.

"Two of our friends missed the turn at Mahan Drive and ended up on the hundred kilometer course," Jeanne said. That didn't seem like it would have been hard to do. I hadn't seen any marks at that intersection for the 40-milers. On the other hand, I hadn't been looking for any marks for the 40-mile route.

Bradley's marked ten miles to go, which made it that much easier to enjoy the gentle slopes and canopy oaks of Moccasin Gap Road, which mysteriously becomes Centerville Road as you get closer to Tallahassee. The course turned left onto Bradfordville Road, and then onto Santa Anita Drive, the location of the last rest stop. From there, you were into the maze of residential roads of Dublin Downs, Killearn Acres, and Killearn Estates--turning right onto Pimlico Drive, right onto Clarecastle Way, right onto Shannon Lakes Drive, left onto McLaughlin Drive, and then right onto Tralee Road. All these turns were well marked. On Tralee Road, we had to climb back out of the Lake Kanturk basin. Gear down, pay the elevation debt, and curse the memory of Isaac Newton. After climbing the hill, Tralee dumped me back out onto Shamrock Drive next to Celebration Baptist Church, where I had to avoid getting creamed by cyclists leaving in their cars while trying to figure out how to get to the finish area. I think that I guessed right, but who knows? There were no signs or arrows on the pavement.

Back at the church the food was good and I found that I wasn't too tired to chew. The rain had held off and the weather was still gorgeous with (relatively) mild temperatures (for north Florida in June). A few hundred milers were still coming in, but I was suddenly very tired--In addition to the ride, I usually don't get up at 5:00 am and Saturday morning and change the tires on my bicycle.

Ride For Hope is a fund raiser for the Tallahassee Memorial Cancer Center. After four years it's also getting to be a pretty good bike ride. It should be back next spring.

Links:

• Ride For Hope web site:
  http://www.ride4hope.net/
  
  
• My Ride For Hope photos on Facebook
  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2658294&id=5215641&l=a83b46668e
  

The Sunshine State and the Washboard State

I like bicycle lanes. A four-inch wide stripe of paint isn't much to separate you from motor traffic, but I have my own strip of pavement to pedal on--even if I do have to share it with broken glass and rotten armadillo carcasses. There are quite a few bicycle lanes on Florida highways now, US 319 for instance. But if you keep pedaling north on US 319, eventually you cross over into Georgia

Georgia also has "bicycle lanes" on many of its highways. These really aren't for bicycles, though. They're cut with deep grooves, possibly to wake up a sleeping driver whose automobile has started to drift off the road. The washboard pattern would more than startle you out of your reverie if you were on a bicycle. It's sort of a "welcome to Georgia!" complimentary pulverization of your vertebrae. It can't do your machine any good, either. If I were riding from Tallahassee, Florida to Thomasville, Georgia, it would certainly encourage me to turn around at the state line.

Maybe that's the point. It would explain a lot.

The Great Bicycle Shop to open on the St Marks Trail

Imagine an interstate highway without gas stations. Life on the road would be a lot harder. Now, imagine a rail-trail without a bicycle shop.

Unfortunately, quite a few rail-trails get by without a bicycle shop, which is at the very least a horrible inconvenience. Driving past Atlanta last year, I was finally able to overcome my navigational incompetence and find part of the Silver Comet Trail. As luck would have it, we hit the trail right next to the Silver Comet Depot in Mableton. Instead of walking a couple of hundred yards on the trail and admiring the pavement, we were able to rent a couple of bicycles and spend an hour or two exploring the trail.

You don't have that convenience on the Tallahassee/St. Marks Historic Railroad Trail. The nearest bicycle rental is miles from the trail. If you need a new tube or a minor repair, you're not going to get it along the trail. At one time there was a bike shop at the trail head near Capital Circle, but that belongs to a dark past.

But lets look to the bright future. Sometime this year, the Great Bicycle Shop will be opening a store along the trail at 3624 Woodville Highway, about a mile and a half north of Capital Circle. The store at 1909 Thomasville Road will stay open, while most of the rental business moves to the new trail-side store. Repairs and a limited amount of sales will also be available at the Woodville Highway location.

The folks I talked to at the Thomasville Road store were cheerfully vague about a possible opening date. "In about a month," was mentioned, but with the stipulation that there have already been problems in changing an old house to a storefront, and there may be more. Work proceeds at the rate that it does and not always at the rate we'd like. But when it does open, I'll know where to go with out-of-town visitors who show up without bicycles.

Four Freedoms Trail, Madison, Florida

It's not listed in the Florida's Office of Greenways and Trails guide, nor is it listed by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy but Madison has a very nice rail-trail, the Four Freedoms Trail.

The south end of the trail is in Hanson (which is little more than a sign along the highway), about seven miles north of Madison along the Colin Kelly Highway (SR-145). The trail parking area are on the west side of the highway, and is not particularly inviting. There isn't a huge sign marking the trailhead, and the surrounding weeds don't provide much shade. A large, black lump on the ground shows where the trail paving crew dumped their excess asphalt at the end of the job.

Just a few hundred yards outside of the parking area, though, the trees close in and the trail is protected by a leafy canopy. The way is mostly wooded for about two miles until you approach the village of Pinetta. At this point I can only guess that there was some trouble obtaining the right-of-way to the old rail grade, because at this point the trail ceases to follow the old rail route. Instead, the trail follows a paved bike lane along Persimmon Drive. In the center of Pinetta the bike lane vanishes for a block or two and you're on the streets. This isn't much of a problem, though, because this part of Pinetta hasn't seen much traffic since before the railroad left. If you want to visit the village store or barbecue restaurant, those are a block east of the trail near the Colin Kelly Highway.

After another brief spell on bike lanes, the trail resumes north of Pinetta on the west side of Persimmon Drive. Around the 3-1/2 mile point, the trail crosses to the east side of the road, passes a good-sized parking area with picnic tables, and then plunges into the woods. For the next two miles you'll see little but trees to either side of you. Additionally, the trail acquires a noticeable downward grade--you're headed downhill to the Withlacoochee River and the state line.

Five-and-a-half miles from the Hanson trailhead, the Four Freedoms Trail ends at the Withlacoochee River. There's a picnic table under a shelter at the south end of the trail and an observation deck overlooking the river. The opposite bank of the river is Lowndes County, Georgia. Part of the old railroad trestle that carried the trains across the river still stands on the Florida side of the Withlacoochee. This is a pleasant spot to stop and eat a snack, watch birds, or fish. Or you could stare at the water, and imagine what an amazing ride you could have if the trail continued across the river and up the old rail grade into Valdosta.

I've bicycled the Four Freedoms Trail twice; there wasn't much traffic on it either time. In fact, I don't remember if I saw any other bicycle riders, altho' there were several folks walking on the trail. At only five-and-a-half miles (an eleven-mile round trip), it's probably not worth a long drive to visit, but if you're near the area you should definitely check it out. From the center of Madison, Florida head east on Base Street (US 90), and then turn left (north) onto Duval Street. Duval Street ends at Livingston Street, where you should turn right (follow the signs pointing to Valdosta). Livingston Street becomes the Colin Kelly Highway (SR-145).

Links:

• Madison County's map of the trail:
  http://www.madisoncountyfl.com/showFile.aspx?FileUploadID=1001817&PostID=3423


• Photos of the trail:
  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2361514&id=5215641&l=98248ff090


• Another Four Freedoms Trail report:
  http://behindthecrank.blogspot.com/2008/03/four-freedoms-trail.html