Florida Ramble - Days 4 & 5 - Tarpon to St. Pete and back Home

Days 4 and 5 of the Florida Ramble riding from Tarpon Springs to Historic Uptown, St. Petersburg, and then back home.  Breakfast at Tula’s on the trail (boo-yer-dee) and 4th day of pedalling legs to start.  Busy on the Pinellas Trail on the weekend, but managed to play dodge-ems and avoid kamikaze retiree cyclists!Shorter day so trying to take it steady, but still averaging 12.4 even with all the slowing down for trail traffic - at that rate we’d be at Hughes and Rafael’s in time for brunch!

Slowed down after that though!  Had a puncture, again.  We’d just come zooming down a concrete hill and luckily we’d then stopped at a bike shop for something else.  We were off the bike and not zooming when we discovered the flat, thank goodness!  The Engineer fixed that flat and we stopped for a restorative salad.

Then the last 5 miles across to the east and Historic Uptown, St. Pete, to Uptown Abbey for an overnight visit with Hughes and Rafael, much closer to dinner time.  The weather was nice enough for one of Rafael’s dinners on the patio, lovely evening and company.  

Last day, Day 5, started w/ a leisurely pedal / tour through Old Northeast and Downtown St. Pete for a balcony breakfast at The Hanger at the airport led by our tour guide, Rafael.  Over breakfast we all watched an elderly lady climb into the front of an antique biplane and take off for a lesson - now that is inspiring!  Said our goodbyes, making plans for next time and headed back up the trail for the last day.  

Really good progress with short stops for water, coffee and a Safety Harbor snack stop.  Unfortunately, as we got on busy 580 for a quick dash to the next trail, it must have turned ‘puncture o’clock’ as the front went flat for the 3rd time in 3 days.  We were on the bike lane rather than the sidewalk and there was a waist high concrete barrier between the two so strip all the gear off the bike, again, and the two of us manhandled the bike up and over the barrier.  Another tube was replaced and we started off over the bridge.  And now it’s becoming comical, as we got to the far side of the bridge, the sidewalk had been washed away leaving an impassible section of approximately 50 feet and no way to cross it without going all the way back or lifting the tandem over the barrier, again (sigh).  Steve calmly lifted up the fully laden tandem and I balanced it while he clambered over the wall and lifted it again down the other side.  I scrambled over and we took off with fingers crossed against another puncture for the last 11 miles of the trip.  Amazingly, there was frustration, but no ‘sense of humour failure’!

Made it home with no further ‘adventures’ and very happy to have had a successful trip (criteria for that is staying on the bike and no ‘incidents’!).  Saw a gator, 12 tortoises, pedalled 250 miles and visited with good friends - what a treat!

Florida Ramble Day 3 - Brooksville to Tarpon Springs

Day 3 of the Florida Ramble - Brooksville to Tarpon Springs!  Had a nice breakfast and chat with some other cyclists at the B&B while we waited for it to warm up, it was 63 inside the house when we got up 😬.  Headed out with ‘all’ the clothes on and easily found our way out of Brooksville today (it was a lot more difficult last time!).  Up to the Suncoast, stopped for a coffee and then 29odd miles down to the Starkey Trail.  

Some definite dragging as we had a ‘very’ carby breakfast and ran out of steam early in.  Bumped into lots of cycley types to chat to on the way.

After the loud, boring Suncoast along the 589 highway, Starkey Park was a peaceful, quiet treat.  And Havana Dreamers for the promised Cuban sandwich - another treat.  This was great after we’d seen a really big gator and 12 gopher turtles!

A bit less of a treat was the puncture as we turned onto Keystone!  We are a bit tired of punctures!  

But then it was smooth pedalling to our overnight place just outside of Tarpon, right to one of Steve’s favourites, Cody’s!

Florida Ramble Day 2 - Brooksville Inverness and Back Again

Day 2 of the Florida Ramble, Brooksville to Inverness and back again, 62 miles in total.  Chilly, a northern edge to the wind today, mostly a headwind.  

Left Brooksville on the Good Neighbor Trail, 10 miles to the Withlacoochee Trail which we followed up to Inverness.  It’s a great trail, well paved, straight and you can get some miles in.  Mostly people on e-bikes and e-trikes today.  We played dodge-ems!

Tried a new breakfast place, Bree’s Riverside - made the list!  Split the obligatory Cuban sandwich in Inverness.  30 miles back to Brooksville and enjoyed a Florida Cracker place for dinner.

Florida Ramble - Day 1 - Home to Brooksville

Up and off early this morning, 50 miles to Brooksville and it’s supposed to rain by the afternoon - Florida rain!  Managed to get all the gear on the bike.  We really need panniers over here, everything is crammed in the top box, behind the seat and in various little bike bags, but it all fits so we’re going!

Home to the open part of the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, quite a bit is still out of commission from the hurricanes in the autumn.  Then a very, very fast pedal down Gunn Highway with its no bike path, no shoulder - close to 20mph on that section!  That turns into the Suncoast Trail which runs alongside 589, the Veterans Expressway for the next 30 odd miles.  The Suncoast is a great trail, but as it runs next to a highway is a tad noisy and that combined with the final stretch along Route 50 into Brooksville made it a trafficy day.  

And it rained.  Perfect timing for the first deluge, we’d just stopped for lunch and pretty good for the second, made a quick dash for a shelter and only got sort of soaked.  We and the bike got very dirty - need mudguards too!

Tomorrow should be virtually a no traffic and no rain day - woohoo!

Last time we pedalled through Brooksville was on a Sunday so almost all the restaurants were closed.  We have a good selection this time so we’re going to try The Bistro.  Staying at the same B&B, Ardendales - very ‘old Florida’!

Florida C2C - Tarpon Springs to Home

Shorter day today, ‘only’ 23 miles!  Headed out from what turned out to be an okay hotel (even if it was right on US 19) to our first stop of the day after a whole 1.6 miles - Toula’s Trailside Cafe.  Loads of coffee, an omelette and bougiourdi (boo-yer-di) set us up properly for the day! 

10 miles to John Chestnut Park and then started the final run back to Westchase and home.  Made it all the way to Linebaugh, just 3 miles from home, and then suddenly things started getting very, very wobbly!  Now we’d already had the broken spoke repair, so what now?  Another broken spoke and a flat tire!!!

Steve (Can he fix it? Yes, he can) flipped the bike over, took the wheel off, one tube out / one tube in, and we were off and pedalling!  Still wobbling, but we made it home!

Tandem is upside down in the garage and its wheels have gone to the shop.  Guy at the shop said, ‘Really lucky you made it back’, we thought the same thing!

Reflections on the C2C:

- Very different than European cycling tours in terms of places to stay at a reasonable price.  Very budget hotels / motels run $100+ whereas you can find a decent place to stay in a really nice old town in Europe for $80.  

- Cycling in the US, like many things, is not as mature as cycling in Europe.  This C2C at 249 miles is a long trail for the US.  You can go for thousands of miles on excellent trails in Europe.

- The food.  As much fun as Cody’s was last night, chain restaurants prevail here and finding little hole in the wall unique / local reasonably priced foodie places are much less easy to find.

The conclusion we’ve come to is that we’ll continue to use the weather here to ‘train’ for the summer season and tours in the U.K. and Europe, but we probably won’t be heading over here in the summer time to do a bike trip.

BUT, it was a great trip and we loved it!  249 miles in total, perfect weather, found our way w/out any signs and managed the odd mechanical - that’s a successful trip!