January 17, 2020
Day 2: Arcadia FL to Auburndale
28 miles of cycling with huge trucks of oranges, 20 miles of "ahhh", 20 miles of "meh"
The pre-ride activities finished up with a a fun lunch (with a watchful alligator) and banjo music concert at Snook Haven.
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The next morning I packed up the bike and Carole and I drove north to Arcadia FL.
Arcadia was about 60 miles northeast and I got the bike off the car and was on the road by about 0930. On day 2 I wanted to bike on the 29 mile Van Fleet trail from Polk City to Mabel, so today I had to veer west from some other published bike routes and spend a lot of time on Route 17.
For much of the time, Route 17 had a decent 3-4 foot shoulder and traffic wasn't killer heavy. However, much of the traffic was huge trucks, many loaded up with oranges and what looked like either sweet potatoes or very strangely shaped oranges. The shoulder was littered with an odd mix of oranges and road kill, with the occasional blown truck tire. Either the critters got killed by flying fruit, or they were attracted by the fruit on the shoulders and then the exploding tires killed them...
To their credit, the drivers of the largest trucks mostly moved to the left lane before they passed me - the numerous mobile home and pickup truck/trailer drivers, not so much. When someone did move left I would give them a "Thanks, brother trucker" verbal shout-out and the ones who didn't move over got a slightly modified, yet rhyming one.
It was a bright sunny day, pleasant riding conditions - but the 70 mph trucks whooshing by a few feet from my left ear and the occasional disappearance of the shoulder made it not much fun. There were a few sections where I diverted off of Rt. 17 onto back roads through orange groves and small towns that were probably segments of the main road before 17 was built - very pleasant biking, and a little bit of up and down that was a pleasant change from the completely flat Route 17.
My only stop was at a Dollar General (in most towns along the way, Dollar Stores were about all they had) to buy a cheap bottle of Gatorade and eat some fig bars I carried. Back on 17, the cold front that was approaching brought increasingly strong headwinds from the north and bit east. The weather report later showed 10-15 mph winds, with gusts to 25 and it felt like it.
At a few small towns along the way, the shoulder disappeared completely but there were parallel sidewalks - often miles from any houses - that I rode on to escape the traffic. Maybe they planned all this out back in the booming development days, but hard to figure out what road planners were thinking by spending on sidewalks with no houses instead of just using the right of way for better shoulders. But, I kinda think not a lot of planning happened in Florida as development happened.
At about mile 55 in Bartow, I finally got off 17 for good and after zigging and zagging through some very pretty residential areas, I got on the Fort Fraser paved trail, for a very serene 8 mile ride to Lakeland- a welcome change.
From there it was about a 7 mile slog into the headwinds along busy but shouldered roads to Auburndale and the Best Western on busy route 92. There was some kind of soccer tournament in town, so the place was pretty busy.
After a bit of R&R, I walked over to Walmart to pick up some supplies and then across the 6 lane highway to Chili's for dinner, where I thought "roasted street corn" sounded like a healthy side dish for my shrimp tacos and salad - not so much.
Today's ride: 68 miles (109 km)
Total: 147 miles (237 km)
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