The plan
Friends of ours turned into snow-birds, and bought a place in Venice FL to escape the mean winters up here in Maryland (pause for the Canadian cyclists to scoff.) My wife visited them last winter, raved about the area, the biking and the weather. She is now retired and decided to spend several weeks in FL, adding trips to her relatives in Clearwater and other friends across the state in the Orlando area.
I'm still working and I have never really been a fan of Florida. I decided I would drive down with her, spend a few days with our friends in Venice and then bike up and to the right across Florida to get to Jacksonville and then the bike and I would take an overnight trip on the choo-choo back to Washington DC's Union Station.
It will be about 320 miles over 5 days, and the rough overall route looks like this:
The route was a mix of Google Map/Strava/RideWithGPS/ACA routes/East Coast Greenway and suggestions from some local riders. I put in a little detour in on the third day to do 29 miles or so on the Gen. James A. Van Fleet State Trail from Polk City to Mabel because it looked like a great experience. The last day from Palatka into Jacksonville will either be 55 miles of pure transportation-style biking, or closer to 80 miles of what is supposed to be a more scenic route - or a backup plan of just getting on Amtrak in Palatka, the stop before JAX.
I will be trying out my fairly new Jamis Renegade Escapade Gravel bike with bikepacking type bags, vs. my 25 year old trusty (and a bit rusty) Trek 520 with panniers. I've put about 300 miles on the Jamis, split between gravel/towpath surfaces and roads/paved trails. I really like the 1x drive train for the less hilly rides I do - and Florida certainly fits in there...
The first day, my friend Chris will join the ride and our wives will drive out to pick us up and take us back. The second day my wife will drop me off at wherever we finished and I will bike the rest of the way - credit card touring, staying at motels.
On the final day into Jacksonville, I have a reservation on a 5pm Amtrak train that will get me into Washington DC theoretically at 0700 the next morning - my experience with long distance Amtrak trains has been that nothing is ever on time.
When I arrive at Union Station, if the weather permits I will bike about 30 miles back to our house. I have been able to get an account at the semi-defunct Union Station Bike Station and will be able to store cold-weather gear there for that ride, and I can also put my bike onto the Metro train system and get to within a 10 mile ride home. If the weather is not safe for biking at all, I can lock my bike up there and Uber home, or give Uber XL a try and see if they can carry a bike. I also have a few friends lined up as potential shuttles if worse comes to worse.
This trip has more moving parts further away from home than most of my previous bike trips, so I am keeping in mind the famous philosopher's (Mike Tyson) version of an old Yiddish proverb: Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth....
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