Southeast - biking through Florida- advice please

Hi all. I'm a year-round Minnesota biker and am leaving the cold winter to bike through FL for 5 weeks. We plan to start in Orlando head west to Tampa area, then south east around the state ending in Tallahassee. As I'm not familiar with biking in the state, can anyone direct me to good resources to find stretches of bike paths and good roads to travel on? Also any advice, especially on what to expect on FL roads is greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks!

Go on WWW.CRAZYGUYONABIKE.COM under search: Touring the real Florida/Ryan Shaw.

ride defensively.

You can't pick a better place and time for a long ride. It's flat, it's warm, it rarely rains in the winter. You'll get wind along the coasts, but nothing too tough.

This is a great site for bike paths:

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/gwt/guide

There are many miles of rail trail, especially near Tampa and central Fl. They don't link up perfectly, but you can do 50/50 trail/road in west/central Fl. On the east coast, most parts of route A1A are decent rides, from Jupiter to Jacksonville. I would avoid Miami, unless you have non-bike reasons you want to be there. If you don't know Bikely.com, try this site to link the trails and search good roads:

http://www.bikely.com

You can see maps and satellite photos, and use them to draw your own map. In case you are camping:

http://www.floridacamping.com

Good luck and have fun.

I live in NW Central Florida. Try Citrus/Hernando counties which both have long (40 miles) bike-only trails, decent bike shops and even bike-type accommodation. Try googling BicyclesPlus and Black Bear Bikes, theses sites have useful links. If you have any serious questions, send me a PM and I will try to answer.

thanks for all of the advice and links!

find a delorme Florida Atlas and Gazetteer (http://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtdItemDetail.jsp?forge_prod=srVMm00hVqnwo3rmUzcDgfj1%3AS&beginIndex=0&item=118&section=10096&forge_prod_pses=forge_prod%3DsrVMm00hVqnwo3rmUzcDgfj1%253AS%7E), the best detail in back roads, A1A along the east coast, Cassadaga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassadaga) is interesting and located between Orlando, Daytona and Gainesville. There is a nice hostel in St. Augustine, just off the center square and Bridge of Lions, camping should be availible on Anastasia_Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_Island), Florida_State_Road_16 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_Road_16) heads west to Green_Cove_Springs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Cove_Springs) and Starke, or Florida_State_Road_17 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_Road_17) goes along the western coast of the St. Johns River and through the Ocala_National_Forest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocala_National_Forest)...

needless to say, much to see in north central/northeast florida, some of the most interesting things to see are between the St. Johns river and the Atlantic coast, the better riding is likely in the center of the state and near the St. Johns River... and always always ride defensively

"needless to say, much to see in north central/northeast florida, some of the most interesting things to see are between the St. Johns river and the Atlantic coast, the better riding is likely in the center of the state and near the St. Johns River... and always always ride defensively"

Sage advice to the Unwary .... there is nothing on God's Green Earth would make make me take a bike into any of the Florida Senior Cities .... neither would I advocate Going Downtown in any colorful, multi-ethnic community ... stick to the rural areas and you will be safe!

oh yah.. Learn to bungee jump over the rattlers.

neither would I advocate Going Downtown in any colorful, multi-ethnic community ... stick to the rural areas and you will be safe!


You are being a little harsh here.......
IVe only been attacked twice.






:lol:

You are being a little harsh here.......
IVe only been attacked twice.

On the contrary, I was deliberately erring on the side of PC'ism!

Suncoast trail, Withlacoochee trail, Upper Tampa Bay trail, Pinellas Trail, Gainesville-Hawthorne rail-to-trail, etc. I just listed a combined century and a half, maybe almost a double.

And Williston road from Williston to Gainesville is about a 30-35 mile stretch with a nice bike lane - though the car speed limit is 65mph...

Take a look at the individual bike clubs http://www.floridabicycle.org/clubs/clubs.html for additional information. There are some great biking trails already mentioned, but some roads are not biker friendly so do a virtual ride on Google Earth or Virtual Earth before you do the real thing. Have fun.

I think you picked the wrong place to post this question. You might try backing out to the southeast regional section and searching for bike clubs in your area. Check with your LBS (local bike shop) to see if they have rides. What you are looking for is an No Drop ride where you can work on skills and such untill you're ready to go farther and faster.

BTW, if you haven't already, get a computer to track your progress, I do mine mostly by memory.

For places to ride near Orlando and in a radius some distance around, the Florida Freewheelers have a website that has maps to their popular rides.