Southeast - Looking for 70-100 mile route recommendations in Florida

Can anyone reccomend some loops in northern Florida (north of Orlando)? Preferable in the 70-100 mile range.

Most of the routes I've seen on MapMyRide.com look very urban. I've found some shorter routes on the Florida Freewheelers site but even they look like a lot of time on cross walks. I'm not opposed to bike lanes or some traffic....it's just that I'm driving 15 hours just to bike so I might as well find a nice route.

How would the Horrible Hundred or Tour De Cure routes be to do solo? Some of the organized ride routes in Ohio would be plain suicide if done without 1000 friends.

Thanks.

You could ride the rails to trail rides. The Withlacoochee trail is 46 miles one way. It's about 40 miles NW of Orlando. I too got sick of cold weather and took a three day mini vacation to Florida. I rode the Withlacoochee trail. It's kinda boring but no cars. I was riding during the week and there was little traffic on the trail. Plenty of sections that would allow you to open it up a little.

awesome. As long as I know I have somewhere to crank out some miles I'm happy. Sounds like it might be worth taking the cross bike as well to ride in some dirt.

By the way, if you make your home base in Brooksville you're within 15-20 mile from the Withlacoochee, the Suncoast Trail and about 30 from the Van Fleet trail. There all long range trails.

Well, I have done variants of all sorts of rides in Central Florida. I will refer you to the Florida Freewheelers site. The "Ramerez Romp to Seville" is a good 70 mile ride near Deland FL.

There is a good ride starting in Mount Dora and going up through emeralda marsh to Umatilla and back to Mount Dora. The Seminole Springs ride is about 45 miles out of Mount Dora. You could do the Ya La Ha Bakery Ride out of Astatula.

If you are thinking of doing the Withlacoochee Trail, basing out of Inverness makes good sense. It is right on the trail. Also, you could go over to Crystal River and snorkle and look at Manatees also.

Unless you do the Horrible Hundred, you will not have a really tough route in central Florida. The HH has some climbing. But you can do the 70 mile option and it isn't bad. Also the 70 mile version can be shortened pretty easily on the fly. All you have to do is look at a decent map or google earth and draw in the appropriate short cuts.

Now up at Ocala there is the extremely popular Horsefarm 100. I bet you could get a map of the route off the internet. And I would also figure that the route could easily be shortened. It is quite pretty up there.

I have found that I can often find a decent route in central Florida just by following my nose. Sometimes, I have to retrace my way but most of the time one can sort of feel out decent roads. But that takes a sort of hard wired GPS which I seem to have.

Pat