floridamtb

I've been planning a 4 day weekend trip to Mount Dora Florida for the Mount Dora Bicycle Festival with the Back to Back Century Challenge for SIX MONTHS! Florida has gone 11 years without a major hurricane... until now, this weekend, the bike festival weekend. Should be called Hurricane Murphy not Matthew. Well anyway, Friday looks like it's "blown" so much for the B2B Century. Saturday and Sunday look great the only concern is the amount of road debris on the back roads of central Florida. Did I do something to offend the velo gods to have them bring this upon us NOW?

Well keep your fingers crossed we all make it through safely.

dalava

Be careful out there, whatever you do. Hurricane and its aftermath is not something to mess around with

yamahafz1

Man, that just blowz (see what I did there?) Anyway, be careful with the storm coming. I am under the impression that carbon bikes assplode in hurricane's.

dr_lha

Good luck. I sat through 2 hurricanes in Florida in 2004, and the aftermath was not something I'd want to cycle through. That said, I was on the coast (Cocoa Beach to be precise) where the damage was pretty severe. I was 25 miles from the eye of Hurricane Francis at one point, and then later in the week when I got home, Francis followed me and made a tree fall on my house and car (due to rainfall, not wind BTW).

StanSeven

I haven't done an organized century for years. Then I planned to do one Saturday near the Maryland shore. The latest Matthew forecast for the ride is rain and strong wind. So my Saturday now might be getting donuts and drinking coffee

Nachoman

I haven't pedaled in a hurricane, but I did pedal through a hail storm, largely because I had already paid for two non refundable nights at an expensive hotel and two non refundable entry passes to participate in the century, and didn't want to flush it all down the drain.

TimothyH

Seagull Century is sublime. I hope you get to do it.


-Tim-

bikecrate

On the good side...think of all those great bike rides we got in the last 11 years without any hurricanes.

cydewaze

My wife and I did a century in eastern MD right on the heels of hurricane Ernesto. We left late to give the rain a little time to subside (it didn't help much) but the roads were still a mess. Branches and leaves everywhere that covered up the road markings, which the brilliant organizers made in the exact same style and color as the Verizon markings. Not to be outdone by the hurricane, the organizers gave everyone around 3 hrs to make it to the lunch stop @ mile 52 in those conditions, before packing up shop and leaving. They also packed up the dinner (that we paid $20 for) long before we finished, so we missed out on that too.

I phoned the organizer the next day to complain but he'd already disconnected his phone.

Anyway, the debris was the main problem, and a bit of gusty wind, so be careful. Wet leaves are no picnic.

mercator

On the one hand, I feel some sympathy since it sounds like a nice ride got delayed.
On the other hand, you probably don't have snow in the forecast (like I do) so you can always to it later.

floridamtb

I'm guessing you never did that ride again?
The 5PM advisory is out and the European model (which has been very accurate) shows it making landfall east of Orlando on Friday (as a cat 3) and moving northwest. Yeah, I'm thinking this trip isn't a good idea, even with nice weather on Saturday and Sunday the debris will be a mess meaning you have to swerve out in the road and Florida drivers are some of the worst in the country.

cydewaze

That would be a correct guess. It's fine, since it wasn't a great route anyway. Not much climbing, and a lot of it was along the shoulders of busy divided 4-6 lane divided state highways.

We have better centuries, and you'll have a better one too, one where you won't be hanging onto a pole with your bike fluttering like a flag from your cleats.

hogger453

Thank global warming.

StanSeven

Let me guess. Bay to Bay?

cydewaze

It was called the Bay Country Century. Not sure if it exists anymore.

StanSeven

I've done the Bay Country too. The Bay to Bay is from Betterton Md to the Delaware Bay and back. It's small and very low key. One time it was very hot so the people staffing a rest station closed up when they ran out of water. Another time they mixed Tang instead of having sports drink.

floridamtb

Latest update is Friday rides are cancelled, check in for Saturday and Sunday begins at 2PM Friday... when they'll be experiencing 50MPH winds. They're expecting out of towners to drive in with those winds, but that assume people can find gas. Already here in south Florida most stations are out of gas or have 1-2 hour wait for gas. Almost seems like the organizers are intent on "putting it on" so they can say that it went on "rain or shine" and not refund people their money. I can understand "rain or shine"... but not "Cat 3 hurricane or shine"

indyfabz

Not to get too far off topic, but the GF and I did two rides in PA where things like that happened. On one, we and some friends did the longest route. It was hilly. We did not stop to smell the roses. Yet we got back to the start/finish to find it was completely deserted, as if there had been no event at all. The second one was a YWCA-sponsored ride. There was a 50 mile route and an 82 mile route. We did the latter. When we reached the finish, we were told that lunch had ended a while ago. This was another hilly route. To make matters worse, we got delayed by a running race in downtown Westchester. We did the math and figured out that, with an 8:30 a.m. scheduled start, to make it back to start/finish in time for lunch we would have had to average 17 mph over 82 mph and NOT STOP ONCE in order to make it back by the end of lunch.

CliffordK

No attempts to complete your century ride in about an hour? And scoring a few Strava KOM's in the process?

We haven't had a good wind storm here in Oregon since Columbus Day, 1962, a bit before my time.

cydewaze

Yeah. I don't think that's a realistic average for your general recreational rider over that distance. You'd think they'd keep track of how many riders they still had out on course, but maybe that's just me.

velociraptor

...or global cooling...?

Wait, let's just hedge our bets and call it "Climate Change".

bikecrate

It would be pretty ridiculous to continue with the event. Even if the storm has passed there maybe debris, downed powerlines, power outtages, depleated store shelves, returning evacuees on the road etc.

WalksOn2Wheels

Yeah, no. Eff that. This storm is no joke and the area the ride is supposed to start at is probably going to get pretty hard. They are out of their minds if they insist on going through with the event at all.

Edit: I just noticed your location. Are you getting you and yours out of there? Hope all is well.

PhotoJoe 

MOD NOTE - Let's keep the climate change talk in P&R, please. Thanks.

VegasTriker

This caught my eye as I wondered what would happen to an event with the entire eastern portion of the state under evacuation warning. The website now says both Friday and Saturday rides have been cancelled but Sunday is still scheduled. The storm track last night showed a possible loop around to hit the state as second time. Interesting!