FLORIDA COAST TO COAST BIKE TRAIL DAY 1

    

My starting point at Playalinda Beach.

    Welcome to the revival of the Meandering Moose Blog.  Nan and I have lived relatively normal lives since my last post but we just did something really cool so I thought I would bring my blog back to life.  So wake up blog; I'm baaaccck!!!

My new gravel bike outfitted for my trip.

   Approximately 7 years ago our good friends Jim & Nanc Tidball mentioned a long distance bike trail connecting Pittsburg to D.C.  At that time I was an occasional mountain biker; but long distance biking peaked my interest.  3 years ago, after suffering torn up legs and knees, shredded arms and elbows, and the ole "face-meets-dirt-meets-dentist" episodes; I decided to retire from mountain biking and get a road bike.  Since physical well being was a primary focus in becoming a road biker I picked a wonderful state to start--Florida.  Florida leads the country in per capita bike deaths every year; by a wide margin!  Down here we don't call 'em "bikers," we call 'em "targets!"  For my new bike, I discovered "gravel" bikes which are slightly beefed up road bikes designed to handle dirt trails while supporting lots of "bike-packing" gear.  When I started my journey to purchase a gravel bike our country was in the middle of a tariff war with China and we were at the start of the Covid related supply chain issues.  It turned out that any bike other than the bottom of the line bikes were not available.  Higher quality bikes were impossible to find.  It took me 2 1/2 years to finally find and purchase my new gravel bike.  The bike is a red Trek Checkpoint SL5 with a carbon fiber frame and loaded with all the cool components to make biking as enjoyable as possible.  (It is not an e-bike so it is all me and my legs.)  And best of all, when I peddle at my normal cadence my new bike is 5 MPH faster than my mountain bike.

Kennedy Space Center.

My first "hill."
This is the bridge from Merritt Island to Titusville.
In Florida, the definition of a hill is a bridge.

    Since we now live in Florida, I discovered that Florida has a 250 mile bike trail named the Coast to Coast trail (C2C).  The trail starts at the Atlantic Ocean on Playalinda Beach in Canaveral National Seashore which abuts the Kennedy Space Center.  The trail meets the Gulf of Mexico in Clearwater before turning inland to its terminus at Demens Landing Park on Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg.  Florida is also topographically challenged so the trail is flat, easy riding.  Since I was planning on 50 mile days and had only received my new bike 7 months ago, I needed to start a little training.  I worked my way up to the point were 30-40 mile trips were relatively easy so I felt I was ready to go.  The problem was my training was very inconsistent due to a 6 week bout with the flu, a month in Connecticut in winter just prior to the trip, and a bout of Covid a couple of weeks before the trip.  Since I turned 70 in June I decided to just go for it and I did!

    I was very fortunate to have Nan along as my "shuttle bunny."  The actual biking term is "SaG" which means "Support and Gear."  However, in my earlier years I was hard core whitewater kayaker and "shuttle bunny" was the term we used for support drivers.  I prefer to use the kayaking vernacular.  This meant that Nan would carry all my overnight gear, drop me at the put-in (trail head), drive ahead to meet me for lunch, drive me to the hotel for the night, drive me to restaurants for dinner, and drive me to the next day's put-in.  I don't know how I would have done this without her!  This was "super-glam" and it was nice to have my "super-glam" Moose along; especially since I was doing the trip alone.

My 1st stop at Space View Park in Titusville.
This is a monument to the astronauts in the
Mercury Program.

Space View Park.
This park is also known as Veterans Park as it honors
all local veterans from every war in which the USA was involved.
We were involved in a lot of wars!  

    Day 1:  16 miles.  80+ degrees and sunny, slight tail wind.  Nan dropped me at Playalinda Beach.  Since Playalinda is in Titusville which is where we lived for 4 years when not traveling, we decided to keep the day short so we could revisit some of our old haunts.  I biked only 16 miles to Draa Park so we could have an enjoyable lunch at our favorite restaurant in Titusville--Pier 220 on the Inter-Coastal Waterway.  The restaurant was superb.  Biking was another story.  The road from the beach to Titusville is a 10 mile, 2 lane, 50 mph road with no shoulder.  The road is the employee entrance to the Space Center and gets so heavy with traffic that it is only open to bikers after 9 AM until 3 PM.  Fortunately, I did the ride around 11 in the morning and traffic was surprisingly light.  And I have a super power--I have a flashing tail light which is also a radar unit.  As cars approach from behind the tail light starts flashing rapidly.  It also broadcasts a signal to my Garmin Bike computer letting me know when there is a car behind me, how many cars there are and how fast they are traveling.  So now I would know when a car was approaching.  The only problem was that the radar does not let me know exactly where the car is on the road.  This meant that I didn't know if the approaching car was simply going to pass me or run me over.  I was still at the mercy of all those responsible drivers who think texting is more important than human life--uggh!  

Pier 220.
Our favorite Titusville restaurant.

The view from our table at Pier 220.

    After lunch Nan and I were able to tour the area and re-familiarize ourselves with the fun time we had in Titusville.  We even headed to another favorite restaurant in Port Canaveral for dinner--Rusty's.  We were disappointed that the food quality at Rusty's had deteriorated; but we loved the setting on the water.