Day 1: St. Pete to Starkey

The day had finally come. I woke early to leave close to sunrise.

The actual Pinellas Trail starts at the entrance to Demen’s Landing in St. Petersburg, FL. But since I’d be riding the Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail, I liked the idea of starting from a true coast. I was in luck, because Spa Beach was just up the road by the Pier!

I rode to the beach and asked a woman to snap a photo or two of me. After the photo op, I took a few artsy pictures with my good camera.

The weather was cool, in the 50s, and the sky was overcast. I started rolling a little before 8:00 a.m. with approximately 55 miles in front of me for the day.

This day of riding was familiar terrain for me. I’d ridden it multiple times, both as a training ride for my Canada bike tour back in 2018 and well as a weekend bike camping get away. Still, every time I’ve ridden the route I see new things or take a slight detour that changes the terrain a bit.

Early in the trip I snapped some pictures of murals. St. Pete has a lot of awesome murals sprinkled around town, and some of them follow the Pinellas Trail.

Keep your eye out for the osprey that might try to steal your bike! (above left) And there are a lot of cool murals in St. Pete’s Stonehenge. (above right)

The Pinellas Trail is a rails-to-trails project, which means that it follows an old railroad line. You can help keep track of the miles with these souvenirs from those past days. Some of them have bike maintenance stands nearby.

The Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail isn’t 100% complete yet, and the same has been true for the Pinellas Trail. Past times I’ve ridden the Pinellas Trail, it wasn’t fully connected to Starkey Wilderness Park (or if it was I didn’t end up taking it the full way for some reason). That doesn’t seem to be true anymore. It was nice being off the highway longer and going by new terrain, which included the Brooker Creek Preserve. The trees were quite lovely.

Part of my reason for wanting to go on the trip was to get out in nature. Along with that, to slow to the pace of a bicycle. You see a lot of things you might normally never notice from the window of a moving car! And the ride didn’t disappoint in that regard. I saw some of my favorite birds on the ride up to Starkey: roseate spoonbills, sandhill cranes, and wood storks.

And I met some nice folks along the way. They were curious about my bike and my trip. They even offered to take my picture before wishing me well and going their separate way.

The temperature stayed cool all day, never getting out of the 50s, and it drizzled most of that time. But I was dressed for it and never felt uncomfortable. At one point I even felt hot and unzipped the legs of my convertible pants and took off my raincoat. Not much longer down the road the rain picked up a bit and back on they went and stayed.

At one point there was a sign showing “Pinellas Trail” this way and “Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail” another. I started down the Pinellas Trail path and then changed my mind. I decided to go the path less traveled, for me anyway.

That path took me to the Starkey Market where I picked up fresh strawberries to accompany my otherwise lackluster dinner.

The last few miles to Starkey Wilderness Park, in Pasco County, another cyclist caught me up going to the same place. He’d been riding the Florida Coast-to-Coast in sections, a little bit each weekend. He may have started in Palm Harbor or in Tarpon Springs that day. He rides and his wife picks him up at the end point. He’s going to ride the whole Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail that way. It was nice having someone to talk to those last miles, and to keep me from missing the turnoff!!

My trail friend and I parted ways. I checked in with the Ranger, then set up camp. I even got a bit of a fire going despite the dampness. (Friends taught me corn chips make good fire starters.)

A chill start to the trip. I think I even slept well that night for an early start the next day. I logged 56.2 miles that day.