Day 3: Cypress Glenn to Magnolia

*Disclaimer* – I feel vulnerable writing this post. I did dumb things that caused me trouble. And then I got stuck in a bad situation, and my decisions may have been clouded because of the dumb thing earlier. But I’m going to write the story anyway, because 1) that’s pretty much the theme of the blog as a whole, 2) I’m sure someone else has an equally dumb story, though different, that they’ve experienced, and 3) maybe I’ll save someone else some trouble in the future.

Oh, and fair warning, I am almost certainly going to drop an f-bomb or two in this post.

Here we go…

Tuesday was supposed to be my longest riding day, but not by a longshot. On Sunday I’d logged 56.2 miles and Monday 53.9 miles. I had ~59 miles planned for the ride from Cypress Glenn Campground to Magnolia Park Campground in Apopka. So since it was my longest planned day, I wanted to get on the road early.

Another reason to leave early was that the temperature was predicted to get into the 80s, where the previous days had stayed in the 50s and 60s. If you live up north, 80 degree weather may sound like heaven. But when you are cycling for hours and hours, the sun and heat can become a hurdle.

I’d found the route in this link through one of the official Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail websites. (I’ve since searched for it, and I’ve been unable to find it…) It had been Ok thus far, so I followed it again and took a turn back north on the Withlahoochee Trail. It showed a connection east that wasn’t highway just north of where the Good Neighbor Trail left off. I followed the trail back to the Good Neighbor Trail, and I had to find a way across to where the proposed trail picked up. I realized I needed to get on the road parallel to the trail, so I looked for a break through the fence. I finally found one and peddled up to where the proposed trail said to turn.

It was an electric line easement. It was unpaved, but at first it was packed sand and Ok to follow. I didn’t think much of it, because other portions of the trail are put in with electric lines too. But with this path I didn’t get very far until I reached a boggy area.

One of the lessons that finally clicked at some point during this trip is: scout without the bike in these situations first.

I did get off the bike and look, but I didn’t look any further than the one boggy area. I found a way around it, through a wooded area. I triumphantly reached the other side. I proceeded on and … there was a stream or river. No bridge. From the proposed trail, perhaps there once was one that locals put in. I’ve been lucky like that before.

It wasn’t to be this time, but there was some sort of trail back there. I followed it for a little bit to see if it went anywhere, really wanting this path to work. I then had the good sense to check the map again. There just wasn’t any way across nearby.

Back out to the road I went.

So what to do now? I pulled out my phone with GPS map and the Google. I poked around a bit, and I saw that I could get on Highway 98 to get to Highway 50.

Alright! Good to go!

Except something in my brain thought I had to go back to where I left Highway 98 the day before. So that’s where I started heading. Backwards…

After riding for awhile, I took a break, and I looked at the map again.

Oh no… I saw what I’d missed or misinterpreted before: that I could have continued south on the Withlahoochee Trail to pick up 98 and 50.

Should I keep going and cut around on 98, which is highway and would be traffic-y? Or reverse again, stay on pleasant trail, and double back?

If I’d looked at the map closely, I would have just stayed on course. Getting back on 98 from where I was would have been a straighter shot southeast to where I was trying to get to. But I chose the latter. It was smooth trail, and I figured I could make better time and stay safer than riding the highway. *I’m feeling very vulnerable in admitting this.* This mistake cost me 20 miles.

C’est la vie…

Somewhere along the line I saw five sandhill cranes that I wouldn’t have gotten to see unless I’d gone the “wrong” way! So there’s that.

So I’m riding along, feeling stupid. Trying to tell myself it’s Ok that I made a mistake. It mostly works, but I was feeling annoyed with myself. Fortunately there were a goodly number of riders on the Withlahoochee, and I chatted with some of them as they passed me by in their faster set-ups. They got my spirits up a bit with their talks of their own tours and cheering me on my adventure.

Finally it was time to turn off onto Highway 50 again, but I didn’t really want to stay on the highway the whole way. That wasn’t what this trip was about. So since my original route got messed up, I consulted the map again. This time I tried to use Google Maps bicycle function to get me to my campsite in Magnolia Park in Apopka.

One of the paths it offered was through Richloam Wildlife Management Area. I decided to check out what it looked like. If it didn’t look suitable for a bike, I could always hop back on the highway.

Have you ever seen the cars and trucks that plot roads for Google? They drive around and have a GPS unit sticking out the top. They often have video or photo devices too. I’ve seen a few of them, and I figured if one of those Google Map cars could drive the proposed bicycle route that it should be Ok.

Probably 85% of it was fine. Some of it was unpaved, but packed sand. Some of it was rough concrete, which wasn’t the most pleasant to ride on but went through pleasant, wooded areas. I passed a few areas where bees were being kept. Thistles fascinated me for some reason. I even came upon an area to rest that was part of a fishery nursery.

While bumpy, this route was turning into a nice one.

Until Google told me to “turn left.” I’d kept the Google on throughout to warn me of upcoming turns and whatnot. I looked where she told me to turn, and I was pretty skeptical. Definitely not paved. The sand didn’t look well packed. It was super forest-y, which isn’t a bad thing, but the terrain looked rough. Google said it was only 0.2 miles to the next portion of the trail. (Somehow I’d forgotten about how Google Maps had lied about distance in other, less dire, portions of the trip.)

At that point, I’d ridden about 10 miles along nicer trail through Richloam. And keep in mind, I’d already played my 20 mile down-and-back game earlier. Going backwards again didn’t sound nor feel good, and I could feel the clock ticking to make some forward progress.

Besides, how bad could it be! Remember the Google Map trucks?? It was only 0.2 miles.

So forward I went.

This was the first of many bogs I had to push my bike around, and not the worst of them by far. I didn’t take too many pictures for the next 2-ish miles, mostly because I was pushing my bike most of that way.

It started off like this, but the vegetation got thicker and the swampy areas got more frequent. And where it wasn’t swamp it was loose sand. Pushing the bike was literally easier than trying to ride.

I was consoled by the fact that I was following other folks’ truck tire treads, and in some places even the trucks had to go around. I learned quickly to follow the alternate routes when available. I nearly bogged the bike trying to push through one mud patch. I didn’t think the mud would be that deep, but I sank up to my calves and the bike sank nearly mid-wheel. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get old Socrates out.

Finally I could see sunlight coming through from the next, supposed, trail. The light was coming through an electric easement. There were more tire treads, but no real trail to speak of. And on both sides of those tire treads was swamp. There weren’t any trees, just grasses and more herbaceous species of plants, which meant no shade.

The “trail” when up and down, up and down. With every down, there was bog to go around, but with a narrow margin to do so. On either side of the road was straight up swamp. At one point I startled what could have only been a gator that splashed loudly but went his own way. That scared me. It reminded me of where exactly I was in the food chain in this particular fucked up situation.

There was no going back at this point. Going back through the forest-y bog I’d just traversed? No way. I was aiming for the Van Fleet State Trail. Surely a state trail has to be a real trail, right?

With every misstep into the grass and swamp lining the road, snakes, broken ankles, and other less-than-helpful thoughts entered my mind. I kept pushing the bike. I wasn’t drinking enough water in the high 80 degree heat, but I still had another water bottle left. And I didn’t feel bad.

Honestly, though, through all of this I kept pretty good spirits. Yes the thought of getting attacked by a gator or bitten by a snake was scary, but I was in a place there was nothing to do but push on. I think those thoughts helped to keep me alert. I stepped as carefully as I could, but I didn’t stop to think about it too much.

And I said, “Fuck.” A lot.

Finally, after pushing for what felt like forever, I was finally there: the Van Fleet Trail. When I saw it was paved, I cried with relief. No, really. I’m not kidding. Real tears for more than a minute.

I was saved.

Or by keeping a cool head and pushing on, I saved myself.

Of course, I also imperiled myself, but let’s not go there…

When I came out on the trail I could add two more counties to my list that I hadn’t even been aware of. I’d already ridden through Pinellas, Pasco, and Hernando. I would have crossed over into Sumter soon after Brooksville. Somewhere in the swamp I crossed over into Lake County, and then the Van Fleet Trail took me back into Sumter for a bit. Good times.

It was nearly 3:00. Socrates was caked in mud. I’d only made about 15 miles of forward progress since the morning. I had 45 miles to go to my campsite.

I scraped as much of the mud out of my brakes as I could get. I tested lightly to make sure I could stop. I could, but damn did it sound bad.

While riding up the Van Fleet trail back towards Highway 50, a trail friend told me about a trail station that had water and bathrooms. Around back of that he thought there was a hose. He was right, and I’m grateful for his help. It was more of a shower, so I took all of my panniers off of Socrates and took him around back. I filled up my squeezie water bottle time and again and tried to get as much of the mud off as I could. The above pictures are pre-wash. And, yes, I gave myself a bit of a leg washing too.

When I got things as good as they were going to get, I loaded the panniers back up and kept on riding. Braking was still gritty, but better. Everything else was working fine.

“Good boy, Socrates.”

What do you do but keep riding?

I’d called the campground to let them know I’d probably be arriving late. I didn’t realize they were open until 8:00.

Soon after getting back on Highway 50, I stopped at a gas station to load up on Gatorade and got a well-earned ice cream.

I took a look at the map, and I was feeling gun shy about trying another new route. So I stayed on Highway 50 for a goodly bit. Dealing with traffic felt safer than either trying to reroute myself or letting Google Maps reroute me. And there was a good shoulder to ride on anyway, so it wasn’t so bad.

I finally turned north to meet up with a real bike trail again via Road 565A. There was a helluva hill before turning that made me grateful for my grannie gear.

Being on real bike trails again felt wonderful, both after pushing my bike through a couple of miles of swamp and riding in the highway. I got to ride around Lake Hiawatha, Lake Minneola, and eventually Lake Apopka. I love riding alongside large bodies of water.

I kept riding and the hour kept getting later. I’d never heard back from the campground, so at about 7:00 I called again. But I had my Bluetooth speaker on. I realized that it might interfere with the message I was leaving, and that it might have interfered with the message I left around 3:00. I turned off the speaker and left another message, letting them know I was on my way.

It was outright dark as I rolled down Binion Road towards the campground. It turns out I was right about the Bluetooth, and the ranger gave me a call at 8:00 when I was a half mile from the gate. She hadn’t been able to hear my messages well on the other two calls.

I ended up getting there a little after 8:00. I’d been riding, or pushing, my bike for 12 hours.

It took me a minute to finally work up the energy to set up camp. While I was munching on beef jerky and dried fruit, a friend visited me. So nice to have visitors after such a hard day.

I logged about 80 miles that day. (Officially I logged 75.3 miles, but I’d turned off the GPS during a break and forgot to turn it back on for a bit. A 5 mile buffer is conservative. It probably should be close to 10 additional miles.)

Until that day I had never ridden more than 63 miles in a day. I do not aspire to ever ride that far in a day again.

But I made it. With all of the bullshit mistakes and bad route decisions, I made it. And I’d scheduled the next day as a rest day.

Once I got camp set up, I took a shower. Thank goodness for hot water and soap. I was a mess. Though, surprisingly, not as sore as you might expect… I slept well that night.