Today promised to be warmer but with much more wind! So I doubled up on my layers, wearing a long-sleeve base layer and a short-sleeve jersey over that. For added insurance, I topped it off with my wind/rain jacket.
Mark and I were to meet Brad and Wayne downtown at the "Kissing Statue," as the locals call it, at 11:00 AM or so. So we pushed off from the hotel at 9:45 and headed south to catch breakfast at First Watch, close to the rendezvous point (which is correctly called "Unconditional Surrender").
Sarasota has an extensive network of bike lanes, so we took advantage of this one and headed south.
After breakfast, we met Brad and Wayne plus two others from the SMBC (Sarasota Manatee Bike Club) who would ride with us today, Don and Lauren. Then, it was across Sarasota Bay to Long Key. The pictures tell the rest of the story.
Our first big crossing, John Ringling Causeway over Sarasota Bay.
The folks from SMBC are (apparently) pretty set in their ways, so when we reached the northernmost limits of Longboat Key, they were inclined to turn around and ride back to the start point. Mark, Wayne, and I had other ideas in mind. I had laid out a route that took us across the northern end of the bay back to the mainland and then south back to our hotel. So somewhere around MP 21 we parted ways, and the three of us headed north and then across Anna Maria Sound to the mainland.7
Manatee Avenue Causeway . . . they need to sweep the sidewalks!
