January 16, 2016
Sanford to Daytona Beach
Today was not such a great day from an eye-entertaining perspective. It was more a slug-it-out day, which went surprisingly fast. The first four miles were spent weaving my way out of Sanford on shoulders and bike lanes adjacent to four- and six-lane boulevards, a very common highway design in Florida, where you often have huge intersections with lots of double left turn lanes.
But I did get to cross this bridge. Being a bridge engineer, bridges are always fun to cross. Here you can see the old, original crossing has been turned into a park and fishing pier, and the new crossing made high enough to allow boats to navigate beneath it. There was also a railroad crossing just immediately upstream that had a bascule span in the open position, closing only when a train needed to come through (you can see a bit of it in my picture).
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It wasn't long after the crossing that I arrived at the best part of today's ride, the Spring to Spring Trail and the connecting Rail Trail to Osteen. Spring to Spring is still under development. I rode Segment 1, a 7.8-mile trail that connects to the 5.7-mile Osteen trail. Spring to Spring is a high-quality trail! It was a real pleasure to ride. The Rail Trail to Osteen is equally satisfying, but being a rail trail, it tends to be more linear and less interesting. Still a great ride nonetheless.
At some point, the Spring to Spring Trail ends and you're on the Rail Trail to Osteen. Although not as curvy as Spring to Spring since it is a rail trail after all. But still, an excellent biking trail with very wide pavement.
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That is an interesting sign. I'm not convinced it's very effective. I found it a bit hard to read at first glance. It was used at every possible right turn across a bike lane (parallel to the travel lane) or where an adjacent trail (such as the rail trail I was on) crossed a secondary side street or curb cut (i.e., driveway). So on some sections, they were pretty pervasive.
After arriving in Osteen, I exited the trail onto FL-415, a four-lane roadway that narrowed to two lanes with a bike lane that degenerated into a narrow shoulder. I rode this section for 18 miles! Unfortunately, this was the "best" way to Daytona Beach, but it wasn't the best biking experience.
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But . . . it was good enough for this couple!
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These are two Canadians that spend their winters in Florida. When I first spied them, they were ahead of me on FL-415. Foolishly, I thought I would catch and overtake them, but that never happened! Eventually we met on Taylor Road, and I got the whole story. Very impressive!
Continuing on, I eventually made my way to Daytona Beach and checked in! I had to make a tour of the amusement park and tease Mark a bit about the roller coaster. Unfortunately, he caught a bug in Disney World and is under the weather, so no fun tonight!
Today's ride: 49 miles (79 km)
Total: 828 miles (1,333 km)
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