Tour de Coast

I've been wanting to do some bike touring for quite a while. Brittany has always been a bit iffy about it, but after selling the car and getting some good bikes she came around. I first realized I wanted to do a bike tour while backpacking Europe in 2009. When we were in Prague we met some guys who were biking from England through Europe and around the Mediterranean. This blew my mind and I didn't know what to think about it--other than that I thought it was the coolest thing ever! Fast-forward a couple years and it was our turn. 

Jackson, looking a little dazed

We woke Jackson up and got out the door around 7. He was pretty stoked to get to the ocean--little did he (or we, for that matter) know that it would be a very long day. The first leg was smooth. Shade, cool weather, and some conversation made for a good time. Jackson took a pretty sweet video of this leg, and sheds some light on what a 2 year-old does in a bike trailer for 10 hours--Veggie Tales theme, a hybrid of Do Re Mi and Frere Jacques, the Star Trek theme, and a Jackson original--it's pretty wild. Also, there's a fair amount of my backside,  you have been warned. 

After a couple hours we stopped in Melrose Florida (see map). It's a one stoplight town in the middle of nowhere, but there is a Subway. We grabbed a bite to eat before pushing on. Up to this point we had a marked bike lane, but no longer. Fortunately, the shoulder was fairly wide.  In hindsight, taking our 2 year-old on a trip like this seems pretty crazy and I won't say that I didn't cringe everytime a semi-truck passed within a couple feet of us. Don't judge; we're good parents. 

Still in good spirits

Things started to get a bit more difficult toward the end of this second leg. The sun came out, I was running low on water, and getting sick of Clif bars. We pulled into Palatka around 1pm. After grabbing some lunch, we noticed a huge thundercloud coming our way and headed downtown for some shelter. Florida is the only tropical place I have ever lived so I'm sure this is commonplace in a lot of places, but for me, the thunderstorms here are unbelievable! When I moved to Missouri I thought midwest thunderstorms were nuts, but Florida's take the cake. The thunder is window rattlingly loud, and the rain is so thick that you can't see a thing. What I'm trying to say is that you REALLY don't want to get stuck on a bike in this stuff. We locked up our bikes on a pole under an awning and let Jackson have a potty break (I won't tell you where, but suffice it to say that it was probably illegal). We also saw a ridiculously huge spider. 

Bridge over the St. John's

After a couple of phone calls we decided to push on through the drizzle. We crossed the St. Johns river (riding over a bridge on a bike is completely different than a car and I highly recommend it; bridges aren't as stable as you would think), and it started raining harder, but the lightning was what really scared us. There was a Best Western on the other side of the bridge and I probably should have asked, but we just pulled our bikes up under the parking area, brushed the billions of midget flies off the chairs, and took a 1-2 hour nap. I have no idea what the front desk folks thought, but we were too tired to worry about it. Waking up around 4pm, we decided we'd better hurry up if we wanted to make it by sundown.

Passed out at the Best Western

Losing it.

The next leg involved an 8 mile trek along the wonderfully wide shoulder of a 65 mph highway. Yeah, I didn't care for that. Our lights were on, but we were competing with a thick layer of clouds that prevented any sun light. It seemed to be raining, but it could have been water rocketing off the sides of cars. At one point two semis passed us side-by-side, which meant very little room for the one to get away from us. I was holding my breath and praying that we'd get out of this alive. Finally, we saw a sidewalk ahead. Now I'm not one for riding on sidewalks--I believe that bikes belong on the road with cars--but this was not a time to stick to principle. As soon as we got on the sidewalk it started coming down in torrents. We crossed a bridge and made it to an old gas station where we bought a couple bags of chips and waited out the rain (funny thing about a trip like this, you don't feel like you have to eat healthy because you're burning so many calories, which is both awesome and deceiving). At this point we were feeling two things: #1 God was being very good to us (I'm not one to publicly proclaim my faith in God very often, but in this kind of situation it is you against nature and in many respects your only hope is that some miracle will occur) and #2 this is AWESOME! Yeah, we were totally riding some sort of crazy cycling high. I don't know about Brit, but I'd always thought it would be cool to have lived 200 years ago when you had to ride your horse through huge rainstorms and then ask complete strangers for shelter and food. That's pretty much how I felt, except that now people just think you're nuts. At this point you'd think we would be wanting to return to our modern comforts, rent a car, and go home, which we had discussed, but there was something exciting about not knowing if you were going to get caught in the rain again or if you were going to have to hide out at a gas station for the rest of the night, but the trip wasn't over.

Tire had a slow leak for the last 20+ miles

So far things had gone smoothly. We had planned for everything--we had rain gear, dry sacks, extra tubes, plenty of food/water, and we had been able to find shelter as needed. And then it hit. Brit says, "Jackson's tire looks a little low...ummm it's flat," bum, bum, bum! I have spent a lot of time researching bike gear, learning about bike mechanics, taking apart, cleaning and putting my bike back together, but I hadn't spent much time on the bike trailer because I assumed it was some kind of tank. It had a roll cage and big thick wheels; I assumed I'd have to get new tubes from the manufacturer and I wasn't even sure if they had tubes. I shouldn't have left this mystery until we were stranded on the side of a road, but I did. We headed back to the closest gas station and started brainstorming ideas. Fix-a-flat wouldn't work on bike tubes and the closest car rental was closed. I decided to hope for the best and see if it was just a slow leak. The tire seemed to be holding air so we moved on.

A few miles down the road we turn off the highway and onto a much quieter highway. The weather cleared up and we were enjoying a beautiful sunset. It was about this time that I yelled, "BEST FAMILY VACATION EVER!" A minute later Brit's tire popped. This wouldn't have been a big deal except for the fact that we were in the middle of a mosquito breeding ground! I moved quickly to change the tire while slapping myself incessantly. A guy pulled over and asked if we needed help, he probably thought I was losing it, I thanked him, but said we had it under control. Jackson started yelling about a spider, but we thought he was going crazy too. Brit looked in the trailer and there was a spider crawling near his leg. She brushed it out, letting mosquitos in in the process. She proceeded to jump on my bike and pedaled down the road. I fixed the tire and hurried down the road only to realize that she was gone. After biking for a couple of minutes I saw them pulled off onto a dirt road using the "bathroom." We looked like we'd been involved in a mosquito massacre--dead mosquitos and blood were spattered all over our bodies. Occasionally we'd slap ourselves just to make sure we had them all. We switched bikes and then I realized Brit's tire was flat again. I'd been in such a hurry that I hadn't taken the time to  install the tube correctly. So, I put a new tube in, pumped up Jackson's tire again, and we continued on our way.

The rest of this leg was beautiful. There were very few cars and the weather was great. The only concern was that it was getting dark and we were getting a little discouraged because it was 7pm and we'd been going for 12 hours. In the distance we saw a stoplight, which gave us hope, but it was 4 miles away and getting there felt like an eternity. We pulled into a gas station around 8pm and were greeted by a guy filling up his boat. Our conversation went something like this:

"Where did you guys come from?"
"Gainesville"
"Holy $%!+!"
"Where are you going?"
"St. Augustine"
"Where's all your stuff?"
"In the trailer"
"Whoa"

Tearin' it up!

He was dumbfounded, and pretty hilarious to talk to. We spoke with a couple other people who had similar reactions. For me it wasn't weird to bike this far. I mean the Florida cycling team had done it just one week earlier and professional bike races go well over 100 miles a day. I had read blogs about people who toured much much farther than us, but these reactions were beginning to make me realize just how crazy it was. I suddenly realized that I was no longer reading the blogs; I was doing it. I've often worried that I am just letting life go by without doing anything really awesome. That's why, for me, having an experience like this is so important. I want to be the person who people think is a little nuts because that means I'm doing something right. Sure, comparatively speaking this bike trip wasn't really that intense, but I'm only interested in being a little crazy, not completely insane.

The final leg was in the dark. We started at the gas station next to I-75 just as twilight was settling in and arrived about an hour later in St. Augustine. We had to stop at least once to pump up Jackson's tire and the lack of street lights and head lights (one died and the other was pretty weak) made it difficult to navigate potholes, etc. The biggest concern was getting hit, obviously, but we worked out a good system and used the sidewalk to our advantage as much as possible. We pulled into the hotel around 9:30pm. The owners were nice and didn't even ask me what in the world I was doing showing up with my family, in lycra, at 9:30pm.

After settling in, showering, and eating some pizza, we finally hit the sack. We spent the next day at the beach, napping, and seeing St. Augustine. The following day we were supposed to head home, but had various bike problems (the most noteworthy being a shredded tire on Brittany's bike). While I was gone to find a tire, Brit rented a Ford Escape (which, FYI, is the best rental we've ever had). I was pretty upset about this, but once I put my ego aside we loaded up the bikes and spent the rest of the day in St. Augustine. Ultimately, Brit made the right decision getting the car as it looked like it would rain the rest of the afternoon and we weren't going to get started until around noon. This would have meant getting home at midnight or later, which is something we were both unwilling to do.

In hindsight I think we would have done a few things differently. First, bought tubes for Jackson's trailer in advance--turns out they are the same size as most child-sized bikes. Second, do the trip during the dry season (October-March). Not that summer was bad, but the rain/lightning was a little intense. Third, I don't know if I would do the same route. I might try for some roads with slightly lower speed limits--I'm not sure if that is even a possibility. Fourth, I would give us more time to complete the trip allowing more rest days and additional travel days as needed. It may have been nice to stay in Palatka for the night. We had booked our hotels in advance, but this kind of pre-booking is fairly incompatible when the trip can blow up in your face requiring a premature stop, especially if you are packing light and relying on bike shops instead of hauling your own gear (i.e., bike tires). Bottom line--I highly recommend doing this!

Victory.