165: An 11 hour journey on film.
The best and worst central Florida can offer a cyclist– and everything in-between.
The following is a photo essay on a recent trip. For more, follow us on Instagram @volitionathletics.
There’s a lot to be said about cycling in Florida. It’s not filled with awe-inspiring descents or life-altering climbs. If you fall in love with riding your bike here, you’ve done exactly that. Part of me always feels the need to justify these things. We exist in a space where I always have to caveat my existence with asterisks.
Yeah, I’m from Florida, but I’m not a gun-toting, pickup truck-driving, alligator man.
Florida gets a bad rap, but for good reasons. And that extends to the experience of passing through it. It’s not for the faint of heart. As I write this, it’s December, and the temperature is barely below 80 degrees, with humidity that never lets it truly cool. Even during this ‘riding’ season, you have to watch out for hunters and the ramping up of climate events that level homes, paved roads, and forests all the same.
Nevertheless, I’ve found so much fulfillment in spending four, six, eight, or even ten hours on the bike. There’s nothing quite like it. Roughly a year ago, I was coming out of a relationship and found Lachlan Morton’s Alt Tour video– I couldn’t stop watching it. I still can’t. I could write an entire piece about how that video has changed my life, but the point is- I became obsessed. Pretty soon, I started riding further and further. Within a year, I completed my first century, took my first multi-day bikepacking trip, and continued to scale up the miles. 100 became 115. Then 120 and 130.
To me, there’s little better than racing the imaginary clock you set for yourself. Maybe it’s a train back to town, maybe the setting sun– whatever the case, the simplicity of purpose provided by a need to be somewhere and being entirely responsible for every inch you move toward that end is like nothing else. Though bikepacking does scratch my nature-d itch– Florida is a ruthless beast. The age of the Anthropocene has made flora and fauna here particularly reactive to those that dare stray from the safety of their concrete world.
Because of this, big day rides are my jam. Out the door with a belly full of homecooked breakfast, there’s little better than a massive loop that takes you right back to square one. In the eleven months since chasing an ever-evolving feeling of ultra-distance, I’ve become familiar with much of what there is to see in my local area. Sugarloaf mountain, the single track between springs, lake Apopka, Seminole State Forest, Blue Springs– it’s all a worthwhile central point to a singular day ride. But soon enough, after several trips to and from these places, I had the crazy idea to string it all together. Though there’s more to ride in central Florida, this particular list of waypoints could all be sensibly hit in succession in a single day. With a bit of planning and gradual ‘training,’ the plan was set in motion.
With roughly 165 miles guided largely by familiarity and conviction, only one person could accompany me on the journey. Tyler is the only person I know who will respond, ‘Cool, when?’ to the suggestion of a 165-mile single-day effort. Though I often like cycling alone, Tyler and I get on great. We generally know when to strike up a conversation about life or carbon forks and when to shut up. Most of our friendship has consisted of me barely hanging onto his wheel– a marker of fitness that I’ve improved on this year.
With the route sorted– we started in the dark. A 530 AM rollout was crucial if we were going to minimize late-night pedaling– an unfortunate reality in one of the deadliest cities in the country for pedestrians. The first section is arguably the worst. One of the most frustrating things about Orlando, besides its lack of alternatives to owning a car, is the less-than-cohesive infrastructure. For my money, the west orange trail is one of the nicest. The fact that you have to traverse roughly thirteen miles of terrible, car-heavy roads filled with debris and drivers that are incredibly irritated at the sight of you to get there is a travesty.
Once on the trail, my anxiety dissipated. No imminent death to distract from the totality of the task that lies ahead. As the sun rose on the cool, overcast day, I found myself stoked about everything I knew was to come. These are some of the best rides I’ve ever done, and I get to do them all in the same day– how sick is that?
We positioned the first major point of interest with intention. Sugarloaf mountain is the highest point in peninsular Florida and a local haunt for cyclists with the urge to climb. Its steep side is a bit of a beast to get up and always requires my lowest gear. With roughly 125 miles in wait, we decided to hoof it up the more gradual end. Maybe it was the excitement or favorable conditions, but I PR’d my time up the gradual ascent. Never mind that– plenty more miles to go.
The beauty of this area is always surprising, and another aspect of why I feel the underlying need to validate Florida. You ride thirty miles from your door, and it’s green rolling hills and ‘descents’ you can hit 50 mph on. It’s gorgeous.
Ferndale's rolling hills lead directly into Lake Apopka's flat shores– another classically Floridian attraction. One of the largest lakes in the state, it’s been in a perpetual state of disrepair since the early 80s, when TCC, a chemical company, dumped a load of waste in it, poisoning the lake, wildlife, and aquifers beneath. The EPA and state have since spent quite a bit of coin to try and clean the mess up, but all these years later and it’s still far from completely recovered. Nevertheless, the wildlife here is abundant and beautiful, and the flat gravel roads lead to old marsh overgrowth that evokes old, pre-industrial Florida. Rumour has it the state takes all of the problem gators and sticks them here like some sort of alligator asylum. Our mild winters are the perfect time to catch a glimpse of these ancient beasts. They’re always an incredible sight to behold.
As a ride, Lake Apopka can be less than exciting. If not for the views, it wouldn’t be all that attractive. It’s a roadie's idea of gravel—fast rolling and compact with largely straight lines. Add on the fact that several sections are more harsh, degraded roads than actual gravel, and you’re in for a bumpy hour or so. As we made our way toward the newly renovated Magnolia park trailhead, some decisions needed to be made. With Hurricane Ian wrecking almost everything in its path, a number of trails and lowland areas have been flooded or rutted out for quite some time. Nicole only added to that damage despite being far less severe. The initial plan was to head back east to the start of the Wekiwa Springs trailhead –a lovely single track that delivers you to another grotto-style spring– but with the sandiness consistent with those trails at the best of times, we decided against it.
Following the northern section of the west orange trail, we stopped for lunch at mile 72. Some better pre-planning would’ve had us foregoing any significant stops, but a little stretch here and there never does you wrong. After half a veggie sub and some home-cooked roasted potatoes that had been nicely heated by the movement of my saddle bag, we resumed our travels north toward Rock Springs.
The neighborhood lakes trail is a godsend that puts you north of the Wekiwa preserve without risking your life on the highway. As we pedaled, I knew we had to make the most of the upcoming section. The prevailing wind tends to be NE to SW, so we’d been riding in a headwind for the entire day thus far. It was light but consistent. We hit the gas in the crosswind going east toward Seminole state forest.
This was when the first and luckily only thoughts of ‘damn, can I do this?’ crept in. Ultimately, there was no real cutoff. Prior discussions of what this ride would entail had us contemplating a one-way trip to Tampa, with the 5:40 PM daily train as the method back. But given most of that was unknown territory, it felt dicey to try and squeeze 160 miles into a strict, little to no stops 12-hour window. We didn’t want to be pedaling in the dark, especially in the city, so we pressed it.
Arriving at Seminole State forest, I adjusted my cleats, transferred more food from my saddle bag to the front, and hit the best gravel central Florida has to offer. The woods are thick, and there’s great variety in the trail. Even the destruction of the recent storms did little to affect its bikeability. After the bouts of doubt, a newfound sense of peace washed over me as the sun peaked over the blanket of clouds.
As we cruised through the forest, I thought about why I like these days so much. The aforementioned Lachlan video may have shown me what was possible, but I don’t think I’d still be doing these if I didn’t enjoy the process. My fondest memories of this year– one in which I’ve experienced more than ever before– invariably come from these rides. You’re so incredibly present. There’s no panic, but there’s urgency. That sense of balance is reflected in the kind of bike I ride. If I had somehow fallen on either end of the bike spectrum, I probably would have burnt out by now. Aside from the marketing rhetoric in which they exist, gravel bikes are the perfect balance for me. Irrespective of performance, it puts a limit on my competitive nature. Something that can ruin anything and everything. It trades performance for capability. It lets you explore but doesn’t turn that sense of adventure into conquest. It’s a vehicle with which to see the world, not dominate it.
Exiting the northern end of Seminole State was the beginning of uncharted territory. The St. John’s river divides much of the wilderness and riding in central Florida, with the safest and most typical point of traversal by Lake Monroe. But our desire to pass through the forest made it so we had to cross at a much more remote, unknown bridge farther north. To avoid highway shoulder riding, we took to the neighborhood backroads of Pine Lakes.
Part of what I’ve come to appreciate about exploring my local area is places like these. Aside from the beauty, it puts you in spaces you don’t typically end up. Bikes care not for socio-economic boundaries, only physical ones– and even then. For all the division that can split us, bikes deliver you into the dens of that which you’re supposedly so different. Rural communities feature the same split of people present in urban environments– some incredibly kind and helpful, some not so much.
As we crossed the St. John’s, we experienced one of the latter– getting ‘coal rolled’ by a large pickup (when a modified engine revs past cyclists with the intention of billowing exhaust fumes in their face). It’s not particularly shocking in the moment, but looking back at it just frustrates me. To borrow from Hailey Moore’s excellent words on her experience setting the FKT for Ozark Gravel doom(!!)
“while I do think the fact that touring by bike conveys a sense of vulnerability to those you encounter, thereby making you seem more approachable (99% of the time), I think there’s also a chance that anything so radically different (even such a benign act as riding a bike) can feel like a challenge to someone’s worldview.”
One of the reasons I started documenting my experience via bike is because I believe it can help people. More than enough content stems from experiences in Arizona, California, Colorado, and so on. We get it– the western US is great. It’s rife with great riding and people that like to do it. There is, however, not much love for the South. Bike culture isn’t as present here, and there are reasons for that. But it’s a vicious cycle. People don’t bike here, or people that do move away because of impedances to it, so bike culture fails to germinate.
But this is where bike culture can help people most. We’ve seen what Unbound and Leadville have done for those communities, but even in a more general sense, bike infrastructure and the kind of thinking that comes with it can help underserved communities more than those who already realize those privileges. To live so close to nature and yet exist almost as an affront to it is an adverse effect of the kind of ideology that poisons this country. Far be for me to tell someone else how to live their life, but I don’t believe people are bad. Nor do they want to do bad things. I think those actions and ways of being stem from a lack of access to information, resources, and other privileges— things I’ve had in spades.
After crossing the St. John’s, we started our journey south. The tailwind was great, and so were the views. Overcast had turned to an extended golden hour, and the backroads of DeLand and the Blue Springs trail were hitting just right. Within that was the understanding that we had limited daylight left. Our bobbing and weaving through neighborhood roads in Pine Lakes had slowed our progress as much of that area tends to be where the county stops road maintenance. The sandy roads weren’t impassible, but they weren’t the ideal surface for speed. We picked it up heading south but would need a boost to send it home.
Though the ensuing sections of the Cross Seminole/ Rinehart trails were particularly treacherous during peak' get-out-of-my-way-so-I-can-sit-on-my-ass-slightly sooner’ hour, we reached soldiers creek and got a morale boost. Dave Carriere, EIC of the world’s largest and most prolific Scuba diving magazine and serial bailer on long rides escorted us through the final 25 miles.
We caught up, peppered him with tales of our travels, and sent it into the darkness. Mile 140 crept in, and so too did the magic of properly fueling for the effort. Throughout, I had munched on a mix of cashews, peanut butter pretzel nuggets, tangerines, mango slices, baked oatmeal bars, and a little candy here and there. Washing it down with plenty of water and the occasional body armor, my body felt fine. If you had told me we needed to pedal another 100 miles, I would’ve stopped at a supermarket, grabbed more food, and hit shuffle on another deep house mix.
Without trying to sound braggadocious, your body simply adjusts. Obviously, I’ve put in roughly a year of work at this point. Consistently pedaling over 150 miles each week. But it still surprised me that I could go for this long. Your idling state becomes pedaling. Moving through the world at a steady pace, aware of yourself totally and completely. It’s peace. It’s bliss.
Eventually, we rolled into town and hit a local pizza place for beer and slices roughly the size of a baby. The journey was over.
The purpose of this ride was multifaceted. I’m on a quest to hit a 200-mile day, so this was just another milestone on that road. But within the experience of performance is also the practice of appreciation. Having spent a lifetime expressing myself through athletics, part of what I enjoy so much about cycling is the ability to do whatever you like with it. With sports like soccer or basketball, you could argue that ‘success’ is a relatively universal concept. You score a goal, win a game, and rise through the ranks of whatever local or national leagues you can.
I’ve spoken before about how my tendency towards competition has ruined things for me. As a recovering athlete, the bike is helping me realize the beauty of life outside planar performance. I still enjoy pushing myself, but I’d like to say that I now do it for myself. I embark on these rides because I enjoy finding my limits irrespective of their scale in relation to the world around me. I move quickly, but I do so with an ever-growing understanding and respect of what’s on the way there.
Like I said– cycling in Florida is hard. It’s brutal and beautiful all the same. Finding my place within it, despite the obstacles that turn others away, is where I’m currently finding purpose. For the sake of myself and my community, I think that serves an objective far more meaningful than performance.
See ya out there.