How to ride your bike on vacation

Happy Friday,

As you might know by now if you have read my previous posts, we took a family vacation down to Florida at the end of February. Anyway, here is what Eben Weiss, aka Bike Snob NYC, has to say about traveling with your bike, at least if you are married to / dating a non-cyclist (which by the way, if you are somehow here reading my ramblings, you should definitely go check out his blog):

If all goes well, eventually you’re going to want to take a trip together. For any cyclist, the prospect of a few days away from the bike is a daunting one. Therefore, at some point during the planning, you’re going to float the idea of taking your bike along with you.

Don’t do it.

You know what feels great? That moment when you both arrive all road-weary at your destination, drop your bags, and collapse onto the bed. You know what ruins that moment? When you get right up again, unpack your bike, and start whining about how the TSA crammed your wheels back in the case and now they’re half a millimeter out of true.

Even worse is to plan the trip with a secret cycling agenda. If your non-cycling partner is looking for an early spring getaway to shake off that seasonal affective disorder, don’t push for the chilly, rain-soaked charms of Flanders because you think you may be able to watch a Classic. Sure, the romance of the cobbles is undeniable, but it’s not that kind of romance, and sometimes you’ve got to suck it up and spend a few days lying on the beach.

Of course, being the kind, caring, loving husband and father that I am, I made the difficult decision to take my bike to Florida. As punishment, I would be subjected to a day at Disney. I figured it was a fair trade.

We drove down to Florida, and spent 5 days in Clearwater and another couple days in Orlando. This is also where I spent my formative years. For four years, I went to college here:

And now I live here:

But anyway, my college years were prior to my interest in cycling, other than ambling around campus in my Mongoose mountain bike. In fact, at the time, I assumed every person riding a bike should be subjected to the sidewalk. But the years have since passed, and now I was returning and starting to plan a couple road rides during the trip.

After a brief search, I found the following bike map of the Clearwater area:

I know it's probably hard to read, so let me summarize - basically, there is a bike trail, community trail or bike lane on or near every road. While trying to get over the feeling that I had completely wasted my college life as a non-cyclist, I chose a couple routes, loaded them up in Strava, and off I went. Here are my routes / rides:

There is a 10 mile trail, which connects to other trails in the area, across the Courtney Campbell Causeway. The beginning of the trail is directly across the street from where I went to college. I definitely enjoyed the riding down there, and it is perfectly flat for some early season riding. Although my legs were still in pre-season form and I started feeling tired around 30-35 miles each time.

And here are some brief highlights of my rides:
 - Twice I felt like cars passed too closely, both cars had Michigan plates
 - Once I was pulled over and issued a warning for failing to stop at a crosswalk. While it was completely my fault, here is my explanation, in picture form (the pedestrian is the stick figure, I am the green arrow):

 - Finally, I am an still an idiot for not riding during college

And not all of my riding was for selfish purposes. We also hauled my wife's bike and the bike trailer down and got out on the trails:

Overall, everyone appears pleased. And I can even admit that I slightly enjoyed Disney as well. With that said, I hope you enjoy the weekend, and it looks like we might even have some sunshine and warmer weather coming our way next week!

Clay