St Augustine to Halifax Nova Scotia

I will do a little ride to Halifax from where I returned in my last ride. This is a unsupported ride. I will ride between hotels .The start will be middle of May or beginning of jun depends on weather. It is around 30 days. 

My ride last christmas was a training ride for this ride. My ride from Mobile Alabama to Miami too. i wil ldo few training rides before i start. My trainng rides are to Ft Pierce and back. 

 

Christmas eve on the bike

On cristmas eve I was riding from Daytona to St augustine florida in a good tailwind. Iwas riding fast north. My plan was to send my father SMS in Iceland when it is 6 Icelandic time or 1 eastern time. Found a gas station with internet connection just before 1 and sent the sms. Then few miles later I rode past a guy playing bag pipes in front of his house af Flagler beach. he was good so I stopped to listen to him. I listened to him for 10 minutes. This was my christmas music. Great moment. moments like this are part of the reason why I ride long rides like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speed

On a day to day rides like I am doing riding fast has totally different meaning. Usual cyclists that only do few days per week riding talk about speed as miles per hour. And more miles per hour the better. On day after day ride you need to ride slower. So slow that you can ride the day after. And you pick your distance per day as the distance you can ride many days in a row. If you go too fast per day you need more resting days and you go slower. And if you ride too far one day you need more rest days And goes slower. My speed is 60 to 80 miles per day . usual touring rider rides 50. To 60 miles per day. Some people have trained themselves to do 100 or more miles per day but that is not usual.

bike path Titusville

Bike trail to titusville

Rest days

On a long day after day rides you need rest days. I try to take rest days on hotels with laundry. Then I can clean my clothes. Dirty clothes are not just smelly. They can become acidic and hurt you. Sores because of this are difficult to handle and take few days to grow. On rest days I try to eat clean food like fish or steak. My usual day to day food is gas station food. Gas station food is not the best food you can get but it includes calories and energy to drive you on a long ride.

riding down A1A

Palmtrees my bike and ice cream on my way down a1a.

New bike path from Mims Florida to Titusville

And another trail between Mims and Titusville that I did on the long ride Here is article about it. It is new. few months old

C2C expands in North Brevard

After more than two years under construction, the newest portion of the Coast-to-Coast Trail opened without fanfare through North Titusville and Mims in September 2017. I rode it on Labor Day to check it out.

FLORIDAHIKES.COM

 

The meat belt

On long rides i notice many things. one thing is what I call The Meat Belt in Florida. Meat belt starts n of Orlando around 20 miles and goes north. How far north? I have rode through Jacksonville and the meat belt is there. I have ridden through Jesup Georgia but I did it so fast without time to stop and check so I dont know. Will know when I ride through that area again in may. The meat belt is where you can get steaks and alot of meat everywhere. You can even get a t bone steak for breakfast. South of the meat belt the meat is small nearly invisible and lot of bread. People there are not eating much meat. I think the difference is south of the meat belt people work in tourism and are not working physically difficult jobs. Therefore they dont need as much food. in the meat belt people are working in the timber industry often physically difficult jobs and burning a lot of calories and need meat to recover so they can work the day after many days in a row. For cyclists is this a great area. i love it.

Indians and Cowboys

On my long rides I have rode through indian areas. Lot of them here in florida. When i was young I watched Cowboy movies from Hollywood. There the Cowboys were the good guys and the Indians are bad. This was Hollywood trying to change the history. The reality was that the cowboys were taking the land from the Indians. In the reality the Cowboys were the bad guys. Is Hollywood still trying to change the history? Now when there are no Indians to fight for the cowboys.who is the enemy now? Hollywood has last decades been trying to sell the idea that your neighbor is a crook and dangerous and you need to buy a gun to protect you from him/her. Constantly they are telling this to us and everybody gets scared and this create stress too. Increasing your cortisol in your body making you fat.So Hollywood is not only creating movies for fun. They are making us stressed to consume weapons. On a long ride I meet a lot of people. All kinds of people. And 99.9999% of them are just regular friendly people. none of them like to shoot me. and no reason to buy a gun to shoot them. This media and movies induced stress that people have is totally useless and makes us fat.