After dinner yesterday, we reviewed the plan and decided to get out at sunrise today to take advantage of the cooler part of the day. So at 6:45, we rolled away from the Minneola Inn on Lake Minneola. The Inn was very comfortable and accommodating. I highly recommend checking them out if you’re looking for a place to stay north of Clermont.
We looped around the southern and western edges of Lake Minneola and captured a nice sunrise photo. The weather was great for a morning ride and made the early miles go by fast. It was cool and beautiful. The path around this part of the lake is pretty and provides nice views.
We looked for breakfast places in Clermont, but couldn’t really find much open before 8AM. Since we were rolling earlier, we decided to head a little west and get breakfast in Mascotte.
Before my commentary on the next section, I think it is worth noting that there doesn’t seem to be any coordinated effort to promote and advocate for the Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail. Compared to other trail networks like the Great Allegheny Passage or Ohio to Erie Trail, it feels like there’s an opportunity for better leadership. For example, you can’t really find an official, well-designed route with maps, notes on closures, water locations, and so on. It is left up to the traveler to piece the information together. More importantly, there aren’t any suggestions on how to get from Clermont to the western trails, such as the Sun Coast Trail, to complete the trip. Instead, there is a huge gap with no trails or recommended detours along this long stretch.
To get from Clermont to the Sun Coast Trail, the most direct route is along Florida Route 50. However, I think you would be completely crazy to do that. There are long stretches of Route 50 without any shoulder or sidewalk, and the areas with a shoulder are not very big. We drove part of it earlier this week, and I chuckled at their idea of a bike lane. I recently read a blog post by someone else who rode this section of Route 50, and they said, “Jesus and I talked a lot during that part of the trip!” Uh, yeah. I love Jesus, but I’m not looking to accelerate our meeting by riding Route 50.
Randy and I elected to go out of our way, northbound on roads, to reach the Withlacoochee Trail in Nobleton and use it to head southbound to the Good Neighbor Trail. That route was about 35 miles of major roads with lots of traffic and minimal shoulder. The last 9-10 miles had rumble strips and a very narrow shoulder, which made cycling more difficult because we had to avoid the road’s divots. What I’ll say is that 1) I’m glad we’re done with road segments, and 2) I’ll never ride that set of roads again.
Once we reached the trails, we followed them down and back to Randy’s place for the night. Along the way, there was a little place to buy local honey. I stopped, venmo’d the money, and bought a nice jar of honey to take home.
I’m going to head to Mass, then we’ll have a good meal, a good evening’s rest, and get rolling at sunrise again tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be cooler for our last two days. Tomorrow’s destination is Tarpon Springs. It’s another day over 50 miles, but we’ll be on dedicated trails nearly the entire ride.
Peace, Dcn. Matt
