Clewiston - West Palm Beach & Marathon, Florida
Saturday, November 2, 1996
Time out: 8:05 AM. Temp. 72°.
Exploring my options yesterday with respect to traveling
from Clewiston to the Keys, I asked numerous people in Clewiston
all they could tell me and called the bicycle coordinator for
Dade County. It appears from the maps and all the information
I could get my hands on to be about 2 days ride (minimum) from
Clewiston to Key Largo.
I have always dreaded riding through Dade County. It
has a reputation for violence that exceeds even Wayne County in
Michigan. I thought I'd crafted a route along the Everglades that
kept me to the west of the "battle zone," by following
US-27 down from South Bay to Krome Avenue (Dade County #997) to
Homestead and US-1 from there. The problem with that route is
the night's stay between Clewiston and Homestead. I am told that
there is absolutely no motel on US-27 or Krome Ave. I was advised
that the only way I could find lodging was to head into Hialeah
on US-27 toward Miami International Airport. After
a great deal of discussion, it was decided that I would be unwise
to ride my fully-loaded touring bicycle to Hialeah. My course
toward Hialeah was considered too dangerous on a bicycle.
A couple of folks called it downright "stupid" to ride
a bicycle in that area. Furthermore, it is about 80 miles to Hialeah,
there is a 50 mile segment with absolutely no services, I've been
having considerable difficulty coping physically with the bright
sun, and I don't know what I'm going to find in the way of accommodations
at Hialeah, if anything. And, what if I didn't make it there by
sunset? What would I do then?
Not even the Dade County bicycle coordinator gave me
any encouragement with respect to riding to Key Largo. He suggested
that I might want to ride to one of the northern suburbs, then
take the Tri-Rail train through town, but told me that I'd need
a pass to take my bike on the train. He explained that I couldn't
get such a pass until next week, and admonished me that, at the
end of the rail line, I still wouldn't be out of Miami and would
continue to face too much danger riding through Miami toward Homestead.
While people travel by bicycle in Dade County, it was
felt that my panniers would substantially increase my risk of
violence and there didn't seem to be any real lodging options
for me since I had no tent or sleeping bag with me anymore.
After exploring all my options,
I decided to treat Dade County/Miami as
a hostile war zone that I would skip in the interest of
personal safety. All the around-the-world riders I know of skipped
the dangerous areas like Lebanon, Libya, Afghanistan, etc. And,
after all, in her wonderful around-the-world bicycle tour book
Miles
from Nowhere, [click
on the Amazon logo to order] Barbara
Savage did say Florida was the worst place in the world to
ride a bicycle, and, that was before the attacks on tourists near
the airport took place.
I decided to rent a car, drive to the other side of
Miami and turn the car in. It was a simple idea, but it didn't
work out to be so simple. Ideally, I'd rent a car near the top
of the "war zone" but there are no rental companies
located near there. I tried to rent a car in Clewiston, South
Bay or Belle Glade. There are no rental companies there. I tried
renting a U-Haul van, but all they had available was a 24 foot
van--overkill. The nearest place I could ride my bicycle to rent
a car was West Palm Beach International Airport. So, I headed
out this morning for West Palm Beach.
|
Note: 1/2002 -- In December of 2001, I received advice
from Dale Lally in Pompano Beach, Florida about a couple of routes
through the Miami area:
After having driven and cycled throughout much of the state
of Florida, I feel that, if the destination is southeast Florida
(Miami & the Keys) the route decision must be made way in
advance, i.e. in north Florida. If coming from the west
or northwest, the best way to get across the state is to follow
Adventure Cycling's Southern Tier route to St Augustine and then
turn south along route A1A.
There is another option - again based on an Adventure Cycling
route. When cycling south along A1A, at Ormond Beach (just
north of Daytona Beach) one could turn onto Adventure Cycling's
Maine to Florida route and continue on to Ft Myers, then ride
from Ft Myers to Miami via Ft Lauderdale.
One could also take a ferry from Ft Myers to Key West, which
operates seasonally.
|
I had a bit of tailwind and was flying. I got to West
Palm Beach--65 miles--by 1:15 PM.
I was carrying ten 20 oz. bottles of Gatorade. I drank
5 today. It was hot. The day started off foggy and cool, but around
10:00 the fog burned off and the sun started searing my flesh.
For the first 50 miles, I had sugar cane and rice growing on either
side of me. The soil looked incredibly black and fertile.
I rode down US-27 to South Bay, then turned east on
80 to Belle Glade, where I asked directions at a BP station. [I'd heard that there was a place in Florida where
the incidence of AIDS was so high per-capita, that authorities
wondered whether it was being carried by mosquitoes. I couldn't
remember where that was. After I completed my trip, someone asked
whether I was scared of AIDS in Belle Glade and told me that was
the place. Well, I don't recall getting any mosquito bites, but
suppose I'll need to wait about 10 years to know whether the mosquito
bite threat was real.]
The fellow at the BP station in Belle Glade suggested
I take old 441 (County Rt. 880) instead of going up to 441, so
I did. It was 2 lane, but there was a shoulder all the way and
the traffic was relatively light, except for some sugar cane trucks.
US-441 was good too--at first. Once I got to civilization, the
shoulder vanished and a steel rail replaced it, so I couldn't
even skirt the edge of the roadway. For upwards of 10 miles, I
rode on a very busy shoulderless 4 lane. It was real difficult
riding, but I stuck with it until I spotted the airport perimeter
road and cut over to it.
I thought getting a car to return at Homestead would
be a piece of cake. I figured Hertz would be glad to accommodate
me. No such luck. Hertz told me they were out of cars. National
had no drop off points south of Miami International. Only Budget
had any cars in stock. I rented a car from Budget, but spent about
an hour going over the Budget location book trying to find a logical
place to return it. Budget had no return point in Homestead or
Key Largo. The only Budget locations south of Miami International
are Key West and Marathon. I sure didn't want to drive a car to
Key West. I wanted to ride my bicycle.
I rented a purple 1996 Ford Escort. The rear seat folded
down, making the trunk lid into a hatchback. After I removed all
the panniers and the flag, the bike slid easily into the car.
The Escort was small enough that I had to use the right front
seat for the panniers, handlebar bag, etc., but it worked just
fine for me.
I took this picture with the self-timer, holding the Casio at
arms-length while driving along
I drove to Marathon in the Keys. It took me more than
3 hours driving in a car to get there (using my 1 hour in a car
= 1 day on a bicycle rule-of-thumb, that would have been 3 days).
The traffic between West Palm Beach and Florida's Turnpike, and
from Homestead all the way to Marathon was very heavy and the
Turnpike had toll booths every few miles, so my progress was slow.
I intended initially to return the rental car and arrange
a van ride (for me and my bicycle) back to Key Largo. Instead,
I elected to drive the rental car to Key Largo, park it, jump
on the bike and ride to Key West, returning to the rental car
in a van from Key West. Perhaps Homestead would be more logical
origin, but, the road from Homestead to Key Largo (about 10 miles)
is a very busy 2 lane 
that I wouldn't
recommend bicycling. By riding from Key Largo, I eliminated about
80 dangerous miles of riding from my trip. 80 miles out of over
6,000 isn't so much.
I hate "cheating" by skipping any segment,
but I'd also hate to die after so much [actually
there's no convenient time to die on a bicycle--is there?],
and, I think I've done all I could to minimize the impact of this
skip. The side trip represented by my DALMAC miles far exceeded
the miles omitted here. [In retrospect,
everybody I talked to agreed that I did the right thing. I'm such
a purist that I had some guilt about "cheating" but
it wasn't cheating, and who cares anyway?]
Total bicycle mileage today:
65.
© Ed Noonan
1996, 1997
