Sunday, November 3, 1996
Time out: 11:40 AM. Temperature: 84 degrees.
Today, I drove from Marathon to Key Largo, parked my rental car at the Visitor Information Center and rode back to Marathon.
This was a wonderful day. As cars passed me on the road and
causeways today and saw my Fairbanks, Alaska to Key West, Florida sign,
many of the drivers and passengers stuck their hands out their windows and
gave me a thumbs-up. I was truly moved by their gesture and found myself
grinning ear to ear.
The Keys are actually quite pretty.
I did see some sights that were unique to Florida:
I had some pretty good tailwinds and was averaging about 18.4 mph for most of my ride today (until I had a flat tire).
About 40% of my riding today was on bike paths. Where the paths
were new and well marked, they were great, but the paths were not always
great; they had missing links, overgrowth and confusing routes in congested
areas (where they were needed the most). As a consequence of poor marking,
at one point I got lost and went about a block out of my way when the bike
path stopped abruptly.
US-1 in the Keys remains one of the worst places in the US to ride a bicycle. There were 287 bicycle or pedestrian accidents on US-1 in the Keys from 1991-1995. I would comment that I didn't see any incompatible uses--no dogs on leashes, etc. I did have trouble with cars stopping on the bike paths instead of at the stop signs further back from the roadway and I did have one (elderly) woman drive her car on the bike path directly at me. I was forced to leave the bike path as she refused to yield. I suppose she was wondering why the road was so narrow.
At one bridge, I tried riding on an adjoining fishing pier instead
of the highway shoulder. I should have stopped and turned back immediately
when I noticed broken beer bottles on the pier, but I tried to weave through
it all like a mine field. I failed. About 100' from the end of the pier,
I thought I heard hissing. By the time I got off the bridge onto a gravel
parking area, my tire was absolutely flat. It was indeed a piece of brown
glass that pierced the tread and tube on my rear wheel. I pulled the glass
out of the tire with a pair of needle-nose pliers and replaced the tube
with one of my spares. There was no shade and the temperature was about
88°, so it took me about 45 minutes to perform the repair.
US-1 road has good shoulders. The major bridges have 8' shoulders and I felt perfectly safe riding on them.
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As I've noted before though, I'm not the sort to focus my attention on my mirror.
As I said, I had a good tailwind today and was feeling pretty good about the end being so near, so was pumping real hard. I arrived back at Marathon at 4:10, despite stopping for lunch, stopping later to buy sunscreen, stopping to repair my tire, stopping a few times to drink Gatorade and wipe perspiration from my eyes and stopping to take 15 pictures.
NOTE: I have only one day of riding left on this trip. According to my maps, I have about 53 miles to ride tomorrow--to Key West. Don't be surprised if you don't see an update tomorrow. I just might decide to celebrate my 6,000 mile accomplishment a bit. I'll get some final photos and my final comments uploaded as soon as I can. Please keep tuning in.
Total bicycle mileage today: 54.
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997