Not Liking Sarasota

Day 36, May 7, 2011 Not Liking Sarasota.

93.6 miles averaging 14.6 mph

Route from Palm Harbor to Oscar Scherer State Park, Osprey, FL

Best Moment – Eating the fresh-picked, vine ripened tomato that I got at the roadside produce stand. 

Worst Moment – Sarasota, FL has got to have the most rude people of anywhere of the ride so far.  Riding through this beautiful and what appears to be very affluent seaside community I was honked at three times and yelled at twice.  I was told that I sucked and should not be “f_____g riding a bicycle on the road.”  Those Florida residents ought to know that bicycling on any Florida roadway, other than the interstate highways, is legal as long as I am as far to the right as practical and that the motorists are required to give the cyclist at least three feet right of way.

The problem is that there wasn’t much of a shoulder and I really didn’t feel safe.  Finally, for self-preservation I took to the sidewalk.  I’m not sure that it was any safer because in their wisdom, the urban planners in Sarasota decided that it was fine to place all sorts of obstacles in the way of pedestrians that might venture on the walk. That includes things like light poles, junction boxes and an accumulation of leaves. I mean if there were bicycle paths and I knew where they were – that’s where I’d most certainly be riding.

As I was leaving Tampa, I picked up the Tamiami Trail.  It is the route that I’ll be on for the next several days and goes south to Everglade City then across the Everglades to Miami.  I guess the name of the route is pronounced “tammy mammy” (according to Wikipedia if you want to believe them.)

After about 30 miles of city riding all of the way through Tampa, I finally got back to the more rural part of Florida where the pine forests gave way to agriculture.  I passed several produce stands before finally stopping one that looked like they might really have fresh strawberries.  They did not, but I got fresh corn on the cob (4 ears for $1), two huge delicious vine ripened tomatoes and two Florida sweet onions (better than Vidalia.)  We had tomatoes, grilled corn, grilled onions and trout for dinner.

Sometime early in the day I had a flat tire – I’m not really liking all of the flats.  Again it was a small piece of wire embedded in the tire.  I was able to make it to camp by adding air and not having to change the tire until I got here.  I guess with the touring tires, the air leaks are slower or something, because I don’t think that it would be possible to go very far on road tires once I got a piece of wire poking the tube.

I arrived at Oscar Scherer State Park about 3:30.  It is a huge but wonderful state park near Osprey, Fl. There are lots of trails to explore.  The park also has a small lake that we were told is wonderful for swimming and we should ignore the alligator sign. I could almost imagine seeing the swamp creatures come out.  Boy Scout Troop 50 has been busy working on Eagle projects for the park.  There were at least two – one was an overlook over the river, and another Eagle candidate had improved the trail.  Ambitious! 

Can you believe that Neita actually drove Ruby across this narrow wooden bridge?