Day 3 Gator Hell Week

You can tell when the weather is about to change in Florida. The wind starts to blow, and white, puffy clouds are replaced by lower dark ones that look like they’re going to dump on you. And while we didn’t get dumped on, dark clouds did form this afternoon.

Yes, and change is in the offing.

But for now, we’re still enjoying summer. It was another day in the mid-80s, with stiff southeasterly winds. As I had warned everyone the night before, there would be no escaping at least some headwind today, because our route turned into every compass point. So unless we were to get extremely lucky, we’d face it sooner or later.

Fortunately, we didn’t have too much to deal with, as our route wound primarily to the north and west from the Avon Park area to Plant City. It was our longest day of the tour thus far at 109 miles, and to be honest, I don’t think the wind slowed us down any more than the added miles did. We all rolled in to the finish between 4pm and 5pm, all of us with now very clearly defined tan lines.

It was a day of transitions, as we started in dense orange groves separated by scenic lakes, into phosphate mine country, and finally into table-top-flat fields filled with strawberries. In fact, Plant City is the winter strawberry capital for the US. My parents, who happen to live in Plant City, greeted us at the finish today with a flat of the luscious berries. They were an instant hit.

One thing about riding through the lightly populated interior of Florida is that one sees the other side of the state…the part that is not spotted with high rise condos or hotels, or mile after mile of housing developments. If anything, much of the interior is below the national norm in terms of income. Or, as one of our riders put it, when we modified the route a couple of years ago, we “trade traffic for Third World.”

But that’s a decent trade when you’re looking for a safe place to ride.

Tonight we are staying at the glitzy Red Rose Inn, a place where Lycra and t-shirts seem almost out of place. But that’ll have to be, as none of us packed any formal wear for the trip.

In the morning we’re off for the Brooksville area, with two nice 10-mile segments on different paved bike paths. We’ll be cycling along a portion of the Van Fleet Trail through the Green Swamp, and then along a section of the Withlacochee Trail at the finish. It’s another “short” day, with roughly 97 miles on tap. With a 50% chance of rain tomorrow, we may get wet. That’s alright, though, as it will still be warm for  a couple more days. By Wednesday we could be reaching for tights, jackets, and booties for a day as a cold front is expected to momentarily send us all back to reality for a day.

Until then, we’ll be lathering on the sunscreen.

Day 2 Gator Hell Week

To see the real Florida, you have to stay away from the coastal cities and tourist traps. You need to go inland, and mingle with the locals. And what you see in the inland is often a far cry from what you see in tourism publications.

Not that this is bad, mind you. It’s just that there are real people living here in Florida, not just a bunch of smiling, happy retirees with nothing to do. And our route takes us through much of this “real Florida” by taking the road less traveled, and vsiting cities often bypassed by the hordes of tourists who head south every winter.

In other words, there are indeed some quiet places in Florida, which are ideal for cycling.

And so we rolled out of Clewiston this morning, with the morning’s fog lifting and temps in the 60s. After a few quick turns through a residential area, we climbed up onto the Herbert Hoover dyke and the paved bike path for 15 carefree miles to Moore Haven. Canals on either side of the dyke were dotted with fishermen; Lake Okeechobee was nowehere to be seen, even though rumor has it the lake is nearby. Of course, the persistent drought southern Florida has endured is playing a big role in this problem, with the lake now some five feet below its normal level (and the lake itself is only 12 feet above sea level. You do the math…that doesn’t leave much of a lake.)

At Moore Haven we tackled the biggest climb of the trip thus far…the bridge over the Caloosahatchee River. Otherwise, it was a pretty flat day, until we neared Sebring and the southern extremity of Florida’s “continental divide” (my Garmin said we hit about 130 feet of elevation at one time).

The wind was favorable much of the day, meaning our 97 miles went by exceptionally quickly. The crew had to hustle to keep up. Lunch was at the intersection of Routes 721 and 70 in the Middle Of Nowwhere, with the morning SAG near Lakeport, and the afternoon SAG in Lorida (quite possibly the only rhyming city/state combination).

Topday was a transition day, as we left sugar cane fields in the morning, and traded them for orange groves in the afternoon. And in the middle was the Brighton Seminole Indian Reservation, which, of course, had a small casino. But, alas, gamblers apparently have not yet discovered this little place, for no one was there.

While the weatherguessers say there is a very strong push of cold air haded this way by Wednesday next week, we’re still basking in summer-like weather. Today I noted 89 degrees on our thermometer, while weather.com showed heat idices above 90. Not bad for the 29th of December!

And now we’re off to the Harborside Restaurant near our motel along Hwy 27 between Sebring and Avon Park.  Tomorrow takes us in a rather circuitous route to Plant City (nearly 110 miles), through miles and miles of both orange groves and strawberry fields, and to the quaint Red Rose Inn Motel. Along the way we’ll do a partial lap of scenic Lake Wales, and had back out into the country.

For now, I’m off to dinner to settle a score my stomach  complained about a couple of hours ago. It’s time to refuel.

Day 1 Gator Hell Week

We awoke to 60-degree temps this morning in Fort Myers, so any thoughts of vests, arm warmers, and booties were quickly dashed and put on hold. This was summer-like weather, and sunblock was the potion of choice this morning as we headed out at 8:28am.

And although the wind blew steadily from the southeast all day, it did not seem to slow folks down very much. More than anything, it was the heat…which topped out in the mid- to upper-80s this afternoon. Our 102-mile ride to Clewiston was simply gorgeous. It was about as flat as you could find (aside from your kitchen table). My GPS seldom rose above 20 feet elevation.

And so our route took us out of Fort Myers, past the airport, and into the Lehigh Acres are, and then across the Caloosahatchee River. We paralleled the river to Route 29, and then crossed the river to Labelle, where we had lunch. And from there we headed south 11 miles, and then east into swamp land. I caught a gator out of the corner of my eye as Dave and I startled it. The resulting splash in the canal was loud.

Then the smell took an acrid turn as we caught the aroma of burning sugar cane fields. Huge trucks occasionally passed us, laden with cut cane. And in a short while, we reached our destination, the Best Western in Clewiston. Everyone rolled in between 4pm and 4:35pm, which made crewing quite simple today.

We’re off to dinner in a few minutes…in fact, everyone is standing around me looking very hungry. So…with that in mind, I’m outa here!

Temps Are Sizzling

The weathermen are calling for highs in the upper-80s the next few days, and all of us here in Fort Myers waiting to start riding in the morning are conceding there may be suffering going on…but we’re all willing to deal with it anyway.

After all, better to be sweating than shivering.

And so  there will be 13 of us lining up at sunrise to spin out of town, headed for Clewiston and the sugar and fields. One of our riders had to cancel today at the last minute. We’ll all try to ride a few for him, keeping an eye for gators along the miles and miles of swampy channels along the road after LaBelle.

But first we need to get some dinner and a good night’s rest before the real fun begins.  More tomorrow…

Ready to Roll in Florida!

Gator Country Hell Week #11 is set to roll out of sunny Fort Myers on Friday 28th December. And judging by the topsy-turvy weather much of the country is experiencing of late, this is about the best place in the US to be right now.

Today Becky and I spent over 2 hours at Sam’s Club buying provisions for the trip. This is always a taxing ordeal, as we try to predict what everyone will like. Having been in this business for quite some time now (this is our 37th Hell Week event overall), we have come to learn that every group of riders is a little different from the one before. The last group that swigged Diet Coke and munched Kudos bars may be this year’s group that raves Coke Classic and pretzels.

So we stand around looking at each other a lot, trying to guess what we’re going top run out of, and what we’re going to be taking home with us.

But that’s all detail work. Right now we’re focusing on the 8 days ahead, the 800 miles of riding, and the weather forecast…which right now looks incredibly good. Once again the prognosticators have laid out a splendid prediction, with sunshine and highs between 75 and 80 for most of the trip.

A total of fourteen of us will be along for the journey. We will be spending the night in Clewiston, Avon Park, Plant City, Brooksville, Winter Garden, Bartow, and South Lake Placid before we return to Fort Myers on 4th January. We’ve got about 800 mils of riding, including roughly 100 on paved bike paths scattered throughout the state.

And if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll even see a gator or two.

Check back for daily updates from along the road!

Seeing Double in Tucumcari

The first running (or is it riding?) of our Two-4-Tucumcari 2X200K brevets was held on the weekend of 8th-9th September. Eight riders started, and rode every inch of the route (with one rider scoring 16km bonus). Daily mileage was 128.6 miles, for a total of a little over 257 miles (406km).

The weather could not have been more varied for a weekend. As we left Canyon TX on Saturday at daybreak, mist filled the air, a remnant of the flooding rains that had falled the day before. But the mist quickly abated, leaving us with cool cloudiness as we headed west toward Hereford on Hwy 60. 

Somewhere along the line we lost Todd, who had flatted near Dawn. We waitied at a truckstop near Hereford for him…and waited…and waited, until a motorist stopped to tell us she had seen him working with a wheel some 13 miles back. As a courtesy we wanted to regroup, but as minutes ticked away, we realized that if we didn’t get moving soon, we might all miss the first control in Westway. Not wanting to have a 100% DNF in the first stage, we clicked in and headed off, hoping that Todd could catch up in time.

Fortunately, Todd did make that first Control in Westway, albeit after the 7 of us had already departed. We enjoyed light SE breezes during the morning, and kept a nice pace. Clouds eventually became blue sky as we headed west through the Bootleg community, past the feedyard, and on toward New Mexico. In fact, when we crossed the state line at 62 miles, it was beginning to feel like a typical hot summer day.

The second Control and lunch were in Bellview, the next closest thing to a ghost town. Even the US Post Office is abandoned, so Becky and Julie set up shop there and awaited our arrival. Grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches were on tap for lunch, and then more seemingly endless miles into the western horizon.

By this time the wind had started to kick around more to the south-southwest, slowing our progress from the morning’s pace. The elevation continued to slowly climb, having started at 3630′ back at our house, and headed to 4900′ at Ragland where both the next Control was located, and the road curved north toward Tucumcari.

The stretch between Bellview and Ragland is a mixed bag, with a couple of very small settlements (Broadview and Grady) in the middle. It was even laughable that Grady had been hyped on mileage marker signs ever since Hereford, yet the only thing in town is one of those “ghost stations” where you can buy gas with a credit card only, because no one actually works there.

The five miles between Broadview and Grady were the most difficult of the entire route, with horrible road surface conditions. It was impossible to find a decent line to ride, so we all had to resign ourselves to jostling as best we could. Much better conditions awaited after Grady.

The last Control in Ragland sits where the road curves, and the view spreads out in 3D. Gone was the flat expanse known as The Caprock, for suddenly we fell off it into mesa land. Bright reds and oranges colored the landscape, arroyos crisscrossed the highway, and orphaned mesas on each side of the road bore testimony to how random erosion can be.

The 26 miles into Tucumcari were a snap with a tailwind and 800′ of descending. In no time we were at our destination, the Tucumcari Inn, a vintage Route 66 motel on Tucumcari Boulevard (the last-used section of Route 66 before I-40 replaced it). After a quick clean-up, we replenished our energy stores at Del’s Diner, and then Ken’s Ice Cream shop.

We awoke Sunday to thick clouds and the threat of rain. The Weather Channel radar even showed showers off to the south of town, right on our route. We ate breakfast outside in the pre-dawn darkness, and as soon as there was enough daylight, we headed out to retrace the route we had followed the day before. With a north wind, we wasted no time climbing back to Ragland. In fact, it all seemed too easy.

Which is a bad omen when you know your route changes direction shortly.

It was quite chilly in Ragland, considerably more so than in Tucumcari. As we turned east for our 102-mile ride to the finish, it quickly became apparent that the wind was in fact from the NE.

And that the roads were wet because it was indeed raining lightly.

The winds held steady, probably at about 15mph, enough to slow us down and keep us on the verge of chill. It took a long time to actually get wet in the light rain, but by the time we finally reached Bellview for lunch, we were all pretty damp and in need of extra clothing to ward off the chill that quickly sets in when you click out. Most of us were shivering, so we wisely didn’t linger too long, although the pasta lunch beckoned us to sit back and enjoy.

It’s a long and lonely stretch between Ragland and Hereford, and about the only things there are to do are watch the miles click away slowly, think positive things as the elevation slowly drops, or count cattle. Somewhere around Bootleg, we noticed the drizzle had stopped, and the sun was in fact trying to poke through the clouds, which it did for a few minutes. Our souls and bodies warmed, it made the final two legs of the trip easier, even though dark skies loomed in the east.

A quick stop at the Control in Westway was followed by a longer more relaxed stop at the truckstop near Hereford, where we waited for Bill to rejoin us. It was in Broadview that Bill had missed the turn and was accidentally headed toward Clovis. Bill had to do double-time to catch back on, but he managed to do so as we waited at the truckstop.

The rest was rather anticlimactic as we plowed northeast along Hwy 60 to our house for the finish and a post-ride cookout. It never did rain again, although it was chilly and certainly felt like it could cut loose again.

All told, these back-to-back 200Ks were challenging in that the weather was not perfect, and with relatively flat land, there is scant time to never be pedaling. Hills would have been welcomed occasionally just to break things up. As I have learned in 18 years out here, the mental aspect of cycling on the prairies can be even more demanding than the physical aspect, though. The sameness of the terrain can multiply the tedium of a long ride.

But with good company along, the miles do indeed roll by a little bit faster. Which makes me look forward to 2008’s edition of T4T, which will be on 6th-7th September. We’ll just put in an order for tailwinds both days.

Click the widget below to view a slideshow of the weekend.

Coming Up 7s: Vegas HW On Tap For May 2008

Here’s one thing you can bet on: Viva Las Vegas Hell Week will roll out of Sin City starting 15th May 2008.  

Far and away our hardest tour ever, this third staging of VLVHW (the others being in 2000 and 2005) promises plenty of challenges: long desert grades, stark scenery, heat, and wind.

Oh yeah: And hanging on to your wallet, if you decide to indulge yourself of some gambling pleasures on any of the 7 nights (out of 9) that we spend in casinos.

The route is a Figure 8. The first leg heads north and east to Mesquite on Day 1, St. George UT on Day 2, and back to Mesquite on Day 3. On Day 4 we’ll ride near Lake Mead and sleep in Las Vegas.

The second leg finds us wrapping around to the west side of LV and climbing up to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, where we’ll ride the loop road, and then descend back to the edge of LV. We’ll then head southwest to Primm on the state line. Day 6 will take us to historic Nipton CA, followed by Cima, Kelso (home of the famous train depot, now park headquarters for the Mojave National Preserve), and then Baker for our motel. On Day 7 we’ll proceed north through Shoshone and Death Valley Junction, before turning back east to Pahrump. Our final day will bring us back to Las Vegas on the 22nd.

The route is slightly over 800 miles in length, with over 40,000 feet of climbing along the way. We’ll be in four states, and see the desert southwest at its finest. Our route includes the brilliant reds of the St. George UT area, the joshua tree forest near Cima, the juxtaposition of water and the desert, and views that go on forever.

More info is available here. Online registration will be available in September 2007.

Two-4-Tucumcari Sneak Peak

It’s not the end of the world. But you can almost see it from there.

Such is an apt description of the new Two-4-Tucumcari route, a 2X200K event slated for 8-9 Spetember 2007. The route goes from near Canyon to Tucumcari and back, with an overnight stay in a vintage Historic Route 66 motel in Tucumcari. Click the route map thumbnail below to see the roads we’ll be taking:

Starting at 3630 feet elevation, and maxing out at a little over 4900 near Ragland NM, the route on Day 1 concludes with a very nice drop of about 800 feet to Tucumcari. Of course, it’s all done in reverse the next day as we return to Canyon on the same roads. With the exception of the fall off the Caprock Escarpment at Ragland, the terrain is very gentle, with only a few shallow draws and playa lake beds to dip into. Otherwise, the grassy plain gives the illusion of being perfectly flat.

But we know better.

This is rural riding at its finest, a place where the cattle outnumber the people by at least 10:1. With a daily mileage of 129, T4T will prove to be a tough test of stamina, endurance, and mental stick-to-itiveness.

The T4T is sanctioned by RUSA (Randonneurs USA). Riders need not be members of RUSA to participate, but those who are may receive credit for completing these 200K brevet events.

Entry fee for T4T is $109 double occupancy, $139 for single, and includes everything except Saturday evening’s meal (also at a vintage Route 66 diner). We’ll have our SAG vehicle out on the course, and Becky will be providing a delicious breakfast and lunch each day. We’ve got a post-ride picnic planned back at our houseon Day 2. Local lodging for before and after the events is available in Canyon (as us for details). Register online at hellweek.com, or give us a ring at 806.683.6489. In the mean time, check out some pics along the route.

TXHW 2008 Registration Opens

Online registrations for the 18th Annual Texas Hell Week opened today, 1st August 2007. The event is planned for 15-22 March in Fredericksburg TX.

New for 2008: several more new routes, some revived “old” routes, as well as an a la carte registration that allows riders to pick and choose their rider amenities. The basic packages for early-bird registrants (through 30th Sept 2007) are:

Bronze ($89): The basic entry, with no shirts

Silver ($101): Bronze + T-Shirt

Gold ($119): Silver + Sweatshirt + Socks

Platinum ($184): Gold + jersey 

Prices go up $10 on 1st October 2007, and another $10 on 1st March 2008.

To register, please click here.

Gator Country Hell Week 2007-2008

Our 11th Annual Gator Country Hell Week is slated for 28th Dec through 4th January in sunny, warm Florida. Why shiver your way through winter and watch your fitness slip away? Head south and rejuvenate your legs (and tan lines), and be the envy of your friends back home. Ditch the studded tires, balaclavas, and lobster claw mitts. We’re talking suntan here!

Our Start/Finish is in Fort Myers, on the southwest corner of the state. Fort Myers is easily accessed by air, or you can drive and leave your car at the motel. Our route takes us through about 800 miles of very flat and fast Florida countryside, far from all the hustle and bustle of the tourist meccas. We’ve been cycling in Florida since 1984, and know where to take you so you can stay out of traffic.

This tour is fully supported, with motels, baggage shuttle, 2 SAGs, breakfast, and lunch provided each day. All you have to do is ride the bike (and buy your dinner). Our detailed cue sheets keep you on the route without worry. And our expert crew (Becky Gerlich [wife] and Mark Gerlich [brother]) keep you fed. Don’t even think of losing weight on this tour!

For more info and to register online, visit: HellWeek.com.

Line e’m up! It’s the morning SAG at Gator Country, where it’s flat, fast, and usually sunny and warm. You can’t beat Florida weather and cycling in the middle of winter.

Mark Gerlich grills the burgers at our annual Day 7 post-ride cookout and fiesta.

Dave Buegler, a 6-time Gator Week vet, hammers through the Florida countryside. With approximately 5000 Gator Week miles to his credit, Dave now knows virtually every good cycling road in central and south Florida.