Yet another great day to be in the saddle. It was sunny and warm with a 10mph cross wind blowing in from the ocean. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the ocean or the intracoastal for a lot of the ride because there were dunes and plants blocking the view. That coupled with the fact that the area I was biking was basically a desert of beach homes and developments made it a slightly mind numbing 67 mile ride. This is what I stared at for the majority of today.

Since the Candlewood Suites does not offer a continental breakfast I decided to bike for a bit and stop at a beach breakfast place on my route. I decided on the aptly named Beachside Cafe and got a ham and cheese omelette with a side of oatmeal and brown sugar. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m hungry all the time of not but the food I’ve eaten on his bike trip has been amazing. (Side note: I currently weigh 185 pounds… Holy crap! I’m usually 195-200)

I won another battle of man vs food and continued on my way south. As I mentioned above there wasn’t much to see for a lot of the ride but every now and then the beach or intracoastal would show up.

A few days ago Joe said to watch out for alligators on A1A that might pop out and eat me. Well, it was close but it turned out just to be a statue. Needless to say I survived the skirmish.

I saw on my GPS that I was near “Hang ‘Em High” which was one of my favorite Halo 1 maps so I stopped to try to find the street sign but to no avail. Ended up just taking another glamour shot of my bike.

I stopped at Publix when I got to Fort Pierce and got two subs, a huge Gatorade, some chips, donuts, cookies, and fruit. I like Publix a lot if you haven’t figured that out by now. I had just weighed myself and found out I weighed what I did in high school and decided I needed a ton of food. Here is the aftermath.

Tomorrow is the grand finale of the bike tour. I plan on stopping at Cafe Sole for lunch and taking the non scenic Donald Ross to Central Blvd route home instead of the increasingly miserable and dangerous PGA Blvd. I figure I will stop a number of times at CR Chicks in the coming week so I can wait an extra day for that. It should only be a 50 miler tomorrow so hopefully will be arriving around 2:00 if I go at a leisurely pace.

Today was yet another great day to be riding south in Florida. The wind was blowing hard but was in my favor and once again there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I knocked out the 60 miles to Melbourne at a leisurely 12.5mph pace.

I fell asleep just after UF crushed Memphis 77-75 and woke up feeling pretty refreshed despite the fact I forgot to turn the heat on in my hotel room. I ate all the things at the Best Western Plus’ continental breakfast and headed south. The first 30 miles was pretty boring as I was just following US1 on the shoulder. There were some cows and palmettos which was probably the highlight of this segment.

I tried to go to the KFC in Titusville but it wasn’t open yet which was a bummer. About half a mile later I heard a glass bottle shatter and then a woman emerged from behind some trees to the road and casually said “Excuse me sir? Can you call the police on him??”. Uh what? Why don’t you call them? Or walk to the police station? I watched The Wire so I know the correct answer is to not give a fuck when it’s not your turn to give a fuck… So I kept going without getting in the middle of their domestic dispute. Nice place this Titusville though.

Anyway, I eventually made it south of there and ate a Pub Sub and then made my way onto Indian River Road which was very scenic. I stopped a couple of times and just hung out on the benches that lined the river. This was the good part of today’s ride.

Even saw a bunch of birds hanging out on the water like sitting ducks! (Dada Ching!)

I’m currently sitting at my hotel since there are no decent coffee shops that are walkable and I don’t feel like biking or cabbing anywhere. I’m going to walk to an Asian restaurant for dinner and grab some food for breakfast around 5:00pm or so. They don’t have a continental breakfast here so I have to cook something myself or find a walkable breakfast spot. I am going to bike for an hour before eating tomorrow and then go to The Beachside Cafe in Indiatlantic. Looks like a good spot.

Only two days left and then I will be home. Tomorrow is going to be a potentially difficult 70 miler if the wind does not cooperate. It will be along the beach on a path for almost the whole ride though so I am not too worried.

What a gorgeous day to be on a bike heading south in the state of Florida. I had a 10-15mph tailwind the entire way down and ended up averaging 14.5 mph for the 75 mile trip. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperatures were in the low 60s for my ride along the beach.

I left St Augustine around 7:45 after destroying yet another hotel’s continental breakfast. It was pretty chilly when I left but I ended up shedding all of my layers by the end and was just wearing a shirt and my base layer pants by the end of the trip. There was a bike lane or path almost the entire way today. Here was what I looked at for a while this morning.

As I stopped to take this picture of my bike on Flagler Beach, my new friend Suzy came running out of her beach side apartment and asked if I wanted her to take a picture of me with my bike. I promptly said “yes” and ended up with his masterpiece.

She was very nice and told me to stop at BeachHouse Beanery if I wanted coffee (which I did) and gave me some tips on navigating my trip. This is my second double espresso that I ordered there (I’m pretty sure it was a quad but I was okay with that!).

Carol from the coffee shop even put me on their Facebook page.

Heeding Suzy’s navigation advice, I stuck to the ocean route on this ridiculously nice day instead of going slightly west to ride along the river which had less traffic but no bike lane. If you’re reading this Suzy, thanks for the tip!

I had made plans on stopping at the KFC in Ormond Beach but ended up not going there because I was flying at about 18-20 mph down the beach. I even kicked it into my high gear for the first time in forever. I stopped for a few pictures but was enjoying the ride so much I barely stopped.

As I passed through Daytona Beach an old man on a bike challenged me to a race but I declined. I probably should have said yes but what can ya do. Anyway I eventually made it to New Smyrna and checked into my hotel.

Since I got to town early I took a taxi to the beach to hang out a bit and get some fresh seafood. Here’s the beach in New Smyrna and the food I got (old bay peel and eat shrimp and grilled mahi carbonara)

All in all one of the more enjoyable days of the trip. Tomorrow is a 60 miler to Melbourne with once again favorable weather conditions. Thursday the winds stop coming from the north so things might get difficult again but I’m going to enjoy this weather while it lasts.