While the main tour group was, 15 miles away, getting up early for the relatively short but hot and sunny 35-mile ride to Key West, we drove into Marathon for breakfast before dawn and then started breaking down our camp, still at Knight’s Key. We did feel much better, but as soon as the sun rose and the temperature with it, we were dragging to get packed.

We were out of the campground by 10:00am and off across the 7-mile bridge, past Bahia Honda and into new territory, seen from the car instead of the bike. There were lots of bridges with reflective concrete barricades, and many short but wide keys in the Lower Keys that offered little commercial services along the highway. And, few bike lanes, leaving the rough-surfaced and often narrow shoulder. Near Key West, we started passing some of our tour group. A sign announced “bicycles on roadway,” and we thought “how thoughtful.” But, it turned out, the sign was there because the shoulder was closed for one portion of the highway, and our riders were forced onto the traffic lane. Most Floridians and probably most of the tourists on their way to Key West either never heard of or don’t believe in the “Share the Road” principal.

 

Some riders saw key deer on the way. We intend to stop at the visitor center on the way up the Keys to meet the group at Fort Myers tomorrow, along with a few other attractions we missed because of our riding schedule earlier. And, before the tour ends, we will get to reprise our role as grocery truck. By the time we had grabbed coffee and a quick lunch and fought traffic through downtown Key West, we were the last of our group to arrive at the hostel. As usual, we were all too early to check in. Most of us spent the time wandering a few blocks down the street to the “southernmost part of the conterminous United States” monument at the foot of South Street. Key West is “conterminous” only because of the dozens of bridges spanning the many keys, some of which have been replaced due hurricane damage, so the distinction has been intermittent.

We thoroughly enjoyed our late-afternoon walk around the city, to the waterfront to see the sunset, and dinner after at an excellent cafe (called The Cafe) that featured good vegetarian cuisine as well as seafood.

We aren’t happy that we aren’t riding, but we’re glad to be out of the sun and heat. We didn’t have any problems with maintaining a respectable speed on our trip, so our “failure to thrive” isn’t due to being abysmally out of shape or totally unprepared. We were, however, unprepared for the effects of hot sun and the extremely poor condition of the bike lanes in some areas and the even-rougher-than-Washington-state skid-proof surface on most of the roads in Florida. We bounced across tree roots and plowed through standing brackish water and were faced with abruptly ending bike lanes that forced us over thorn-infested grass. Traffic is awful when in a car. On a bike, “taking the lane” is suicide. We’ve walked almost every left turn, something we almost never do at home.

When we disassembled our bike, we noted that the trailer hitch had become dislodged and the bolts were holding on by a few threads, due to the severely rough roads. Most of the trailer parts have become corroded from riding through brackish water and exposure to the concrete-like dust generated from the fossil coral caprock. This is a harsh environment for bicycles, and even more so for old Washingtonians. But, we are grateful to have the opportunity to continue our tour in a casual support role. The group are great, though much faster than we: we are incompatible only in that respect. We’ve toured on our own without support before, so we are generally prepared to make common repairs and deal with the rigors of the road. But, we aren’t capable of keeping up with seasoned tourists on single bikes. Tandems are different. Some are fast, some are slow. We’re slow, though obviously fast enough to batter our machine to near-destruction on bad roads. Our goal is to live to ride another day, to learn something about the capabilities of ourselves and our machines, and have fun doing it. Some of this trip has been fun, some has been difficult, and some has been a challenge to our capabilities, as well as a test of our new machine, about which we are still learning.

As another hot day dawned in Marathon, we decided we could not ride today: although it was only 15 miles to the next stop, it was remote, far from any services, across the 7-mile bridge and through a series of park-like keys with little or no permanent habitation. And we were still dehydrated and not feeling at all well. So, we signed the releases. However, our leader made us a proposition: if we had to rent a car to get back to our vehicle and then come collect our bike and gear, we could certainly continue to use the accommodations reserved for us. We also heartily agreed to provide vehicle support as needed. With no towns near the destination, riders would have to ride the 15 miles, drop their gear, then ride back for groceries, a total of 45 miles of riding for the kitchen crew.

Without the Internet, it would be difficult if not impossible to travel as we do. Calls to several car rental agencies either produced a “please try your call later” or “we’ll call you if we get any cars available.” We made an on-line reservation and took a taxi the five miles to the Marathon airport, where a car became available early. We stopped at the supermarket, filled the list, got more requests as we were shopping, as a pre-arranged plan for meals fell through. We loaded the trunk of the rental with coolers of meat, more tempeh, cheese, pies, and salad mixes. We loaded the back seat with bread, cereal, and other non-refrigerated staples, and headed across the bridges to the next campground.

After unloading the food, we headed back toward our own vehicle, reaching Miami near rush hour. Being unfamiliar with the turnpike system, we somehow ended up dumped onto US1 and creeping from traffic light to traffic light for several miles until we could get on I-95 at its southern terminus. Having a toll transponder in the rental, we zipped through the city and quickly arrived at the economy parking lot, where we retrieved our car at about 5:00pm. We then convoyed down the turnpike, tag-teaming the lane changes to get around slow traffic, until we got mired in the southbound merger of several tollways and crept along. A quick stop at Florida City, with which we were familiar from our Everglades layover day, for a quick snack and then onto US1 and the Overseas Highway to Marathon, where we refueled both vehicles, dropped off the rental car at the airport, and continued on to our tent and bicycle, arriving a bit after 8:30pm.

The rest of the tour, meanwhile, had all safely arrived at the Bahia Honda campground and apparently enjoyed a feast of grilled brats, grilled chicken, grilled corn on the cob, and potatoes, with tempeh and edamame for the vegetarians. Several riders stronger than we are had experienced difficulty in the hot sun crossing the long bridge, so we felt we had made the safe decision.

Just before we arrived at Key Largo, we had passed a construction site, and developed a slow leak in the front tire. We pumped it up and pressed on, as we had an appointment to shop for groceries. A few more stop and pump sessions ensued. We won the lottery for first flat on the tour. The professional mechanic among us, Jerry, replaced the tube from our stock of spares (40-406 tires and matching tubes being rather scarce, we supply our own spares, though a standard 20-inch tube will work), and found the tiny sliver of fine wire piercing the tire.

Our planned quick-cooking Thai noodle and tofu or chicken salad had turned out a bit less than optimal, as wide rice noodles were not to be found and we used wheat instead, which had to be cooked, leaving little time for extra cooking. We were also warned about raccoons in camp. Scavengers are always common in state parks across the country, unattended picnic tables and unlocked coolers being easy prey. We gathered all the food and stored it in our trailer, which is hard-shell and lockable.

After a hot day and a rather spicy meal (the Thai peanut sauce was a bit harsh for some of the group), and some irritability presumably inspired by flatting and pitching the tent on coarse sharp rock, the night was a bit miserable for the Unix Curmudgeon. The next morning, the Nice Person (our erstwhile stoker) decided we needed to lighten our load, so we stopped at the Key Largo UPS Store and shipped most of our heavy, Seattle-style bike clothes and extra camp clothes home. Of course, the weight didn’t change much from the day before: we now had 10 pounds of potatoes in our trailer, as we only fixed one each the night before, due to limited cooking time. We also had stopped for espresso on the way, having to instruct the barista exactly how to make the perfect Seattle-style Americano (equal parts espresso and water).

We arrived at the first rest stop about 15 miles down the road just as some of our group were leaving. At this point we were 20 minutes behind, having stopped twice already, for shipping and coffee. We didn’t tarry long, and pressed on. The day turned hot quickly as we passed through the sprawling Islamorada community. The bridges between the keys didn’t have high rises, for the most part, and some even had a separate, parallel pedestrian/bike bridge for fishing. The 2.2-mile bridge in mid-ride was especially nice, as the rise was gradual and we got a cool breeze from both sides.

We had stopped for lunch at a sort of flea-market area on one of the keys that had porta-potties and some shade in the parking lot. Coming out, we got confused by a “Dead End” sign and rode on the shoulder for a quarter mile before realizing the dead end was at the bike trail. We pushed across the grass to the now-obvious bike trail, which maneuver probably picked up a goat-head thorn. It was now after noon, about half-way to our 55-mile goal for the day. We stopped at Layton, where the bike path resumed, bought ice-cold water at a convenience store, and parked in the shade. When we remounted, the front tire was flat. We chose to patch the new tube rather than break out our reserve spare, which turned out to be ill-advised, as the thin peel-and-stick patch that came with our tire spoons gave way at the thorn puncture several more miles down the road. We made a wobbly low-tire turn across the road to shade and a short bike path, where we discovered that the right axle nut had loosened and would have fallen off after a few more miles of rough-surface riding had we not flatted again.

After this repair and carefully checking the bike fittings, we set off, only to find the bike path abruptly end a short distance down the road, necessitating crossing the road to the shoulder once more, through the grass. Our estimated time of arrival now stretched from an optimistic 3:30pm arrival to a hopeful 5:00pm arrival. With sunset at 5:30, we pressed on in the now stifling heat and head-on into the sun. We finally arrived in Marathon with the sun full in our eyes, behind traffic lights. Road work sent us back and forth from bike path to opposite sidewalk, with many cut-out driveways not suited to bikes. The road is in process of repaving through the entire town, leaving a ledge between the curb and road surface high enough to pinch a tube or bend a rim on heavily loaded or low tires. We didn’t, but suffered through constant jarring. Tandems can’t lift over obstacles like a short bike, and the trailer just bounced along. We stopped at K-Mart in Marathon to stock up on tire patches and rode on into the sunset with front LED blinker running to ward off left turners at intersections.

We arrived at camp just at sunset, a bit too close for comfort, but just in time for supper, supplied by leader Jack’s son. The meal was wonderful. The Unix Curmudgeon even tried a bit of the deep-fried grouper, while the Nice Person (always willing to order fish when eating out) also tried the stone crab and the spiny lobster. Our vegan tour member, Bill, supplied garlic and sesame-marinated tempeh for us more strictly vegetarian folk. Others, curious, tried it and most gave approval.

However, the intrepid tandemists were off their feed for having finished a 55-mile ride, and actually ate very little, heading for the showers, missing the key lime pie altogether, and retiring early. A bit of nausea and headache persisted through the night, along with moderate sunburn, considering we had been out in the sun for over 10 hours, perspiring profusely. Though we had applied sunscreen and reapplied at least once, we have had very little exposure to burning rays, living in the Pacific Northwest as we do. We had gone through our requisite one bottle of water for every 10 miles, but it wasn’t enough. We didn’t have the more severe symptoms, but were unable to drink more than a few sips of water or sports drink without increasing nausea. Our elevated body temperature persisted through the night, and we decided we simply could not ride safely the next 50 miles into Key West, and probably not complete the long days eastbound over the weekend. Our only choice, if our condition did not improve by morning, would be to resign from the tour.

It is true that south Florida has no hills, but it does have causeways, elevated for boat traffic. This one is just past the toll station on Card Sound Road.

We geared down to low and still made two “scenery stops” to let the pulse rate subside below 200. There are more of these ahead.

Entering the Keys across the mangrove swamps, we found some interestingly unique Florida signage:

Today was only 32 miles (but we went a bit further because we turned back to ask directions and then had food shopping duty later). Our leader, Jack, went ahead to make arrangements and then went shopping with us.

Our destination was John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, which has no tenting facilities, so we camped in sharp coral gravel on hardpan, not the ideal, but it is on the Keys at last.
Our fellow riders have been great, and don’t seem to mind that we are slowpokes, though we have been a bit trashed at the end of the very hot days. At least is is not freezing rain, like at home. Unfortunately, we seem to be dressed for that.

At the end of the first day, after 58 miles of mostly city riding, the Everglades Hostel pizza party was most welcome. The hostel staff and volunteers baked made-to-order pizzas in a frog-shaped horno (outdoor wood-fired oven).

The next morning most of us explored the Everglades National Park, much of it unsuitable for bicycles, so we switched to paddles.

The paddle route took us through barely-navigable mangrove tunnels.

But, when the vegetation got thicker, we got out and walked.

And, the hunt for the elusive Florida alligator was also successful.

Momma ‘gator hung around because her brood was near. We gave them respectful distance and moved on.

After our Everglades adventure, we checked out “Robert Is Here,” the famous fruit stand in Florida City.

Back at the hostel, plates of jackfruit, dragonfruit, papaya, and avocado were shared around the table for a fruit lunch, along with tamarind and cajun-spiced boiled peanuts.

It was, as advertised, a unique experience. Where else do you get to see a cow orchid in the wild?