Last ride of the year with my wife and daughter at Boulware Springs park.

    Boulware Springs park

    This was a treat. There is nothing quite like riding with your family. We had a ton of fun not to mention a nice easy going 5 mile ride. Stacey and I took a trip here early in December and she decided she liked it. So in the evening on December 28th we packed up our bikes and took our oldest up to Gainesville for a nice leisurely ride. This trail which starts at Boulware Springs park in Gainsville takes you 16 miles West to Hawthorne Florida. There are several lookout points and scenic areas to to take pictures or picnic. There are a few sharp turns and changes in elevation at the start of the trail but then it evens out to a long straight gentle ride.

On our way.

This over the shoulder shot is a lot harder out on the Santos mountain bike trails.

One of our stops is a nice overlook view of Paynes Prairie reserve.

   
It started getting dark so we headed back. I was glad we could get a ride in during my daughter's stay (which are always too short.) Next time she's home we will do a longer ride and stop for a picnic.

End of a great year.

  Photo album of lost rides.

  Hello folks,
    My blog has been a bit stagnant these last few months but the riding has continued. Instead of going back and writing up each of my trips that I missed I thought it better to give you a "best of" picture tour instead. We had some great rides through the Ocala Santos bike trails, the Rails to trails sanctioned Gainesville to Hawthorne trail as well as the Greenway baseline trail. I will be starting new this year with a few updates between January and February. Articles may replace rides as it is quite cold out there. I have a few articles I've started that I've been meaning to finish up. This seems like the perfect time to do that.

Here are the random pics from some of our rides. I hope you enjoy

My wife has been coming along as well.

     

Even Don got in on the fun.

 

Biking the Santos Trails ,Ocala.

   Today Mike and I rode 12 miles from the Santos trail head in Ocala, Florida. All the rain we've been getting made for a nice trail with no surprise sugar sand traps as well as giving us a cooler morning to start our ride.

We started off biking the Pine Tree trail and took that until a fallen tree blocked our way. We scuttled under the tree and made our way to the Vortex. We noticed that the tree had already been worked on with some obvious sawed limbs. We are very fortunate to have an active group like the OMBA to take pride in our trails. They are dedicated people who really make the trails a great place to ride.

Next we made our way across the road at Turning Hawk and rode through one of my favorite areas. My GPS hit a spot where it lost signal so I lost 2 miles but I was lucky that Mike has a backup on his bike to record our actual distance. The loop across the road takes you through some starkly different environments from hills and open fields, a sinkhole (or maybe an old excavated area of the Greenway) and through pine woods where everything is shady and brown. All in all it was a good but albeit sweaty ride as the humidity soaked us (especially me) as the morning grew warmer. The plan is to go Thursday morning and catch some sun as we take a ride through the villages. Remember, you can always click on any picture in this blog to see it full size. Some of the scenery is better appreciated in a larger window.

Biking the Land Bridge trail with Kayla.

This morning we woke up early and headed out to ride a different section of the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway trail. I wanted to mix it up so we started off at the Land Bridge trail head. Kayla has only been out on the horse trails here so I wanted to show her some of the diversity that these trails offer.

We started out on the yellow trail immediately from leaving the parking lot.  This was nice because we have the choice of riding the wagon trail all the way to 484 or we can mix it up with side trails that merge in and out of the wagon trail.


 It wasn't long before we reached the Landbrige. We stopped and waved a friendly hello to cars passing by.

We decided to mix it up and do a little of both. We wanted to cover some distance this morning and we did! We rode for 10 miles which is Kayla's distance record so far.

Biking the Florida Greenway trail with my girls.

 

Tonight I took my two girls on a bike ride at the Greenway bike trails off Baseline RD here in Ocala, Florida. Laura has the bike Kayla outgrew several years ago. I was a little worried about if she could make it or not. The bike is a nice little Schwinn with only one gear. We rode just over three miles total riding the larger middle loop first then we took a break and rode the small immediate loop.

Laura was a trooper. She never stopped on the inclines, never complained just pushed on and did her best.  I am very proud of her. I told her that if she keeps at it I will take her out to ride the Santos mountain bike trails when she's ready. She liked the sound of that.