| Description: | The first real test of my new S&S coupled singlespeed, in a quite bike unfriendly environment with an effort to make it as enjoyable as possible.
Work brought me to Supercomputing 07 conference in Tampa, Fl. Good thing about Tampa is that it's quite warm in November. The good news ends here. Tampa is a bicyclist's worst nightmare. Most roads don't have shoulders, not speaking of bike lanes. I did quite some reasearch before I came, and found a few maps that show bicycle suitable roads and roads with bike lanes. There are some in Tampa area, some more in Pinellas County, where St. Petersburgh is. After much deliberation, I decided to try to get to the coast, and then ride Pinellas Trail south, and take Gandy Bridge and Bayshore Trail back to Tampa.
The plan was to ride from the hotel near the Airport north Dale Mabry road, which at this point is three to four lanes each direction, but with decent shoulder. Then turn west on Hillsborough, which is busy but has a bike lane. Then up again on ?? which also has bike lane. Then west on Lindenhurst, which has bike lane for a while, but, it then changes to just a shoulder and in Pinellas county even the shoulder disappears. The remaining 6 or so miles to Pinellas Trail were a challenge - I rode on the sidewalk here and there. Then things got more mellow, rode Pinellas Trail south for a bit, then turned west and rode on both road and path on the side of the road to Honeymoon Island State Park. Did some riding on the beach there, and returned back to Pinellas Trail. On it continued south and east to its end in an industrial part of St. Petersburg. Before that, I stopped at a small bike shop to relube my chain, and got a lecture from the mechanic on how horrible biking in Tampa is, especially after he learned that I am from such a bike friendly town. After end of Pinellas Trail followed several more challenging miles, till I found main street with a bike lane. Riding through center of St. Pete was alright, here and there was a bike line, and roads were not too busy. This was alright till about 3 miles south of Gandy Blvd. There the road with bike lane ended, and I had to ride on the sidewalk again along a very busy road. Stopped at Wendy's to pick up some lunch, and then turned off to Gandy Blvd, which was also busy, but, at least, there was a shoulder. Stopped at the causeway in the mangroves to eat the lunch. I was wishing so that somebody would have some sense to build bike path along Gandy causeway till the bridge, it would make sense. The ride on the bridge itself was a lot of fun, the road after the bridge again was busy with no shoulder and some sidewalk riding. The Bayview Trail was again pretty decent, there is bike lane on the road, plus the paved walkway. I more-less stayed on sidewalk all the way till the Convention Center, where I stayed for 3 hours or so.
Then I rode back to the hotel, which was again not very pleasant. First got a bit confused in the downtown and ended up going on Kennedy Ave, which is pretty busy. Stayed mostly on the sidewalk, and stopped to get dinner and beer on the way. In the end, I was glad to be back at the hotel. Still, it was good to be out for the day. |
