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New this year Come early on Friday and we will dine at the Yearling Restaurant in Cross Creek with great food and live local music. An evening to enjoy, just 10 minutes from the park.
In General - This is a 2-day bike ride with base camping at Paines Prairie State Park just south of Gainesville. The Saturday and Sunday rides are 34 miles and 10-to-36 miles respectively. The North Marion ride takes us along roads hardly traveled, something hard to find outside of most metropolitan areas. We will visit small hamlets, travel by expansive horse farms as well as a few exotic farms, take on a few short hills and see Florida the way it was many years ago. It is quite a beautiful and a unique area of Florida where the roads are tree lined and development is measured by the vastness of wooden fences among the horse farms with their rolling pastures.
This year's Saturday route will be entirely different from the last 2 year's. This year we will car ride to the town of MacIntosh, park at the city park, a make a loop south and west from there. Basically the loop has shifted to the south of where we had ridden in the past. The Saturday route is a large loop and no roads are back tracked upon (except for near the park). Moreover, our Gainesville-Hawthorne ride on Sunday will start at Boulware Springs in the south of Gainesville and then we will ride east towards Hawthorne. Last year, riders would pedal the Hawthorne Trail as far as they wished and then they would turn around at their personal limit, depending on how the Saturday trip affected their physical self. That is why the Sunday trip is classified as 10-to-36 miles; as the entire length of the trail is 18 miles. This is not a loop ride, so however many miles you ride in, you have to ride that many miles back to the parking lot.
We will be riding at a casual speed and we stop frequently to take in the sights and beauty as that is as much a part of the event as the physical accomplishment. In fact, think of the ride as a river paddle; rarely does the group take off in a frenzy of some boat race to finish the trip as soon as possible. The Saturday trip can be classified as moderate-to-strenuous. If you have been keeping up with weekend bike riding, the 34-mile ride will be considered "darn good". If you have not been doing much riding, the 34-mile ride will be considered a "major accomplishment". I encourage casual riders to join us none the less, we will not leave anyone behind. Sure, you will be worn out, but it is a great opportunity to stretch your limits while having fun with a group.
The new route has 3 distinct differences from our past route: 1) it is a bit more hilly, though the hills are not steep nor are they long, there are just more of them. 2) about 1/3 of the roads are macadam pavement. This is a form of surface that is rougher than your usual road pavement because it is large aggregate pressed into asphalt. This can be annoying when using road bikes with very thin high-pressure tires, but again, the scenery is worth putting up with the vibration. I am telling you this so it is not a surprise, and so you can adjust your attitude and put the issue out of your mind. With this knowledge, you can decide if a road bike, hybrid or a mountain bike is more appropriate for your riding pleasure; each having their advantages and disadvantages. And 3) because we are moving south, thus closer toward Ocala, there are more residences along this route unlike the remoteness of the prior route.
On Saturday, Micanopy is not on our route. There is one convenient store about 2/3rds into the trip, the only place for a restroom break or for refreshments. Last year we had a couple of hours to clean up and nap before readying ourselves for dinner. Saturday evening, we all host a pot luck dinner; which last year, yielded a very good variety and volume of chow fit for a tired klatch of bike riders
Ideally, it is best to try to come camp Friday night so you will be ready in the morning. Campers arriving on Saturday morning need to give themselves plenty of time to check-in at the ranger station. This process can be time consuming. The park opens at 8:00.
Of course, we have added the Yearling Restaurant to the activities.
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