Gator Country Hell Week Day 5: Peas Baby Please?

It is a southern tradition to serve blackeyed peas on New Year's Day. But with the way the weather has been going, we decided to skip southern tradition. It just doesn't get much better than this, so what else could we ask for?

Today's route wiggled through central Florida from near Brooksville to Winter Garden, a suburb or Orlando. By car it's only about 40 miles from motel to motel, but we managed to put on about 111 miles (including the Sugarloaf Mountain option).

The day began with 23 miles on the Withlacoochee State Trail. This year's tour is the bike path tour, with about 100 miles charted over 8 different path systems throughout the state. The other 725 miles are on primarily lightly-travelled rural roads.

The trail today was calm and still, with almost enough humidity in the air to produce fog. But brilliant sunshine quickly put a nix on that, and the air quickly warmed on its way to 80 degrees by early afternoon.

The complexion of the tour has changed somewhat the last few days. Yesterday marked the first day for Glenn from Indiana, while Kristy and Jesse ended their half-tour option in Brooksville. Tomorrow Glenn, Kip, Bena, and Todd will wrap up their half-tour, and we'll be left with 22 riders for the final two days. Kip's brother, Elwood (aka Tim), is along in his truck taking in the scenery and lending a hand with baggage shuttling.

After we jumped off the path in Inverness we headed east on the recently-finished 4-lane segment of Rt 44, complete with a nice bike lane. We then flip-flopped between east and south, rolling through Lake Panasoffkee and Bushnell on the way to lunch at the abandoned fruit stand in Center Hill.

It is after Center Hill that the terrain starts to make a quick change to rolling hills. The first hill is on Simon Brown Road, with each successive road bringing more hills. They were a welcome change from over 400 miles of flat land thus far.

It's easy to understand why the area around Clermont is considered some of the finest for cycling in all of Florida. The alternating hills-and-lakes beneath the crystal blue sky are eye candy for winter-weary riders, and so the 28 miles from lunch to the afternoon sag in Minneola went by in a flash.

Becky and Mark had smoothies waiting for us at Sag #2, a perfect complement for the warmest day of the tour thus far. It was tempting to just sit in the grass and guzzle these frozen concoctions, but we still had 20 (or 26 if you took the bonus option) miles to go, including some short, steep hills on Grassy Lake Road.

This year Sugarloaf Mountain was not a requirement, this time providing a nice 6-mile bonus for those who still had a few little strength remaining. This steep hills ascends all the way to about 300 feet above sea level, which is almost above timber line in these parts.

After the bonus and regular routes rejoined, the road then led to Ferndale and Montverde, where some of us stopped for a brief unofficial third sag. The remaining 10 miles into town are fairly straightforward, with only a slight hint of orlando traffic. We had a short section on the West Orange Trail, with the remainder on quaint (and quiet) tree-shrouded city streets.

And so we ended Day 5 on another high note. While California is drowning in rainfall and Oklahoma and Texas are burning down, life is good here in Central Florida. Sunshine and 80-degrees on New Year's Day is an offer I just can't refuse.

All the blackeyed peas in the world couldn't top this.

Dr "Minding My Peas and Cues" Gerlich