Ana and I headed out to the Pinellas trails Saturday for a ride on the pavement. It is no doubt blisteringly hot outside this time of year. Today was no exception. The only saving grace today was that it was partly cloudy so occaisionally we'd get the relief of a a cloud obfuscating the sun for a few minutes. In retrospect that was a rather technical way of describing the sun going behind the clouds for a minute.
Since there was an arts and craps festival in downtown Dunedin (pretty much how I feel about these events), we parked up at the Publix at Alt 19 and Curlew Rd. From here we pedaled all the way down to court street in downtown Clearwater. We passed over a small bridge just south of Stevenson Rd, and saw a few manatee's cavorting and playing around out in the distance. It is always amazing to see these huge creatures just having a good time rolling around in the water.
When we got to downtown Clearwater, it was amazing to see how dead the area that we used to have to drive through to get to the beach had become (you no longer can get to the beach directly from downtown). The area looks amazing but you can see how many of the mom and pop shops have closed up as a result of the loss of business.
Pedaling a little further, we took a break in a parking garage that had a set of benches in it. This section of the trail offers very little in the way of shade, just plenty of reflective concrete.
After cooling off for a bit we headed back up the trail and stopped for lunch at our favorite spot, Cafe Alfresco. We both had omlettes, but I also opted for some of the raspberry cheesecake they have which is absolutely fantastic.
After this we headed back up toward the car, but decided to go all the way up to the overpass so we could ride it back down (we like to go fast!).
Ride Statistics:
Started: Jun 26, 2010 11:25:20 AM
Ride Time: 1:39:06
Stopped Time: 50:02
Distance: 13.65 miles
Average: 8.26 miles/hr
Fastest Speed: 17.82 miles/hr
Climb: 249 feet
Calories: 654
Google Map of the Ride:
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