In 2017 with the help of my late wife Hazel Marie I rode from Key Largo to Key West taking two days. After 5 years I decided to ride there again but I needed to to it differently because I did not have Hazel Marie driving the Jeep. For weeks I tried to think of how to accomplish this and settled on riding from a place out and back and then move further down the Keys.

I arrived at Key Largo on May 12th. It was early enough for a ride before sundown. The next day was the longest ride heading SW from Key Largo to mile marker 75 and then back to Key Largo. Below is the YouTube video and Strava ride report for May 12th and the 13th.

On Saturday I drove from Key Largo to Marathon. The drive was not too long allowing me to ride before checking into the hotel at 3 PM. I needed a place to park the Jeep and get ready. I found the Marathon Community Park with no one there and plenty of parking and I pulled under a tree for shade. The ride would go back towards Key Largo to the Lock Key State Park entrance. I didn’t pick that turn around point in advance but it was a good spot. The weather up to this point was perfect, light wind and mid 80’s with lots of sun. Below is the YouTube video and Strava activity.

On Sunday, May 15th, I checked out of the hotel but did not leave Marathon because my hotel check in time was not until late afternoon. A couple months ago I read about the opening of a portion of the Old 7 Mile bridge on the Marathon side. I drove there and parked the Jeep walking around taking a few photos. Next to my Jeep a couple were getting ready to skateboard on the bridge and I asked them about the rubber tipped pole each one had. They said the pole was for balance and to push off to go forward. After they left I got the Cervelo out of the Jeep to get ready. A man two cars down asked if the door open on the Tahoe of the couple was mine and I said no. Later as I began the ride I looked and the driver’s door was wide open. I closed it. As I rode away I got about 1/2 mile and realized I closed all my doors but forgot to lock them. You can see the old bridge in the video. I met them couple on the way to Pigeon Key at the end of the opened portion and told them about the door. They were relieved and thanked me. When I returned to the parking lot they were gone so I guess nothing else happened. Below is the YouTube video and Strava ride activity.

I rode around Marathon and found Sombrero Beach Road and decided to explore. You can see what I found in the video. Returning to the Jeep I waited there for an hour so that wouldn’t arrive at my Key West hotel before check in time. It turned out the check in time was later than I remembered and my room wasn’t ready. I waited and returned to the office at the correct time but the room wasn’t ready yet. A lady helped and moved me to an upgrade room and I checked in. Later than evening I met my sister and brother-in-law for dinner. They were vacationing in Key West.

Monday, May 16th, my ride started at 10 AM from my hotel in Key West going east and NE along city streets before connecting to US1. Flagler Ave. had a bike lane generally but I was concerned riding beside parked vehicles and getting “doored” so I stayed to the left side of the bike lane. The intersection at US1 and A1A was busy but I rode on on the sidewalk/bike path onto US1. From there I rode a mixture of bike lanes and bike paths separated from the highway by grass and other material On Sunday I saw several bike path bridges closed as I drove to Key West but I couldn’t see why. Today I found out why, part of the concrete deck broke off leaving holes in the bridge floor. I rode the bike lane to get around those closures. The shoulder bike lane was marked as such and was about 3 feet to 3 1/2 feet wide. Traffic was accommodating moving to their left most of the time. I wanted to ride at least 40 miles but was prepared to shorten that if the bike lanes and paths gave out. They didn’t but around mile marker 21 the bike lane stopped and the path ended with a crossover to the other side and a bike path. At first I thought I could turn around after crossing US1 but the path ended there. I rode more to a business parking lot and made that the turn around point. I retraced my route except where the bridge bike paths were closed and moved to the bike lane going back to Key West. Back at the US1 and A1A intersection I waited a few minutes for the light to change and get the crossing signal. From there I rode several side streets before returning to Flagler Ave. and back to the hotel to finish at 1:40 PM.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, I plan on riding around Key West.

Hotel WiFi has varied from good to not so good. Not surprisingly. I have used my Chromebook and the Openshot program to edit the videos learning how to do that. Transferring the video from my GoPro to a USB flash drive took time once I figured out the GoPro Media Module was the reason the GoPro would not connect to my Chromebook. Openshot runs as a Linux program on the Acer Spin 713 Chromebook. I found out the best performance in Openshot came when I closed all open Linux programs.