February 8 - 12, 2026
5 Riding Days
240 miles riding
Sherri and decided to join Crossroads Bike Tours once again for the late winter ride across Florida. This was a great way to start the 2026 season. As usual Crossroads provided the room reservations and route maps. As typical, we carried our own gear. We had done several short day rides in Florida before, but this was to be our first actual bike tour there.
Turns out Northern Florida has several hundred miles of paved and wide bike paths - very nice. A cold front had moved thru the state just before we arrived, but the temperatures were just about perfect for our tour. The only windy parts of the tour were at or near the coasts. There was no rain on the trip, in fact Florida was experiencing one of its worst droughts in many years.
- February 7 Clearwater - Residence Inn
Crossroads typically makes accommodations for you the day before your tour starts, close to your tour end point. This allowed us to leave our car parked at the hotel until our return.
- Day 1 - February 8, Shuttle to New Smyrna Beach, Ride to Debary 45 miles
The shuttle picked us at 8 am sharp at our Clearwater hotel. There was one other couple joining us on the tour. And we passed the time on the shuttle ride sharing our various past bike touring experiences.
The shuttle dropped us off right at the beach in New Smyrna. The start was very windy and chilly, so we quickly put on our jackets and pants before starting. The route took us through the side streets of New Smyrna, which was very busy with tourists. The traffic here was not an issue. We were shortly on the cross Florida trail system and riding thru pleasant shaded forests. The route today was almost completely on trails with a few miles of roads at beginning and end. We saw lots of different birds and a fox on the trails.
Mark and Sherri at the beach and ready to ride
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- Day 2 - Debary to Clermont, 50 miles
Today's ride was around the Orlando metro area. Once again there were biking trails most of the way, but the route took us thru the metro area. The trail had many (we lost count at about 40) street crossing, the majority of which were 6 lane busy roads. And since we were on the tandem all the starting and stopping was very tiring. The last 5 miles presented the only real climbing we had all the trip and was actually a pleasant change from all the earlier street crossings. Not our favorite day.
- Day 3 - Clermont to Brooksville, 58 miles
Today was a pleasant change from the prior day, with lots of riding thorough remote areas and beautiful backcountry. It was quite warm today and very dry. At one point we asked a kind person for some water at a road side park because we had just run out. He immediate produced several bottle of water and we were very grateful!
- Day 4 - Brooksville to Trinity, 60 miles
The route took us through beautiful remote forest over the first third of the day and for the last 20 percent, with a long stretch of trail paralleling the freeway in the middle. At just about halfway, at Spring Hill, we got to see the Wind Chime Memorial Tree, where people place wind chimes on the tree limbs in remembrance of lost loved ones. Today was completely on paved trails. These trails are really wide compared to any other bike trails we have been on in the US.
The Wind Chime Tree
- Day 5 - Trinity to Clearwater, 28 miles
Most of the route today was on bike trails once again. The first third of the day we rode through pleasant and quite parks. As the trail turned south, heading to Clearwater, we paralleled the popular beaches and the trail become very busy with other riders, walkers, and runners. We stopped at a coffee shop by the trail in Dunedin to relax and watch all the bikers ride by.
We reached the Clearwater Residence Inn in time to clean up, head to the beach, and enjoy the sunset.
