34.2 mi / 11.2 mph / 121 ft. climbing
Home: American Inn

Yesterday’s late-in-the-day ferry led to a late night which led to a late morning which led to a late departure. Which we’d planned around, by choosing to do a shorter ride today and a longer one tomorrow. What we didn’t plan for was the tremendous breakfast that Stephen and Mary cooked up for us. Bacon and eggs, but also sausage, and even delightful crepe-like pancakes! “You guys aren’t vegan or anything, are you?” asked the former New York City police officer before he started cooking, and I think we were all glad that the answer was “no”.

Stephen is relatively new to bike touring (within the last decade), but he has taken to it like an alligator to water. All the bicycle-related paraphernalia on the walls (like a framed map of Adventure Cycling routes in our room!) suggested a much-longer attraction, and while Mary might not be thrilled with the bicycle-fork toilet paper dispenser in the guest bathroom, it’s inspiring to see how supportive she is of this “new” hobby that must have felt like quite a gear-change in this man she’s been married to for 46 years. Especially since welcoming strangers into her home at 10:30 at night is part of this change!

Stephen printed out a detailed route to take us comfortably to the big bridge over the Caloosahatchee River, but that ended up being unnecessary as he decided to ride out with us anyway. His route was slightly less-direct than the one I had worked out with the help of the cycling heat maps, but taking us up the John Yarbrough bike trail was surely more-relaxing than the busy arterials, and even on those busy arterials, he knew where to make the crossings and where to ride Florida-style on the sidewalks.

Stephen turned back at the main bridge, and we continued on after turning down a tempting offer to join him at a friend’s lunch spot. Oddly, the bridge itself had a giant shoulder, and the roads approaching on either end had narrow-but-useable bike lanes, but those bike lanes disappeared for several blocks just before and after the bridge. Some rare gaps in Florida’s generally-excellent bicycle facilities.

We stopped at our first Burger King in forever for a hopefully-quick lunch, and then at the Publix grocery store next to it. It’s Rett’s birthday, and she was understandably frustrated that not only would she not be having a party, she would barely have any relaxing-time upon arriving at our motel. I thought her 4pm prediction was a bit pessimistic, but the emotional load of headwinds tends to encourage pessimism.

US-41 is essentially the only road heading north from Fort Myers toward our Christmas destination of Bradenton, and while it has a narrow-but-sufficient shoulder for the 17 miles from (just after) the bridge to our motel, the bursts of high-speed traffic flying by our left elbows was pissing off Rett even more than the headwind. For me, they were a quintessential double-edged sword: every time they passed too close, Rett would grumble, but our speed would increase. Because we could flow behind them in the hole that they bashed through the wind. Worse (or better!), that hole would be the biggest and longest-lasting when the cars passed the fastest and closest to us! The old adage, “whoever doesn’t kill us, makes us faster” echoed in my head following each wooshing pass.

And every bit of that extra speed was necessary, because, just three-and-a-half miles from our motel, I felt my rear tire going soft. I tried wishing the leak to slow, so that we could limp the rest of the way without needing to stop, but it was no good. Rett was nice enough to forego any “I told you so”s about our 4pm arrival, and we just got to work on changing it. We got it done pretty efficiently (it was an easy-to-find hole caused by a tire wire), flipped the bike back upright, reattached the bags, and rejoined the traffic flow.

And three pedal strokes in, “FUCK!!!! We gotta stop, it’s flat again!” I told Rett she could just push on to the motel by herself from here, but we’re a team, so she stayed and suffered through yet another delay. A few days ago Rett’s tire got pierced by a piece of glass, and that’s the tube that I had just put on my rear wheel. I obviously had patched the hole, but apparently there was a second hole on the opposite wall, where somehow the glass had shot completely through the tube, creating both an entry and exit wound?!

Finally we made it the rest of the way to the motel, before sunset, but definitely after 4pm. Another guest sitting outside their room said “you made it!” as we walked our bikes by, as if he somehow knew all about our afternoon struggles! Maybe if you see people like us with our unusual mode of transportation, it’s reasonable to just assume that we’ve been through some shit?