Mastering the Miami Maze

Tony's View

Today was a very interesting day. We rode 57 miles, averaging 13.8mph, ride time 4 hours and 6 minutes, with stopped time of 3 hours and 31 minutes. We had so much stopped time because of the many traffic lights, no real rest time. It was a lot of stopping and starting which got tiring. We started out leaving Fort Lauderdale weaving through their roads trying to avoid major roads. After that, we ended up in Hollywood Beach and rode on the boardwalk for over two miles, weaving in and out of people, but it is one of the coolest boardwalks we have ever seen. One of the places was called "Nicks" so we had to stop and get a picture. We then headed into Miami and the traffic was very busy. There were very few bike lanes, so in the heavy traffic we had to own the lane. Owning means driving in the middle of the outside lane so traffic can't pass. When going through the Miami Beach area there were high rises on both sides. It was cool to see, but very intense. After this we spent 2 miles plus on interstate 295 with cars passing us over 70mph. This made Joan very nervous with them zipping by. We were now in some shady Miami areas so we just kept moving. We eventually, after working our way through the street maze, ended up on a bike path for the last 25 miles. This bike path followed under their Metrorail train which is elevated on a bridge. We have a picture of this we will share it along with a few other pictures when wifi is better, notice the wifi is better at next place.

After following and weaving through this bike path we came across our lunch destination, called "Cara Jo."  It was an excellent place just opening as you can see in the picture.

(Note the "Nick & Cara" theme in today's blog) After a while the Metrorail turned into a dedicated roadway for the bus route, and the bike path followed it on the side. We finally got to our destination in Cutler Bay at the LaQuinta Inn. Dinner was good tonight at a Peruvian restaurant.  

We will get back on the bike path for a few more miles tomorrow. It is called the Miami Dade bike path.

Joan's Side Note

Definitely a wild ride today. As far as those darn bridges go, we went over our first all concrete draw bridge and it had a dedicated bike path! Nice!

Tony did an amazing job navigating through the hectic streets of Miami Beach and Miami especially considering his Garmin with the preplanned route sort of went haywire. I'm especially grateful for the drivers that stopped to let us cross at certain points of the trip today. It was a more mentally taxing than physically tiring day just because we had to constantly be aware of the traffic moving in all different directions around us. I'm thankful to be at today's destination!