James A. Van Fleet State Trail Florida


For the family vacation we did a fairly typical thing of going to Orlando Florida area for a week. We were staying at the Summer Bay Resort fairly close to Disney World. Brought my TT Bike since my road bike was in the shop. Not really any place to ride much at the resort I came across some promotional material about Central Florida. It mentioned several cycling trails the longest being the Van Fleet trail of 30 miles. Turns out in was easy to find just 15 miles or so away.

The trail is very well marked just off of I-4 west of Orlando in Polk City. Easy to find a place to park, and took off on a Friday morning. This is by far the longest ride I have done without a single bend in the road. It could have been laid out with a laser beam. It is also perfectly flat and only a few county roads to cross here and there. I rode 20 miles before getting a bit hot and decided to turn around and head back. Each mile is mark so not having a cycle computer was no problem. Since I had so little opportunity to ride, I was pushing the pace pretty hard. By the time I made it back (40 miles total) I did the ride in 1 hour 53 minutes. With little wind, no hills and no turns you can pretty much fly on this thing.

If you ever find yourself on vacation near Disney World and have a bike, this is the place to go.

Comments

Unknown said…
Little Bitty Town called Piedmont in AL has about 60 miles of similar rails to trails setup. Very flat, very fast, wonderful to ride, no traffic!!!! Very little chance to get whacked by a car on these!!!
July 24, 2009 at 6:37 AM
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