I wanted to prep for an upcoming trip with a few folks from the cycling club here. The destination is Clermont, Florida which is known to be hilly. I thought it best to ride the routes ahead of time to make sure I knew the roads. Since it has been almost two years since I have been there I needed to familiarize myself again with the area as well.
Jim and I arrived in the Clermont area at 9:15 AM at the Green Mountain Scenic Overlook which was the ride start location for both of the rides. There were many triathletes cycling on the nearby roads. We passed many of them. There is some serious training in this area since the Great Floridian Full Ironman is held here each year. Even the local hospital helps out.
The destination of this ride was to the Yalaha Bakery. . Turning out of the park we encountered our first hill....the Wall. It was within the first mile of the ride. It was a tough climb since we really did not have a warmup but that was the direction we need to go. We continued on and were about 3 miles in to the ride when we were directed to turn right which ended up being a dirt road. Not a great start but we able to figure out a go around and were quickly back on course.
I have navigation help thru Ride with GPS which gives me turn by turn directions. If you don't want to spend a lot of money on a Garmin that has route capabilities check out Ride with GPS. (it's an upgrade but worth it!) It a great way to cycle in new areas and find routes that have turn by turn navigation help. It even prints maps and cue sheets.
We arrived at Yalaha Bakery via very scenic route and even saw a seaplane land in the lake. Awesome thing to see!
The first photo is the front of the building. The next two are some of the treats that you can buy there. Check out the names!
There are many cyclists as well as other visitors who frequent this bakery. There are tables with umbrellas to sit and enjoy your treats. There is even a deli where you can order sandwiches...German meats of course.
Next store is a distillery that sells blueberry moonshine if that's your fancy. It's not a good choice is you are cycling, though.
We headed back towards Green Mountain Overlook and then came the surprise. Hills, hills and more hills. The first half of the ride was not that bad after we climbed the Wall. Then we encountered South Buckhill which has four climbs. I had some shifting issues and the last of the four climbs I had to do three times! My legs were toast and then came Sugarloaf Mountain which a 14 % grade climb. I think my speed was about 4.5 mph going up that hill. I was just hoping to keep the bike upright! It was a tough way to head back to the overlook. Of course there was still more climbing but these climbs were less severe and were necessary to get back to the Overlook and finishing the ride! We ended up with 37 miles and lots of hill climbing.
We packed up the bikes and headed to the motel which turned out to be very close to the ride start. We cleaned up and off we went to explore Waterfront Park in downtown Clermont. The popular restaurant on the lake is Lily's on the Lake. The menu included lots of fried food and beer. On this day there was a reggae band playing. We were able to walk around, listen to music and even see a seaplane that you could hire for a ride. Did I mention that the weather was perfect with low humidity and lots of sunshine?
There is a also a special bike shop, Epic Cycle, across from Lily's that has a cafe named The Energy Cafe. Here is one of the coffee machines used to make coffee.
This machine presses the coffee via computer. The staff has formal training and certifications in roasting coffee beans and making coffee!
The cost of each coffee machine is $10,000 and they have four machines. It was really something to see. Of course the price of a cup of coffee reflected having the pay for those machines!
Here we are enjoying our coffee. Jim's was served in a huge brandy, snifter type, glass.
Then there was the bike shop that has clothing for sale, a spa and massage area, a cycle spin room ( your own bike on indoor trainers) and of course all types of bikes for sale including Pinarello's, Argon 18, and other high end bikes. I was able to get some photos of some of the other unique bikes for sale in the shop.
We headed back to the motel and had dinner at the local pizza shop, Lil' Anthony's which was recommended by the hotel staff. We were disappointed in the wait and the pizza and will look for another restaurant when we head back in May.
On Sunday we headed back to the Overlook at 8:30 AM and headed out in the opposite direction from the day before. The ride profile was less hilly and our legs were glad for that.
Our first stop was 10 miles into the ride in Monteverde and the Coffee Shop of Horrors. I had been in this shop before but it was in a different location which was smaller and had more of a scary effect than this shop. The coffee was ok and expensive so we will pass by this shop on our next visit.
We did get lost a bit ( something happened to the navigation....nothing is foolproof!) but we did manage to make it to Waterfront Park and that our rest stop. To our surprise the navigation said we finished the course but we didn't. We ended up looking at Google maps and asking a few other cyclists for directions back to the Overlook. We ended up with 26 miles and were glad to be finished.
It turned out to be a nice ride even though a bit shorter since we cut off the last part of the ride due to time constraints. We needed to start heading back to the hotel to clean up and head home.
We had a great time, great cycling on less traffic country roads. We are looking forward to going back in about four weeks with the group.
