My trusty saying is that there's no such thing as an easy 1200k and that extends to a 1600k as well.
It's flat, yeah but ... it's windy. Unusual for me, I rode in a small group. Starting larger, it dwindled to five and then four of us - Greg Smith from WI, Sean from Manchester (well really from Ireland), and Bill don't remember his last name, from CA. Riding in a group meant that I had shelter much of the time. Greg is really good in the wind and definitely too more than his share of pulls.
There was a little bit of climbing on the first day, gently rolling terrain over that 430 kms adding up to 1350 meters, according to ridewithgps. There were no notable climbs and the route got flatter as the day wore on into night. The second day, 360kms, had a little over 1000 meters, all packed into the last 50 kms as we approached Tavares. 338kms/844m, 280kms/59m and 207kms/177m were the climbing figures for the next three days. The only thing that I can figure for that last day is the bridge approaches. There are no hills in the keys.
The first two days came to almost 800kms. I was convinced that I might stop before the planned overnights in Perry and Tavares and take my time. However, rolling with a group, I ended up finishing in the organizer-planned 5 days even though the time limit would produce 5.5 days. In fact, I did better than that, finishing in 104:25 (if my calculation is correct) against the time limit of 133.
We started that first day at 4am and finished around 12:30, as I recall. We left at 6am on day 2 and roughly 6am on days 3 & 4. On Day 5, since the temperature was building, Greg and Sean opted to start much later - at 4pm - and ride overnight, giving them an extra long stop in Florida City. Bill left around 7am. I woke up, having already had more sleep than usual, and left at 5am by myself, finishing up at 1:25 pm in Key West.
Characterizing the route, the first 1/3 was very quiet, empty roads, flat, flat, flat, riding through pine forests. At night we could see receding tail-lights for several minutes. That was actually tough as I don't turn my mind off easily. I finished that day off with Vinny but on subsequent days, as the temperature increased, he rode more at night. The last 1/3 was very busy, arterial traffic in South Florida and through the Keys. Good shoulders for the most part but we hit non-continuous bike paths that necessitated crossing several lanes of traffic (six) and a median, to continue on the other side. That was almost as tough riding as the first 1/3 but definitely not boring !
The organizer took advantage of bike paths wherever possible and they also provided shelter from the wind. As we headed further south and onto the Keys, the wind was more in our favor, in fact a tail-wind through the Keys - much of the time I was rolling at 30kph or better, when not held up by traffic. That said, it was hot, temperature in the high 30's C, so I stopped at least eight times in that section to cool down.
Once through the first day in a reasonable time-frame and then through the second, I realized that I'd be able to stick with the planned 5 day schedule and not spill into the 6th day. The riding distance was shorter each day, which was nice.
There were a couple of long stretches without services but they weren't a problem. We knew about them and in fact, it turned out that some actually had services. The report of no services came from the pre-ride, where those areas were closed due to power outages from the recent hurricane.
Yes, the hurricane. We traversed 50-75 miles of devastation. Talking to others, they felt just as guilty, riding our bicycles merrily through areas where people were still piling their entire lives out at the roadside. People who had very little to start with, had nothing now. This is a very poor area of Florida anyway and most of these dwellings wouldn't have been insured. Now they have nothing. Charitable groups were offering free meals. Ugh. It's one thing to drive through, in a car, in a cocoon, but riding a bicycle you make eye contact. Ugh.
It's not a ride that I'd originally planned on doing. I wasn't keen on the format and had hoped to have my riding year, at least for big events, over by then - finishing up in Israel. However, this, my 11th Grande Randonnee for the year, satisfied the objective ... Greg and I were both wishing that there was a 1200 option, similar to what we do with 1200's, i.e. have a 1000k option.
So that's a wrap. It's been some year. From a terrain standpoint, I'd put Brazil and Italy at the top. From the standpoint of weather, Hokkaido (Japan) and Israel took the cake. That leaves a bunch of rides of varying difficulty - Spain, France, M&C & BRB in the US, PAP in Australia and Bulgaria ... and then TTT in Florida, in a class of its own, easy in some ways, tough in others. Part of that toughness was simply my mental state. I told someone that I was tired but was corrected - I was/am weary. I'm quite happy to be sitting still, doing a 100k populaire occasionally and thinking about a quieter 2019.
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