Bicycle Adventures - 2022

We have expanded our ability to ride our bicycles in far away places. Last year we bought two bicycles in Florida ( one e-bike and one regular bike ) and rode over 300 miles around our neighborhood in the first few months.

This was good exercise and we explored every nook and cranny. We tried to ride farther by riding over the bridges to Sewall’s Point and Hutchinson Island. Unfortunately the only bike locally available during the pandemic had only seven speeds. Priscilla could easily summit the bridges with her e-bike. Me, not so much. About 2/3 of the way to the top I was walking the bike. I would call out to Priscilla “keep going, I will meet you on the other side.” I am sure given enough time I could build up the stamina to summit the bridges. Instead we decided to buy a bike rack so we could drive our bicycles to exotic places. Simple enough, buy a bike rack and strap it on the back of out Audi Q5. Oops, e-bikes are much heavier than regular bikes so we needed a heavy-duty bike rack. Then the devils in the details. We need a 2” trailer hitch receiver to fit the heavy-duty bike rack. We bought the bike rack from Boogie bikes because that assured us it would fit our bike. Then I called Audi and asked them to schedule the installation of the 2” receiver. The Audi scheduler said he would send me a quote for approval before he scheduled the installation. He has done this before. The installation quote was $3,500. Oh my, that is quite high. Fortunately we have an Audi technician in the family. My son-in-law Oscar advised if I bought the parts for $900 he would install it. Deal! We only had to drive to from Chicago to Boston for the install. Road trip and another opportunity to visit our grandson Jackson. Oscar did a great on the installation. He had to reprogram the computer to compensate for the added weight on the back of the car. For our drive from Chicago to Florida we installed it in the trailer hitch to make room in the back of the car for our stuff. The downside is the bike rack blocks the view of the back up cameras and the warning buzzers go crazy whenever the car is in reverse. Our solution was to try to find parking spots we can pull through.

With our new found freedom we can visit the state and county parks that have bike paths. Our first stop was the Halpatiokee Regional Park in Stuart. We selected this location because it is close. It is only a 20 minute drive.

The regional park has 7.8 miles of bike trails. Some of the trails are for mountain bikes and e-bikes are prohibited for some reason.

The walking trails and bike trails are combined and quite wide.

We saw numerous gopher tortoises along the way. We were in the park on a Friday and we saw only one other biker, two people walking a dog and one hiker.

Priscilla and her e-bike near the pond.

John posing with his step through bike.