Northeast Florida Cycle Weekend - Amelia Island and the Jacksonville-Baldwin Rails-to-Trails Ride-

This was a cycle ride on the Rails-to-Trails conversion of a section of track between Baldwin and Jacksonville, all within Duval County. The trail runs East-West and parallels U.S. 90, although far enough away, you do not know there are any roads nearby. The trip was the second half of a weekend of cycling that on Saturday included Amelia Island. See the Amelia Island and Ft. Clinch report. This morning's ride, there will be just the 4 of the 5 of us that camped: Carol, Joan L. Buck and Clark.

Sunday morning, we woke to moderate temperatures camping at Little Talbot Island State Park. It was 42 miles to the little town of Baldwin on the west rural parts of greater Jacksonville. We arived easily enough since there was very little Sunday morning traffic. The Jacksonville-Baldwin trailhead parking lot, just less than a mile west of the town of Baldwin, was large and represented the western terminus of the trail. The Trail is 14 miles long, but we were only going to do as much as we felt like. We were surprised by the cool temperatures at 72 degrees and probably a bit less muggy than the salt air back on Little Talbot.

We entered into a continuous tunnel of a canopied paved trail. With the low temps and the shade, the cycling was near ideal; certainly a nice break from yesterday's mid-afternoon meltdown. We all stuck together and held a moderate pace. With hardly any trail traffic and very few road crossings, we cruised along pretty good. Within the first mile a deer had stepped out onto the trail and with a look of "ooops, maybe I had better get back", the deer darted back into the thick woods. Buck saw a small turtle as we whized by. The trail is exceptionally flat and has few curves. The wooded environment alternated between lowland hardwoods and pine forests. Sometimes you felt like you were in Georgia.

At 10 miles into the ride, we stopped for our break with the intention of turning around. It was good conversation the 4 of us and there certainly was not any peleton type riding, casual as we like it. Scenic as it should be. I would say that this is a good trail to have under one's belt if you are trying out the various and multitude of Florida bike trails.

Hosted by: Clark Getz