Oh the Places We Rode

As Kristin and Steve wrap up the second week of traveling by van, they are taking a look back at all the places they rode including popular mtb destination, Santos Trails in Ocala, Florida. They share highlights from the trip, lessons learned, as well as the tools Steve packed "just in case."

Transcript

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Kristin 0:04

This is Kristen.

Steve 0:05

And I'm Steve. And you are listening to Cycling Together, a podcast about all things bikes, riding, and riding together. And we are coming to you in the flesh from In the Flesh. Hello. Santee National Wildlife Refuge. So if you're listening to on the podcast and you can't see us on YouTube, we are sitting out in the meadow parking lot here in the glorious sun.

Kristin 0:33

I'm soaking up as much vitamin D as I can before we go back home.

Steve 0:36

And it is, yeah, it's beautiful out here, and we are headed north. So we are headed towards the feet of snow. I think it's snowing again in Massachusetts today.

Kristin 0:48

Okay, well, let's not let's let's live in the moment. Let's live in the moment. We are uh just embarking on the third week of our three-week van trip. But let's be real, this third week is us again heading up north and we're stopping at places for family. So the majority of our bike fun is done. What we wanted to do today is talk about the places we've gone and just kind of run them down. And I think this is gonna be a well, I don't know if a quick show, but this is gonna be a quicker show. We're not gonna do all the other voicemails or anything like that. This is our sole focus right now. Yeah, because we got places you go.

Steve 1:30

Talk about what it's like driving around and riding with the van and where we rode and why we rode and these certain places, yeah.

Kristin 1:38

All right, so let's um consult our notes here. Dive right in. Well, it's amazing how memory starts to fade already.

Steve 1:47

I asked you where we rode yesterday. Seriously, and I can until you said it, and then every of course the whole day came bit of it that came into mind. Well, is this maybe a little bit of a problem when you ride too much, too many places?

Kristin 2:02

We we we're gonna we're gonna talk about that. Um, because we did jump around. This was a very active and I had to slow you down. Like if you had your way, we were gonna like stop at a place and be there till noon and then go to the next place. And I was like, you the first week I was working, so I couldn't be driving. Like I needed to be in one place from you know 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. But so we we definitely skipped down and we wanted to escape the cold and and we moved very quickly.

Steve 2:35

We did. The first hour was a what a 13-hour drive day, so we we got out of the cold rather quickly, but we didn't really linger any place.

Kristin 2:43

The longest we were at a place was like two days.

Steve 2:45

Yep.

Kristin 2:46

There is something to talk about during this show about the value of staying put. But that's not what we did, so let's start with what we did. All right. So the first place we got to pull the bikes out was where?

Steve 3:02

Uh Blythe Island County Park. I think this is this was outside. Oh, it was it was right off of Interstate 95, and we were headed towards Jekyll Island. So yes. This was sort of a let's get out of the we've been driving so much over the past couple days, let's get out of the van. We couldn't check in yet. So we were sort of a morning, um, let's get out on the mountain bikes, get our legs rolling before we can check in at the campground.

Kristin 3:33

Okay.

Steve 3:33

Yep. So that was actually an on-the-fly decision, was not planned.

Kristin 3:37

And I like those. I I like those A for the kind of surprise of them. I feel like there's a lot more of these little mountain bike parks just as we move south. I don't think we have as many. Yeah, this was a like formal mountain bike where it's like this is four mountain bikes.

Steve 3:54

Well, this was a county park, and they had a boat launch and they had picnic areas, and then they had a actually designated mountain bike trail.

Kristin 4:01

Right.

Steve 4:02

Um, which we had a great time on.

Kristin 4:03

Yeah, yeah. So we did about six miles there. Then that brought us to Jekyll Island.

Steve 4:08

We should say we brought um two mountain bikes and two gravel bikes. Two gravel bikes.

Kristin 4:12

Okay. So that brought us to Jekyll Island. Um, and in this case, we used the gravel bikes um to go on the beach.

Steve 4:25

Yeah, right. So we did a big loop on Jekyll Island, which included a section of the beach.

Kristin 4:29

Jekyll Island had those, um, they called them the petrified beach. No, no, the driftwood, driftwood beach. Driftwood beach, where they had all these amazingly cool trees that had been basically died in place.

Steve 4:43

Yeah. So it wasn't driftwood. It was more that these trees looked like driftwood because they were completely devoid of leaves and bark. They were um, they were just gray, but they were essentially still upright in place or knocked over, whatever. Really, really cool place. I highly recommend to go there.

Kristin 5:02

Yeah. And this was one of the first places that we went on, as you said, there was a stretch. We went on the beach, and we were near the water, and it was just perfectly packed. And I don't think we've done a lot of that at home, like where you just have miles and miles of flat packed beach sand that you could go. Did learn the lesson that one should start uh into the wind so that when you're riding back, it is behind you. Because at first you're like, Wow, this is so great and so fast, and then we turned around and we're like, Oh, that's that's why. Um, that was a work day for me. So that you also took a little ride to do coffee.

Steve 5:50

I did, yeah.

Kristin 5:51

Um, which so we did what 14 miles on the gravel bikes, and then you did an additional seven and a half.

Steve 5:59

Yeah, basically to go get coffee.

Kristin 6:01

Yeah, yeah, yep. Um and Jekyll was very cool.

Steve 6:04

It was which by the way, your coffee was cold by the time I got back. Because apparently, you know, a little over three miles, uh, three and a half miles. Um cruising back as fast as I could, cooled the coffee down.

Kristin 6:19

Cooled the coffee down, and then I decided, oh, I'll put it into our into our electric teapot. So we lost some of it to your bicycle. It was on your bike. Not much, just a bicycle. A little bit. It was cold. Then we put it into our electric teapot where it boiled over. Where it boiled over instantly. Yeah, yeah. So that was kind of a well, it was the thought that came out. Yeah. That one. Okay. And so how long we were on on Jekyll Island?

Steve 6:45

Oh, and and we were out there for well, we had two nights there. Okay. Right?

Kristin 6:49

So And that was like our longest stay.

Steve 6:52

Two nights was the longest van stay anywhere.

Kristin 6:56

Right. Yes. Okay.

Steve 6:58

Which was which is unlike last year where we did did we did three four night stays at each place.

Kristin 7:04

Really?

Steve 7:04

Yeah.

Kristin 7:05

It's all a memory. It's just all that foggy, foggy memory. All right. Where did we go from there?

Steve 7:13

We went to oh this was um this was a flip in the script uh here. So we we can talk about that one thing. On the way down, we plan on staying at Norman Park State Par uh I think it's Norman State Park, outside of um where is that? That's in North Carolina. Okay. Um, and that has a whole mountain bike network trail, but the weather was miserable that day. So we completely canceled that reservation, drove extra um time so that we could just skip that. Yep. Um, so then this this one we went to um Hannah Park. Now I I honestly can't remember where I had planned to go to. Oh, we were gonna go to St. Augustine.

Kristin 7:57

Yes.

Steve 7:57

So we were gonna go to a campground in St. Augustine and walk around downtown, but there was no riding involved there.

Kristin 8:04

Yeah. And I decided Well, it was a combination of we realized we don't like to do that.

Steve 8:10

Yeah, right.

Kristin 8:11

We don't really like to just walk around towns. In fact, um Strava just said to me, Here's an activity from one year ago when we were on a van trip, and and I titled it Walking Is Not My Favorite. Right. So and then also it was in the middle of the week, and you had us driving. Right. And again, I was like, we can't be driving while I'm working. So you discovered Hannap Park and Manhattan Beach, and you're like, what we can do is we can drive to the beach, park up there.

Steve 8:47

Yeah, and it was only maybe an hour and a half, I think, from Capital Island. So we got we left early, got there early, you started your day.

Kristin 8:54

Yep. So I worked in the van next to the beach. Yep. And then when we could, we moved the van into the campground. Campground, which was right next door, and our campsite was right the trail, the mountain bike trail was right behind us. And that was a very cool campground because it was really lush and it felt Everglades.

Steve 9:17

Yeah, you were like, where are we in Hawaii?

Kristin 9:19

Exactly.

Steve 9:20

I mean, it was that kind of tropical lushness. Yeah.

Kristin 9:23

Yep. So those trails, those trails epitomized to me what I kept saying. When somebody will be like, is it hard? You know, are the trails difficult in Florida? And I'm like, or down south. And what I'll say is what they lack in elevation, they make up for in turns. Very, very so especially the newer, the newer trails at Hannah Park were very tight.

Steve 9:49

Like little bit a little bit too twisty.

Kristin 9:51

There is twisty, and then there's doo, there's two twist where you're trying to maneuver your bike 90 degrees.

Steve 9:57

Well, you lose your you lose your speed, you lose all your flow. Um, I actually really enjoyed those though, and because they did have we're gonna call it elevation, and we're gonna call it elevation only in that they were flowy in a way up and down over the terrain. It was not pan flat. Uh it was definitely swoopy.

Kristin 10:17

Yes.

Steve 10:17

It was swoopy.

Kristin 10:18

It it yes, it didn't have as much flow as I would like. We did run into a guy who was from the area. I will also say every rider we have run into has been super friendly, super helpful. Like, oh, where are you from? Uh, where what are you looking to do? You should try the trails over there. You're like immediately talking to people, um, which is so weird. So not used to it. But he had just he had literally just moved from Colorado. Yeah, he was from the area, but he had moved back after living in Colorado. He had been a mountain bike coach and he was he was like, I'm so homesick. And I was like, dude, you moved yesterday. He's like, but it's such an adjustment because yeah, he's like, you just you never stop peddling here, is what he said. And and that's absolutely right. That's absolutely the case. Um, I will also say Hannah Park and we're gonna get to Santos Trails are good arguments for me for staying in a place more than one or two days because from a mountain bike perspective, I'm not that it takes me a while to get comfortable and I'd like you know to try trails over and over and over again. So like you can get on a trail and just go and just have a blast to do a really good time. I'm always kind of like I'm a little tense, and I feel like oh, maybe if we had stayed at Hannah Park for five days, or we'd stayed at Santos Trails for five days, I might have gotten more comfortable. Um so that that was one thing I can think about.

Steve 12:01

Santos Trails, definitely.

Kristin 12:02

Yeah, I'm not saying I want to, we'll get into that that I want to go back to that one, but I'm just saying like I realized I I started to recognize that I maybe didn't have as much fun on the mountain bike rides because it takes me some I gotta warm up to them. I gotta warm up my brain, I gotta warm up my body, I like to practice. Anyway, so that was Hannah Park, and then the next day we got up, we moved the van back to the beach.

Steve 12:29

Yeah, you got one ride in Hannah Park. I got two.

Kristin 12:31

Oh, that's right. You went and did another ride, which was fine because I had to do I would try to I was I was fortunate I was able to jump out at lunchtime usually. Yeah, so we had a lunch.

Steve 12:41

So after we checked out the next day, we just went just back to the beach half mile down to the to the beach parking lot outside the campground.

Kristin 12:48

Yes.

Steve 12:49

And then we did a lunchtime ride down the beach. So we did 11 miles total on the totally on the beach. Yes. And out in the back. And this time we did headwind out, tailwind back.

Kristin 12:59

Yes.

Steve 13:00

Yeah, and that was again huge, wide, hard packed beach.

Kristin 13:06

They don't necessarily see people like us on the beach much. They're we did go out in full kit.

Steve 13:11

We went out in full kit, full gravel bike kit.

Kristin 13:13

Full kit, gravel bike. Two older guys were like, make sure you don't go too fast. I was like, I'm going into the wind, man. But it was so oh, and then when you turn around and that tailwinds. Oh you feel like you're flying. Yeah, you feel like, yeah.

Steve 13:30

That was that was an amazing, amazing ride.

Kristin 13:33

Yep. Okay. Then um, then we took a big break.

Steve 13:38

Then we took a big break. We had to see family. Yeah. So we had days with the family, lots of eating out. Yes.

Kristin 13:45

I will never complain about that.

Steve 13:46

Yeah. And then um, and then our cruise. And then we took a cruise. Yeah, then we took a four-day, four-night, five-day cruise. No bikes. No bikes.

Kristin 13:54

Barely any moving.

Steve 13:56

Yeah, I didn't even go to the gym. I was thinking I would go, I'll pop on the gym and hop on the bike.

Kristin 14:00

Did you actually think you were gonna pop it to the gym? I thought about the last time we went on a cruise, which was like we did a spin class. We did spin classes. We were like, because I was doing triathlon and we were like in peak shit. Yeah, no, it didn't even occur to me.

Steve 14:14

I was like, oh, this was peak lounging. And it was fantastic. We were power loafing.

Kristin 14:20

Yeah. If anything, we might move because like my butt got sore, so I just had to move to a different lounge chair. That was the extent of things. So um, but that got us ready for Santos. Santos Trans.

Steve 14:35

So Santos uh in Ocala, Cala uh Ocala, Florida.

Kristin 14:39

Yes.

Steve 14:40

Very we're gonna call it famous because it is.

Kristin 14:43

I would I'm gonna say this was the one you were probably looking forward to.

Steve 14:46

Yeah, I'd say between Santos and Alafaya, those are the two of the two most popular, well-known riding destinations in Florida, and it's definitely a destination for northerners to come down and just spend lots of time to be able to ride.

Kristin 15:00

Yeah.

Steve 15:01

So this is a it is a massive corridor of forest land through central Florida.

Kristin 15:08

80 plus miles of single-track diverse bike trails for beginners as well as expert-level trails that will challenge even the most elite riders. Um, yeah, there was a wide variety of this, wasn't one where you went on a difficult trail and you're like, this is diff, this is difficult. Yeah, no, no, no. They were accurately marked like the diamonds.

Steve 15:30

Yeah, it's still it was still floored difficult, but that being said, the most difficult trails um definitely there was rock features. There was elevation, there was rock features, there was technical skills involved. So, you know, yeah, I'm gonna give them credit for that.

Kristin 15:46

They had amazing, and I'll say amazing, even though I don't really take advantage of it, free ride section.

Steve 15:50

Yeah, and that was definitely labeled correctly.

Kristin 15:54

Oh, yeah. I mean, but they had a pump jump, they had massive jumps, they had wood ramps, they had I mean it was like uh the the the the numbered chapters around us just dream of being able to build as much as they were able to build. There's just so much.

Steve 16:11

We came across just that one little like wood feature skills area in the middle of almost nowhere on the trail, so to speak. And it basically was this little tiny flow section where you'd do you they had wood-built features, some you'd hit a couple tabletops, and then you'd swoop into a bank, and then you'd do a couple more tabletops, and then swoop around a bank, and it was that was really cool. And I so I would have loved to spend just some time there doing that over and over.

Kristin 16:36

So, this is where I really started to think about it because we f we had friends that were down there and came to meet with us, and they had actually been there a month, a month, and that's why I was like, wow, a month, not that I would have spent a month there anywhere, but I did like the idea, like, oh yeah, you could really try different sections, go back, kind of process them and some and some areas and some trails were so far that in many cases you would just drive to the new a different trailhead.

Steve 17:06

Yeah, you know, you'd you'd drive almost 15-20 miles so that you could ride another 15-20 miles further west. Yeah. It's such a big area.

Kristin 17:14

It was also what struck me about it about Santos Trails is it's clearly a very vibrant bicycle community. So you have the O'Cala Mountain Bike Association, they had signage everywhere about joining. But I mean, the minute we got there, I walked I walked into the parking lot looking for a bathroom, and someone immediately greeted me. He had just pulled up. He was a board member with the Ocala Mountain Bike Association, so he immediately was giving us directions. I ended up sitting next to a woman at the picnic table who had volunteered at last year's Fat Tire Festival, which I think is next week. Yeah, it's next week, which I have learned just means mountain bike festival.

Steve 17:57

Um, because we would we would consider that fat bikes in home.

Kristin 18:02

Yeah, if you said fire fat tire, I would consider that fat bikes, but they just mean I've been informed they just mean mountain bikes. But there was also there were road riders because there was a big Well, there's a a really wide paved path.

Steve 18:17

I don't know how long it is, but it's there were road riders.

Kristin 18:20

20, 30, 40 miles long. There were people on, you know, um e-bikes, there were people on hybrids. Yep. I do need to vent about one thing. There were signs everywhere. Everywhere. Oh, you're gonna vent about the couple telling people to put on a helmet. Yes, I'm gonna vent about the peach. Now, I will sell say later I saw a sign that said, like Massachusetts, if you're under the age of 16 or 17, you have to wear a helmet. Okay, so I think this couple was technically in the right, and yet I'm still gonna say completely wrong. So it was a couple um with their young child. Their young child was on a tiny little bike.

Steve 19:02

Yeah, maybe 18 months old.

Kristin 19:04

Yeah, with a helmet. Yes. He he was killing it.

Steve 19:07

One of those um strider bikes No, one of those seats that's that sits in the fr on the top tube in front of the rider, not behind the seat.

Kristin 19:15

Yeah, but he also had a bike that they were playing on the um before you saw them on that. They were all he also had a little bike that he was using.

Steve 19:23

Oh, so the kid wasn't eighteen months old.

Kristin 19:24

No, he was probably three or four. Oh, oh, why are they? Yeah, he was bigger. Thinking about the wrong kid. Um, so he was on a little strider bike and he was going over the the pump tracks. They also had him in a thing later when we saw him on the trail. The point is he's wearing a helmet and they are not. And all the signs around the the park, except for the one I saw, just said helmets required. They said it everywhere. I probably saw eight just in the there's one in the pump track, there's one at the entrance, there's one in the parking area. And here are these two ding dongs riding around without helmets. And I mean, two things bother me about this. Number one is do you think the rules don't apply to you? Like, do you think these signs are talking to somebody else? But also, when grown-ups, when parents do not wear helmets, what they're telling, but they put them on their children, what they're telling their children is helmets are something to grow out of.

Steve 20:24

Right. So this is what you're yes, yes, you're right. That is my biggest been your yes, a very big pet peeve of yours.

Kristin 20:30

What we're telling kids is helmets are only things that kids use, and that we grown-ups do need not need helmets. And I know there are people who can say, Well, I'm not doing anything risky on a on a bike. Um, but we know, we know that stupid accidents happen at slow speed. I feel like most of the slows, you know, stupid accidents can happen at slow speed, causing um mass trauma.

Steve 20:59

And and everybody should have a helmet. It it does not bother me the adults on hybrids going slowly down the pavereck path without a helmet. That doesn't bother me.

Kristin 21:09

No, it really doesn't. If you I I I think it's the kid grown-up combination. But the mountain bike trails.

Steve 21:15

Then this was these were they were in the mountain bike trails. They were on mountain bike trails.

Kristin 21:18

They weren't on just the paved paths, they weren't by the but it again, it's they were on the mountain bike. They were on the pump track.

Steve 21:23

Yeah, they were on the pump track.

Kristin 21:24

They were on the pump track without helmets. Yes. Girl. Sorry, not sorry. Anyway, that said, also the signage Santos Trails was amazing. A lot of signs encouraging volunteership, and they actually had like upcoming trail days, and the dates were already up there.

Steve 21:44

Yeah, so we did 11 miles the first day at Santos, and then the second day, you did 12. I went out and did another 15 on some of the the expert trails again. Yes.

Kristin 21:51

You weren't yeah, you got a headache, and then I got a headache, and I just what I've been thinking about a lot again is um I don't Say I have a favorite bike, but I may have decided that my gravel bike's my favorite bike. Because my mountain bike, which I really like, I like riding my mountain bike. I always have to think, I'm always a little tense, especially when it's new. On my gravel bike, new place, I don't care. I will get on that bike and I will ride anywhere. Today was glorious. And I know that's because there's just not as much skill involved, but yeah.

Steve 22:23

My my favorite bike ebbs and flows, just year to year.

Kristin 22:27

Yeah. I mean, I do often say the bike I'm riding is my favorite bike, but what's nice about the gravel bike is I'm almost always happy on it. And mountain bike. I can have my good days and I have my bad days. I rarely have a bad day on my gravel bike. That's true. You know, unless I have put it somewhere it should not be. Right. So yes, so you went, so we rode two days there. Mm-hmm. And then we moved on.

Steve 22:50

Oh, we did uh with a uh intermission of a clear kayak at Silver Springs Park. Yes. So we kayed around. That was fun. Yeah. And that's where we got to see alligators.

Kristin 23:04

We did see a lot of alligators and we saw ibises and we Oh, the birds were great.

Steve 23:08

The birds and the turtles were fantastic.

Kristin 23:13

Yep, and manatees. Okay.

Steve 23:16

And that was a pit stop under the way to Pain Prairie State Park. So we came into this state park, and this is known for being a wide, I mean, hence the name, a wide open prairie where there apparently there are bison. We didn't see any in this trip. And uh, but the campground itself was again another more lush um palmed type of campground. Um really nice, actually. If you know, if you're into the state park campgrounds, this is one I'd recommend.

Kristin 23:50

The animals?

Steve 23:51

Oh, and the showers were the best we've encountered.

Kristin 23:52

That's right. Well, it's not what makes for a good shower. I was thinking about like what makes good for a good shower. Lots of water pressure.

Steve 24:00

Okay, you got pressure, yes. You got temperature, you got the height of the of the sprayer head, then you have the quality of the spray coming out. Yes. And then you also have what just gener oh, you have your general uh cleanliness or lack of skeeviness of the shower stall itself.

Kristin 24:17

It doesn't have to be new, just needs to be clean.

Steve 24:20

And then you have your size of the whole stall itself. Like is there a changing area, is there a place to put your clothes to stay dry or your towel in your towels and hooks and your hooks?

Kristin 24:30

And that one checked all the books. Checked all the boxes. It was it was not new, but it was clean. Water was good.

Steve 24:36

Yeah, when I had gone in for my first shower, the whole place like smelled like Lysol because they had just mopped and cleaned it.

Kristin 24:43

I'll take it any day. Um, and when we arrived there, it was raining. So we didn't really see it when we first got in.

Steve 24:52

That was the first rain of the desperately needed. And they needed it so bad.

Kristin 24:57

But then the next morning we were like, oh, I don't know, it's kind of wet. I don't know. We want to ride our bikes.

Steve 25:04

Yeah, and then she slapped me across the face and we were like, Yes, okay. What are we doing? Get on the bikes.

Kristin 25:10

You've done Rasputiza.

unknown 25:11

Yeah.

Kristin 25:12

This is hardly the worst thing our bikes have seen.

Steve 25:15

Yeah, and we had a fantastic ride. And it was it was really nice out.

Kristin 25:18

It was really, it turned out to be really nice.

Steve 25:20

Yep.

Kristin 25:21

And what's nice, I will say, about gravel down here is um it's flat. It's just flat. Yeah, it's flat. Flat, flat, flat. I mean around us it's so much. Yeah, it was sandy enough and leafy enough or climb. Right. Yep, and it was sandy.

Steve 25:36

It was a little sandy, it which is tough to get the the Yeah, but the rain helped that because the sand was not not as loose and and yeah, yeah. So we we we were able to ride through the sand much easier then.

Kristin 25:48

Okay. So that was nine miles there, not ten, because we skipped a little loopy.

Steve 25:54

We just skip skip a loop.

Kristin 25:56

And then and then last night we arrived here. Yes. In and we'll call this Achievement Unlocked. Yes. Where we boondocked.

Steve 26:07

I've been getting her to trying to get her to do this for a while.

Kristin 26:10

Parking lot where it's not totally clear that it's okay for the streets.

Steve 26:15

There are zero no overnight parking signs.

Kristin 26:17

There is that. There's no no overnight parking signs.

Steve 26:20

And it's an and it's national wildlife refuge. So i this is sort of like BLM land and national forest land where you actually can just pull over and park.

Kristin 26:30

What is BLM?

Steve 26:31

A Bureau of Land Management. We don't really have that on the East Coast. There's very few places, but on the West Coast, you can basically just go out into any BLM land and and boondock.

Kristin 26:40

And I will say, so this is what is this?

Steve 26:42

It's uh Santee National Wildlife Refuge.

Kristin 26:47

Okay.

Steve 26:48

Um, so yes, so we woke up here this morning and it was all um Oh completely misty, chilly, it was about mid-50s, chilly, completely just fogged in. Yes.

Kristin 26:59

But we still rallied. Yep. And we went out for an amazing ride. I'm gonna say, if this is our last ride of the if this ends up being our last ride, worth it.

Steve 27:12

10 out of 10. Yep. So this was flat, and it was a mixture of um improved gravel roads and sort of back ranger access only, grassy roads, we're gonna call them.

Kristin 27:27

Which just opened.

Steve 27:30

Yes, today. Today was opening day. Yes. Yep. They're close, they're they're closed to to public access during the winter, and they open March 1st, so we got it on opening day.

Kristin 27:40

One thing I did start to think about, I mean it was beautiful, right? There was so I think we saw a thousand ducks. Oh, like more thousands. Thousands. We saw just a fleet of ducks planning their takeover. But I started to think about our Audubon Society. There's a not our about the Audubon Society. There's a um location in the town where we near where we live that for member only access to see the birds and whatever. And I thought, I don't like the gatekeeping on that. Like I understand why they're gatekeeping for members only, but there's something really special about just coming to a space like this, no cost to entry that I think is so important, right? It's important for understanding uh the importance of our wetlands. Apparently, we are losing um, let me read it, two percent of the remaining wetlands in the United States every year, which is an astonishing twenty two hundred and ninety thousand acres to be able to do that.

Steve 28:47

Yeah, you know the crazy thing is is that you like in Massachusetts, we have such the DEP, I mean you have your you have your national uh federal regulations and then you have your state regulations. Yeah. And you're not you cannot destroy, you cannot re get rid of any wetlands in Massachusetts. You and you have to um make up for what you might do. So let's say a developer has a piece of land that he wants to put five houses on.

Kristin 29:17

Right.

Steve 29:17

But in order to build the road that goes into that and makes a little cul-de-sac, he has to cross over wetlands.

Kristin 29:22

Yes.

Steve 29:23

They have to now recreate by digging down and recreate those wetlands. And actually, I think it's up I think it was it was I think it was 125%. So it's it's more than one to one. Yeah. Um so so that in Massachusetts, it's basically impossible to lose wetlands. Yeah. But I have seen other places, like I've seen on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, like a person showing, oh, look at this sort of wet field out here, and then they'll show the progression over the last 10 years, and now there's like a Walmart on it. And I think there's states like Texas who don't just they don't care. Right. They don't they just don't care.

Kristin 30:02

So I remember when you um were an environment you were a geologist, right? That's what we you were doing environmental work and you joined. And I was on the conservation commission for 10 years. Yeah. You called me and you were like, We went to look at one property, but the property next door, they had knocked through the hay bales, which was to protect the w wetland.

Steve 30:37

Well, they had to protect the wetland during the construction. Right.

Kristin 30:39

They had pushed wood chips in there and they had put a swing set on it. Yeah. And the head of the uh con or our conservation agent, like basically walked up to the to the house at nine o'clock in the morning on a Saturday and was like, you need to move that. Like that is not, and you were like, I did not sign up for that. I did not sign up for like rustling people out of their bed to move swing sets. But yeah, it's important. It's important we protect them. Um yeah, it's you're right. I guess I take that for granted. Um, all right, so here's some questions for you. Okay. This is our last day. Do you have a favorite ride of all the rides we did in the past in this trip? What was your favorite or your favorite day?

Steve 31:29

Oof. My favorite day was probably Hannah Park because I got to do a big mountain bike ride in the morning and then we did a beach ride at lunch.

Kristin 31:40

That's right. That was a good day.

Steve 31:42

That was a good day. Yeah.

Kristin 31:44

Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna put, I will say, my top two rides, maybe not days, but rides, or this one.

Steve 31:51

Mm-hmm. Yeah. This was fabulous. I would put this as a top ride. This was fabulous.

Kristin 31:55

Just the animals. Didn't get to see any alligators because I think we were up before all the animals. We were. The sun wasn't so high enough yet for them.

Steve 32:02

There were warning signs about large alligators.

Kristin 32:04

We were we were I know, I love this, not just alligators, large alligators. That's right. And by the way, I'm gonna be sharing on the STBG Van Antics like just the various signs for the wildlife we were supposed to look out for, which is like bears, alligators.

Steve 32:21

Oh, um uh Tim at Santos Trails said a guy ran into a panther.

Kristin 32:28

Fabulous. Okay, there's that. Do you want to run into those? So this one, and I'm gonna say my other favorite ride was the second of the beach rides, which was the longer beach ride that we went. And it was just a dedicated out and back 14 miles.

Steve 32:44

No, no, it was like 11.

Kristin 32:46

Anyway, that was my other favorite. Yep. So, which also speaks to I think the gravel bike being my kind of always a good ride. Always a good ride. It's always a good ride on my gravel bike. Um, okay. Where would you go back? So for your next trip, you're planning your next trip, and say we're coming down this route again, where would you go back to and what would you skip?

Steve 33:11

Ooh, interesting. Well, this i it gets a little complicated because there there are so many places to ride that in many regards um I just want to go to new places. Yeah, so that's your maybe I would go back to Santos because we barely touched the sc scratch the surface there. So I would say, yeah, well, no, actually we did a lot of the trails there. Did we? Um yeah, but I I think another to be honest, another three days of riding there, and I'd be like, Yeah, okay, I'm done with this place. Okay. Um so you know, and this like is as beautiful as this is, there's plenty of beautiful places like this. So I it's not like I would come back here necessarily, right? Um Hannah Park, if we for some reason are coming down in the area, I would stop there again. I would I would go to that campground again. I would ro I would easily want to ride that mountain bike again, and I would want to do that beach ride again. Yes. So if for some reason we found ourselves coming down the east coast of Florida up near Jacksonville, I would definitely stop there again.

Kristin 34:15

Yeah. Yep, I agree. Yep. I thought Hannah Park was great. I could definitely see spending a couple of days at Santos Trails just to get more comfortable there for me. Um I wouldn't stay in the campground we stayed on. There's a nicer, I think there's a nicer campground. The one we stayed in was fine. Right. It was just very small, and the big bathroom was at Hannah?

Steve 34:36

Uh Santos. Oh, Santos. Oh, right. Yes. Yeah.

Kristin 34:40

Um, okay. Here's more more of a kind of bike mechanic question. What tools did you bring? So you have a little workshop area back there in a garage. Um, what tools did you bring and did you forget anything?

Steve 34:56

Is there something you wish you had you didn't I did we didn't have any situations where I said, uh-oh, I don't have that spare or that tool, right? So I definitely come you you always want to be over-prepared.

Kristin 35:10

Okay.

Steve 35:12

And so let's think about some of the things. I mean, I have all your normal tools, right? And I guess in a in the bike world, a normal tool would be I have Allen keys or hex keys every which way possible. Yes. Right. I mean, I have the fold-out tools, I have the separate individual ones, I have mini ratchets, I have all I have all of those. Um, I guess some of the more unique tools, and then I have uh a bunch of general tools like adjustable wrenches. I don't have any sockets with me. Um, you know, and your course your screwdrivers and everything. I carry my little sort of small-ish park tool hammer, which is uh steel on one side and plastic mallet on the other. Um this is they make two sizes. One is a sort of hammer, traditional hammer size, and the other one is sort of smaller than that and lighter. Um that now you need a hammer to get bottom brackets and so forth out. That is not something I would normally expect to be ever be doing on a trip, but it's it's it could be possible, and then it's and then it's useful for hammering stakes into tents and so forth if we ever needed to set up a setup. Yeah, it's a multitasker. Okay. Um one sort of unique setup I have sort of built into the tools of the van. I do have the ability to bleed brakes. So I do carry a small bottle of brake fluid and a couple olives and barbs, um, and this sort of all-in-one tool.

Kristin 36:44

What is an olive and barb?

Steve 36:46

That's what goes on the end of a hydraulic hose that then gets crushed and expands to create the seal. So then I've got this little Shimano um tool, and some companies make it. It basically cuts the hose and it presses the barb into the hose. And so one thing that's oh well, so you know what? I have that for the mountain bikes. Now that I'm looking at our bikes, our gravel bikes back here. I have I purposely made it so the calipers on both of our bikes are the same. So we both our mountain bikes. So we we use the same brake fluid and we use the same brake pads. So I do have spare brake pads for both the mountain bikes and the gravel bikes. The gravel bikes also use the same brake pads and they use the same fluid, which is actually dot fluid. Um and I should carry some of that. But the thing is on the gravel bikes, you tend to have less of a potential problem on with your hydraulic systems, only because mountain bikes things can get snagged and ripped and so forth. Really rare and uncommon, but I'm prepared for it. I do carry an extra mountain bike tire in case we go somewhere and you slash a tire.

Kristin 38:02

Okay.

Steve 38:02

Um, just so that we're ready to go. That is actually more useful for bike parks and so forth. Um, but you don't, you know, we wasn't sure we were going there. I guess some of that that rock and that coral in Santos could be sharper. That was sharp. We could slice a tire there.

Kristin 38:18

Like it kind of Santos kind of reminded me of of home. Like there were a lot of roots and there were a lot of rocks, but their rocks definitely looked sharper than our rocks did. Yeah.

Steve 38:30

So yeah, and so I mean, that's that's the main you also have a pump.

Kristin 38:40

Why don't we carry a full-size pump?

Steve 38:42

Because, you know, a full-size pump is actually quite large, and yes, we have this large van, but you don't so I have this lesigned sort of travel pump, high volume one with a digital gauge on it. Okay, right, and it snaps into a mount on the rear door. It's nice and tidy. Usually you're topping off tires. You're you know, you're you're oh, I need two PSI, right? It's really not a big deal to to do that with this pump. Well, yeah. So I was replaying one of your tires, and then the core came out on and loosened on, so I had to go up from zero and that well and you'll take a lot more pumps, but it wasn't a big deal.

Kristin 39:19

You had a road rider come up.

Steve 39:21

Yes.

Kristin 39:21

Also, and he had a older bike, too. And so he had pretty skinny tires, and he needed to get up to like nine people. Yeah, yeah. He was old. You were struggling because you're like, this is not really designed to get up to the high one.

Steve 39:34

I have a high volume one, not a high pressure one.

Kristin 39:37

Yeah, exactly. So it was very yeah. It was pretty that was pretty funny.

Steve 39:43

Yeah.

Kristin 39:43

Yeah, I mean, I guess it it works. And you've said that.

Steve 39:46

But of course I carry multiple CO2s. Yep. Um now I could get we could get one of the mini inflator pumps, and we probably will get one of those for the van.

Kristin 39:55

And we don't bring a stand. Have you thought about it?

Steve 39:58

We don't, and I and I looked at we actually have we actually have one of the the feedback sports ultralight stands. Okay. And I have not found where I want to mount that yet.

Kristin 40:10

Okay.

Steve 40:11

So I just I didn't bring it.

Kristin 40:13

Did you miss it?

Steve 40:14

No. No. I mean it would maybe it would be nice for bike washing, but s leaning against a tree works just as well. Yeah. For bike washing.

Kristin 40:23

Cool. Is there any other tool that you wished you had or you've you're thinking about bringing for future?

Steve 40:32

Nope.

unknown 40:32

Nope.

Steve 40:33

Nope. I mean, there'll be there will be a series of van videos coming, and all of the tools will be shown.

Kristin 40:41

So I know we talk about you doing you're like, I want to make all this content, and you you haven't.

Steve 40:48

I have not.

Kristin 40:48

You haven't, but I've I but uh what I was saying is like your job during the first week when I'm working is literally to just take care of the van and take care of me and make sure we're where we need to be that you know everything's working, and then you're like I don't think there was a point where I looked and you I was like, I wonder what Steve's doing. Like you were always busy, you might have been riding.

Steve 41:10

Sometimes I might have been riding, but you're not gonna be able to do that.

Kristin 41:12

But you were it wasn't like you were just sitting around while I was working. Correct. Um, or you were making us lunch, or you were again planning the next stop. Because even though you had a pretty extensive um, like an amazing um day by day-by-day schedule, there were still always checking, make sure that place was still open, making sure the weather was the way, you know. So it's it actually was it's pretty it's a lot of work. This kind of when you move as much as you move, as we move too. We moved a lot. Like again, if we just went somewhere and stayed there for two weeks and then came home, yep.

Steve 41:48

That would be a lot less work. A lot less work. And then a lot more sort of that that extra downtime.

Kristin 41:53

Yeah, then you could do the videos and stuff like that. So no, I think the I think the van has done amazingly well this time. Everything has worked.

Steve 42:04

Um, the coffee maker gave up the ghost, but that's like that she needs a little love that she maker needs um descaling badly.

Kristin 42:13

But we had a fridge this time, so that was exciting.

Steve 42:16

Last just to just for a quick recap, last van trip at this time last year, we left in 19 degree weather, put all our food in there, turned the fridge on, left. Two days later, we're like, seems a little warm, but maybe that's just you know, and then the third day we're like, oh yeah, this is not working. And um, and it wasn't, it was broken.

Kristin 42:37

Yeah, I I think the only change we've decided we talked about for like upgrade for the van at this point is the passenger seat in the front. We can upgrade it so that it'll spin.

Steve 42:50

We had not added swivel seats to the front. We do not need it for the driver's seat, but the passenger seat definitely and the um swivel base is waiting for us when we get home. Yeah, I feel like I ordered it right on the spot because I found a great deal on one.

Kristin 43:02

Spent more time in the van realizing how that would be really helpful. But no, there was very little um I know canopy too for the outside, figuring out what to do with that, but I think the van did great. So this has been amazing.

Steve 43:19

It yeah, this has been a great trip. Yeah.

Kristin 43:22

Pretty good. All right. Well, let's wrap this up because we got we got a big one. We gotta go. We got we have a four-hour drive now today. Exactly. Cycling together with Kristen and Steve is a production of Steve the Bike Guy, an independent bicycle shop in eastern Massachusetts and Sundon Marketing.

Steve 43:37

If you like the show, please leave a review or share with a friend for show notes, links, or to leave a comment, question, or topic suggestion. Visit cycling together.bike.

Kristin 43:44

You can follow the shop on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok at Steve the Bike Guy.

Steve 43:51

Excellent. Alright, see you next time.

Kristin 43:53

Bye. Lizard!

Steve 43:55

See little lizards, yeah. Christian just got Lizards! By Christian seeing a lizard.

Kristin 44:04

Hey, I didn't get to see an alligator today, that's the plan. Anyway, so that was I've lost track. Okay.