Day 15 – Someone’s in There!
Tuesday, November 4th
Flagler Beach, FL to Ponce Inlet, FL
About a week into our trip, I received an email from a guy who had heard about our trip and the blog. He said that if our route brought us to East Central Florida we should look him up because he’d like to see our bikes. He also sent pictures of his ride, a velomobile. I didn’t think we’d be passing near him, but our plans changed and when we found ourselves in Flagler Beach, about 20 miles from Daytona Beach where he lives, I emailed him and said we’d love to meet up with him. The plan was for us to call him when we left Flagler, heading to Daytona and we’d meet somewhere on the north side of the city and ride into Daytona.
Since today’s ride was only going to be under a third of what we’ve been doing on a daily basis, we decided to sleep in a bit. We woke up about an hour later than usual, but muscles aching and motivation tapped, we laid around watching TV for two hours before I bothered to get up to make coffee. The room coffee was pretty weak, but Dad had gone outside to check the wind conditions and ran into Chris. Dad popped his head back into the room to tell me Chris had made good coffee in the lobby, so I got moderately presentable and went for a tasty cup of coffee from the lobby. He also had a bowl of Oatmeal Creme Pies and brownies laying out! My kind of breakfast!
While standing around in the breezeway of the motel, watching the surf, sipping coffee and chatting, Chris, Dad and I suddenly saw a big, bright, yellow bullet zoom by, flying INTO the headwind! Dad and I looked at each other. “That’s him!” “That’s the guy! That’s Fred!” I ran back to the room and signed into my email account to look up the number for his cell phone. He had mentioned that he wore a hands-free bluetooth headset during his rides so he could still receive client calls, so I dialed up the number and said, “Hey, we just saw you fly by!” I told him to turn around and come to the Beach Front Motel, and we watched him hang a U-turn and scoot back our way. He rolled into the parking lot and amazed us all.
We stood around for a couple of hours, examining his bike and showing him ours, swapping thoughts and stories. The bright yellow velomobile also attracted a few of the motel guests and employees to the parking lot. The most common comment we get for our bikes is, “Interesting bikes…” but since he’s completely enclosed, what he always hears while he’s riding around is, “There’s a person in there!”
Fred waited around while we packed our belongings. When We were finally ready to go, I was sad to leave the Beach Front, and even more regretful that our return route wouldn’t bring us back. It was such a comfortable stay, with such an entertaining, friendly staff and right next to the ocean!. We thanked Chris for the room and the recommendations and took off down the coast. Hopefully some day we’ll get to come back.
Wrapped up in the hubbub of the day’s ride and the excitement of having a someone new to ride with, I forgot to reset my bike computer until about 8 miles into the ride, so I don’t have valid stats for today. But aside from that, the ride was fantastic. The air was chilly and there was a tailwind most of the way. We took the A1A South, then cut across to John Anderson – a road that parallels the coast, but runs along the Intercostal Waterway. Dad and I are used to drawing a bit of attention, but what we attract is noting compared to Fred in his velomobile, and the three of us together was too much for most people to handle. Fred has a bicycle bell he rings every time he passes a cyclists or pedestrian, and while the noise was so cheerful that it made me grin each time he rang it, most of the pedestrians just stared, brows furrowed and mouths agape, not knowing what to think.
We enjoyed riding through the quiet neighborhood on John Anderson Rd., but needed to get back to A1A to catch the last available grocery store, Publix, before our day’s destination. We turned onto a two-lane cross street and signaled to pull over on the side of the road to discuss our route options.
Some background: A couple of days ago, Dad noticed that the mount for my tail light was partially broken, and rather than lose the tail light and its clip (which is hard to replace without buying a new light), we broke the mount off completely and packed the light and its clip away.
Back to the side of the road, while talking about our different route choices, an older lady in a white, late-model Cadillac pulled up along side us – stopping in the middle of the road and blocking the only East-bound lane – rolled down her window and, to me, said in a stern, grandmotherly way, “Honey, you need to have a red light on the back of your bike.” I made a vague head nod and thankfully she moved along without pressing the issue. She obviously knows a bit about bike safety and not so much about car safety. Maybe she should be on a bike instead.
Returning to A1A, about a block from the grocery store we passed a construction site. Fred was in the lead with Dad and me a several yards behind. Zooming by some construction workers, Dad and I heard one exclaim, “Yeah! There’s somebody in there!” We both got quite a chuckle from hearing that phrase in action and had to tell Fred about it when we stopped in the grocery store parking lot. After sharing some final thoughts and tales, we thanked Fred for the local tour and the great ride, then watched him zip off to the stares of Publix patrons.
As a bicycle commuter, Fred keeps two cameras mounted on his bike – one forward-facing and one rear-facing – to document (and sometimes deter) certain events during his rides. People tend to act differently when they know they are on camera… Speaking of which, here’s a link to a YouTube video he posted of clips from our ride. You can finally see us in action (and me in magenta tights!)
At the Publix, we restocked on some essentials and grabbed bananas, yogurt, fried chicken and a fruit juice/smoothie for lunch. The benches in front of the store seemed a natural spot for lunch, so we picnicked just outside the Publix. Several shoppers came and went from the store, commenting or staring at our bikes as they passed and one older couple stopped to ask us about the bikes and from where we came. We answered, then the old man reached down, shakily squeezed the calf on Dad’s outstretched leg and said, “Yep, you’ve been riding cross country,” then straightened up as much as he could and as he was walking off said, “I used to have legs like that.”
After our lunch, while Dad packed up the groceries I called Bill, the Harley rider we met yesterday, to tell him we were in the area and to see if he’d still like to offer us a place to stay. He gave me directions to his house and we pedaled off to find it. Dad flew past the turn and I almost missed it, but Bill had come outside to greet us. When Dad came back around, Bill had us pull the bikes into the garage and invited us inside to meet his wife Deb. After introductions, knowing we wanted (and needed) a shower they gave us a tour of the house and set us up with beds and towels. We unloaded the bikes and took showers, then Bill and Deb asked what we’d like to do. Since we were just across the street from the ocean, I couldn’t wait to take a stroll on the beach. Bill walked over with Dad and me and though there was a cold, strong wind, the beach was still an amazing one – at low tide it was a long, wide, flat stretch of nearly pristine sand.
Getting chilly, we headed back to the house and Deb fixed us an AMAZING dinner. This was the best dinner we’ve had on this trip, easily: steak, shrimp, oven baked potatoes, and an awesome, uniquely tasty salad with asparagus, beets, peas, and an Asian sesame dressing. So good! Deb you are a fantastic cook!
After dinner, we sat down for dessert – moist carrot cake and ice cream – to celebrate Bill’s upcoming birthday and to watch the election counts roll in. We stayed up past our bedtime, but figured it was worth it because we were really impressed by McCain’s concession speech.