Route Miles=~240 (mix of road, grass track, bad sand, good sand, ~40+ of awesome singletrack, ferry crossing, sweet jungley scenery & a few gator nesting areas!)
Bike: Salsa Ala Carte.
New Women’s Route Record!
My Total Route Time=25:56:10=First Place Women, 7th Overall (out of 33 starters)
Top Finishing Men’s Time=20:59:30=New Route Record Overall.
Full Results of Finishers: http://www.facebook.com/events/list/2012/November#!/pages/SingleTrack-Samurai-Productions/127304854530
The CFiTT is a self-supported & unmarked primarily off-road bike route crossing the state from New Smyrna Beach on the Atlantic Ocean to a bay-like section the Gulf of Mexico just past Ingles, FL and this is the third year in running. I have been to 2 similar bike routes in FL (both years of the Huracan 300) also created by mastermind The Singletrack Samurai, so decide on a trip down and check this one out as the group start date worked out well for me and I could use a nice break to FL from up here in PA where the weather has been a little chilly already this fall.
Here are links to description/info used for getting ready, signing up, reading the rules, etc: http://www.singletracksamurai.com/category/cross-florid-individual-time-trial/
http://www.singletracksamurai.com/events/c-f-i-t-t/2012-cfitt-attendee-list/
Ok, actually I see there is no 2012 description of the route there….lol. But, once you signed up that was all communicated well, as was the final gpx file and some basic cues, to us all as a group in email & a FB event page. What I like most about the FL routes set up by Karlos these past few years, is that since they are in a very grassroots phase, smaller groups of peeps, still evolving with lots of changes each run and he puts a ton of energy into scouting out some really unique terrain and back country FL. He finds good ratios of multi-purpose trails, bikeable territory that maybe someone thought wasn't allowed but actually is, hopping over some funny obstacles, and hitting some rather surprisingly hard going terrain spots. Usually there are harsh time cuts for those of us mid-pack and back, like public gates and ferry crossings that close. These are some cool parts of FL that I would never be getting to explore in such a fun way if it wasn‘t for this type of ‘race‘ set up.
So, looking for a cool bike adventure for this coming spring? Definitely worth considering the next run of the Huracan 300, slated to be the end of March 2013:-) A lot of returning folks have already signed up, along with a record amount of new peeps….the list will fill fast this year!
My CFiTT Checkpoint Pics/and some others of the trip here:
ttp://www.facebook.com/rc.cunningham.3?ref=tn_tnmn#!/media/set/?set=a.10151289770351208.530271.621536207&type=3
So, as I said I’ve been here before, on some of these same portions of the route that were used in the loop route of the Huracan 300. But the rest of it, actually crossing FL, is totally new to me & even to some locals, as Karlos has adjusted the route, added mileage and a ferry crossing that closes at dusk. So, between riding and packing practice, and research for stuff along the route, the biggest issue for me was how in the world I was going to get across ~60 miles of sand/dirt road through the reputable Ocala National Forest at night. As usual, there is always a spot I will hit at night in something that I should not be, or anyone should be, especially alone. Other bikepackers have really had issues in here and that scares me a lot, this is my hang up yet about these things that I need to get over!
Irregardless, I commit to the trip early on. Justin had some bike problems this year and had to put off a few trips he had planned so he now had vacation days and decides to take the road trip to FL with me, gets his Salsa Fargo ready, but is not planning on racing at all. He packs 2 big Ortleib panniers and OMG stuffs them with luxury camping gear! I didn’t even know how much he had until after we got home from the trip!! Since this is a point-point route, everyone was setting up shuttle arrangements but we decide to take a road route back of ~130 miles from the end back to our car on the east coast. That may be one reason he had quite SO much I am really not sure?
As for the route/race itself, jpok plans to not ride at night, to stop for a full night of sleep and then most likely would catch up to me by the time I would get to the finish line if I stay up much longer at night. That was the basic plan. But I kept thinking, man, that still leaves me entering the Ocala right at dusk most likely alone. I knew 60 miles in there would take me potentially until about midnight, esp. if it gets sandy….I keep thinking out of 35 starters I am sure I will be able to pair up with someone in the group by that time and have a partner in that section or someone at least nearby?? But as the trip got closer I was doubting this as a safe bet. I talked Justin into waiting for me at the ferry crossing, entering the forest with me and then see how it goes. If anyone else was there, he could just stop and camp and if not, I would decide to stop, go on alone, or he could ride as far as he might want to. Although I like to keep this in the rules of being an individual event and doing everything on my own, I really had to use safety first in this scenario. I have ridden routes with local FL girl Lynne before and I know she usually does have Paul with her so I felt ok telling K that jpok was going to be along as safety in a section only, and nothing more. K assured everyone that he was ok with ‘buddy riding’ as long as all support and drafting rules were followed. Cool. I had no idea of the other girls plans, and it turns out this time Lynne and Paul did not ride together! Paul zipped ahead and luckily Lynne had company initially in this section, but then finished it out on her own! Way to go Lynne! Now I feel like a huge wimp…..
Everything else in the planning went pretty well other than my last minute doubts on which bike to take, and decided the day before we packed up to use MTB. Up until then, I had been set on using a cross bike but really didn’t want to risk flats on it. I had never had cx size tubeless tires on it before and had trouble deciding to order and try something as small as a size 32 for the course, although my bike can take a bigger tire it wouldn‘t be tubeless. I asked around to a few people I thought might have used these on a MTB rim like Stans to see what luck they had, and thanks to Shey Lindner(Ctown Bikes) and Scott Root(Dirty Harry’s Bicycles) I got some good info. (and of course i just have to mention the few others i asked, and got, you know, the bike snob ignore. okey dokey last time i cheer those ones on in their races!) But I procrastinated too long that I didn’t even have time to order a narrower tire for MTB, let alone try out the cx ones, so the day we packed luckily we keep lots of tires and I had some old 26’ tubeless around that had less tread and were slighter narrower & lighter than my usual….not a big choice and a little more tire than I needed, but I actually was happy with what I used given the changing terrain along the route.
THE GIRLS
The start list had quite a few girls signed up, most of them local and this made me nervous! I only know one of the girls, Lynne, she knows her stuff, is tough, has pre-ridden sections, did the route before, and is the current women‘s record holder. The others I did not know, but I had a feeling all were going to be competitive and I was very right! There are fluctuations you can do within the ‘rules’, but I really try to stick to what I think is fair to everyone arriving for the ’group start’ for the same start times, etc.
Lee-Ann Zub was the first to plan a 3 hour earlier start so as not to miss the ferry cut off?? Not really sure. She was a DNS, think she got sick.
Kim Murrell caught wind of the plan and also decided on an early start for the same reason? She did start a bit early but DNF, I heard later just the cold weather got to her at one point and this was her first long race. Looking at her spot check-ins though on Trackleaders.com, her pace seemed to be very fast up to her end point which was only like ~30 miles from the end....
Me & Lynne stick with the original plan, the ferry cut off will be tight for us, but that was the challenge that was made and we were up to it and dealing with the penalty if we didn’t make it!
Lynne was cruising along when she ended up have Egg Beater issues pretty early on, which lasted miles & miles until she was able to get to a bike shop.
Kayla-I didn’t meet her, but she started with the group and fared pretty well, looking at her tracker afterwards it seems she was only an hour behind me late in the evening, but then must have stopped for the night?
It POURED the hours before the start and was burning off before we set off at 6AM. In the dark, in the rolling surf of the shark attack capital of the US, our first of several required check point photos was to be taken of our back wheel in the ocean. (the photos were required for a formal timed finish) Great, to get the shot, my feet got soaked. It was a little chilly out. Ugh. I also figured the roads may be a little wet for a bit, so I donned my emergency beautifully fitting DriDucks pants that I cut off at the knees. Lovely. I am sure people were like WTH, nice pants, don’t you know about Goretex or bike shorts? In fact, Dave did say something to me about my fashion statement, but hey my butt wasn’t getting any road spray….Turned out very shortly everything was dry and I could skibby down to my regular shorts!
Straight into some homeboy trails (awesome!), then we duck into some cute swampy scenery along some fast gravel/dirt roads. I love the scenery in FL, it’s such a change from most other places. ~mile 40 we get to checkpoint #2-a statue, there are lots of peeps here together yet. I am still hopeful of finding someone my pace before the ferry. We had started in 30 second increments, which was a good way to avoid a few tight sections but it also got confusing like who is where??
I knew I passed Lynne at some point, but no idea about Kayla as she started after me. All I could do is focus on getting to the ferry ASAP & have that much extra bit of light into the Ocala. I was back and forth a bit with several people, eventually Paul, xxxx and Karlos left me at an awful & tall barbed wire fence crossing. They all popped right over with their heavy bikes, asked quickly if I was ok…I was like ‘yeah’ but sad, and they were GONE. I knew this was going to be very hard and take a lot of time. Darn, I hate being so wimpy. I start working on it, very careful not to impale myself or a tire onto the top of the fence. Lots of work, once on the other side I check out my bike and take a breather!
After this was the only little route blip I had, I ended up somehow on the tracks a bit instead of getting up to a paved rail trail. At the same time, I ran into some other folks coming from a different direction…huh, we all were mixed up! We went back, I found where I needed to get the rail trail, and they said they never saw the barbed wire fence, I made sure to repeat a million times…..’YOU HAVE TO CROSS IT, IT IS THE COURSE’…there was no way I was going to have to cross that thing and boys didn’t!!!
Shortly after was the next checkpoint, a lake view point deep within some twisty trails, then a rush to our first legitimate singletrack, Chuck Lennon MTB Park. These trails are like a bowl of spaghetti, just like the locals said, rolling and fun, with quick roller coaster hills with rocks, roots, and little bridges that all come up on you quickly! Tight and twisty, but the gpx was dead on, at a few intersections I checked the written cues just to be sure, but had no issues zipping through this and to the TH kiosk for the next required photo shot. (I saw some peeps here a little confused, they popped out before the TH, not sure what ever happened to them.) Timecheck: K had said if you didn’t clear this park by 1PM, you probably would not make the ferry. IT WAS 1:00PM ON THE DOT. Why me?
Attempting to zoom down some more flat road, a grassy wilderness preserve, a really convenient store stop and we are full on to the ferry!…..or so one would think!! It seems so in reach now within 15-20 miles, BUT…halt….NOW we hit miles of sand roads that are a tad dry, deep and tough going at some points, and if not sandy then all wash boarded. These miles now take some extra time….and I get my only real wildlife other than beautiful birds…..a long gross snake. Ew.
Teeth chattering down the last wash boarded section to the river I am excited I actually made the ferry at all, and about an hour sooner than I thought I would! Jpok was there as we agreed, soon Steven M. and xxxx came up. I needed a pit stop and rest break so much that I was very foggy on how the ferry actually works. We walked on this metal deck, the guy is zooming around us in this tiny tug boat that didn’t have any seating or deck area. I whisper to jpok, how in the world does one person go on that boat, cling to it, and hold on to your bike?? Let alone 4 people?? He looks at me like….’are you for real?’ After he glares at me, and realizes I am totally spaced out….he calmy assures me I do not have to climb onto the little boat, that I am in fact already ON the ferry. He taps his foot on the metal deck. Ooohhhh….. I glance around, huh we are already like 30 feet from the shore. I see now, so I take my checkpoint photo, & plunk down to rest…right into a big puddle of water.
Just inside Ocala, we get to Silver City w/ a store & public/safe camp area right near by. Steve and xxx are planning on dinner and a camp site. I hear later that Dave, Cabe, and some others did the same thing here. I knew jpok really wanted to stop here too, it was perfect timing and place, and he really didn’t want to ride into the night and at my pace. But he agreed to trudge on with me so I could be ok in this place at night. At this point, there was no hope I would run into anyone else to ride with any stretch of time. Karlos was just ahead after the ferry I knew, but I would actually never see him.
We have a few late night 4-wheelers come by, some people churned up sand in our face & yelled but no one really bothered us. In the heart of the forest, at the Lake Eaton trail loop, I got the 3 lake view point photos after having to ride the loop twice to find them all in the dark….hey might as well get our vacations’ worth of miles!
Hours later, exiting Ocala & down to Marshall Swamp. A nice lighted restroom provides a break, water, and readjustments for more night time miles. Marshall Swamp is fun to ride but also, it was dry now, but when it’s full of water it’s so cute and feels so remote yet it’s only moments to full on civilization & then right into the Santos MTB TH. Checkpoint photo at the bike shop here.
Santos navigated well between the gpx and a few written cues I had jotted down of the trail names to look for. Right on through to the long, seemingly endless Ross Prairie singletrack. Swoopy and fun, twisty and fast! Jpok was lugging those panniers like a champ, sometimes as they smacked off trees all I could do was just laugh. AT him. He is just SO not into these bikepacking things it's really obvious when you see him out there.
We hit the road crossing into Halpata Preserve, and this is where I go bonkers on poor jpok who is being so nice to ride in the night with me. I turn into the preserve and really trying to keep going fast because I want to make up some time, but he proceeds down the road towards some obscure lights. We yell back & forth:
WTH you going? It’s THIS way.
I’m out of food & water.
Well there is nothing down that way that I know of.
There has to be something.
Don’t you have 2 pannier bags full of food yet?
Yeah, but I don’t want any of that stuff.
Well, I am trying to race here I can’t worry if YOU are hungry….let’s go! This is no time to be picky. (I am also down to emergency food, GU, so I suck one down as he rolls up and says that’s disgusting.)Well, at least I can make it to where I know there is food & water coming up : )-
I feel bad and decide to give him the ok to go off route if he wants to look and I will keep going from here, but after being yelled at for his first attempt he is too scared to try again. I felt bad, but told him there is something coming up soon. We got there ok before he starved or passed out on me.
So, in a town of Dunnellton we choke down some snacks, I have no idea what this ending is like by looking at the map. It runs along a lake then a straight shot to the Gulf…but even if rail trail I wondered if it may be swampy or overgrown or if this lake was off road or roads….no idea, and no idea of the time it could take. I grabbed an entire foot long sub just in case. We had about 35ish miles to go.
It ended up these last miles, though ‘easy’ pedaling through neighborhoods and then a newer rail trail, seemed endless. You know, like waiting for water to boil. To top it off, the sunny beach ending I had anticipated seemed nowhere in sight (typical for any trip I take). The sun came up during these miles, but the weather was like mid 40s (?) and windy as crap. We had anticipated hanging at the end for a bit, eating the sub & chips, resting & stretching, and maybe see anyone else at the end. But on the last few miles down, I see Karlos and then Paul on their way back, they had already finished just ahead of me. They both have their clothes all bundled up and look cold. Darn, no happy ending here like I wanted.
We finally get to the Gulf which is oddly big stones and little real beach, get the required checkpoint photo of the front tire in the water, and then for the first time since before the start I try to check my phone….and Trackleaders.com. But it was all goofy, I couldn’t really tell much on it so I gave up…totally curious how the other girls were all doing. We remembered a bathroom back a bit on the trail so we head there to get out of the wind and sweaty clothes and eat that sub! Hola, when I go to open the women’s door….a familiar voice yells ‘It’s taken’….lol, we weren’t the only ones who had spied the bathroom haven….Karlos was tucked inside and he wasn’t coming out for nothing! So, the men’s room it was where I proceeded to have my own little finishing ceremony comprised of pretty much just eating more crappy food and cursing god for the weather. Our hotel was a few miles back the route, so once rested we rode back and since it was early AM just showered/slept and sat around all day mentally preparing for our road bike ride back across the state. I was able to see a few peeps before they took off at the nearby restaurant. Everyone looked pretty good for just finishing the course, not having much sleep yet, and just basically focused on eating! Sigh…and they all had nice fresh clean clothes on but since I only had my bike stuff which was being rinsed out, I had on the beautiful Driducks again for saying Goodbye….really, I do NOT wear those all the time!
We started out the next morning, intending to do 50 miles/day out of the total 120+ and really tour around, but lol….like anything you do with jpok that plan quickly turned into a 60 and then a 70 mile day and back in 2 days. Although we got hotels and stopped for actual food, the route was a little trafficky so we kind of just kept moving, figuring the beach would be better to get to sooner anyway….although it was still cold and like 30mph wind….I am just glad there was not anymore rain!
So, this 3rd bikepack trip to FL and to one of K’s routes, was a great trip overall. A fun ride and lots of adventure just like I anticipated. One of those rides that I will try to savor in my memory, because like I said earlier, the grassroots nature of it is so super cool now, but in the future when more people join in, the route gets eased up a bit and more people find ways around the ‘rules‘ to gain advantages, and all the resources are better known it just won’t be the same anymore to me. This is how it is NOW, & this is what I love.
Thanks Karlos and those who helped with the route, locals for pre-riding and sharing info that the rest of us weren’t able to get so much of by using online and map resources (esp Lynne & Jeff T). Thanks Jpok for going on the trip and thru the Ocala section with me at night, and for only 1 person laughing at my awesomely cool DriDucks pants!
Blog Summaries of others that did the 2012 route (let me know if I missed any links?):
Markley (men’s winner) http://teamcrank.wordpress.com/
Jeff (masters winner) http://www.facebook.com/notes/a-jeffrey-tomassetti/the-gambler-and-the-2012-cross-florida-individual-time-trial-dirty-version/10151328917222812
Lynne http://www.waywardpoints.com/cfitt2012/cfitt2012writeup.html
Karlos (FL organizer) http://singletracksamurai.blogspot.com/2012/11/cfitt-12.html
Dave (TNGA organizer) http://davidleemuse.blogspot.com/2012/11/cfitt.html
