OT, kinda - florida is flat

[vqdriver]

Here now with the lil-uns. Got sucked into the whole Disney universe (not entirely unwillingly) and we're on the road now from Orlando to port Canaveral. Looking out the window, the biggest hills ive seen are mounds of dirt at construction sites. Y'all aren't exagerating when you say it's flat out here.

[David Kirk]

I lived in the western panhandle for years and it's downright mountainous compared to central or southern FL.....that said we still did hill repeats on a highway overpass as that was the biggest and steepest thing around.

dave

[chazmtb]

Go north west of Orlando and there are some rollers. Near Clermont, which is a little north west of Disney, there are some hills with a few short 10-14% climbs. Yeah from Orlando to the coast is 0 elevation change except for a few bridges.

[54ny77]

yep. have visited a bunch lately and the biggest climb is a bridge going over portions of a bay.

that said, having ridden with a few locals, flat means fast. as in, holy &^%!# this is fast and no i cannot hang in there.

[jr59]

But we have wind!

Fl not as flat as New Orleans, but still flat. Bring big gears.

[54ny77]

No kidding. If you have an old 42/53 and a corncob freewheel, don't toss it just yet. Move to Florida, you'll use it.

Originally Posted by jr59

But we have wind!

Fl not as flat as New Orleans, but still flat. Bring big gears.

[MaraudingWalrus]

If you took SR528 (the "beachline") out of orlando to Canaveral (which you almost certainly did), then shortly after you crossed over the St Johns River, the road made a big turn more south for a few miles before jogging back to be due east. Just before the turn back east is the highest point in the county...the top of the landfill. Very visible now from the highway.

If you've got time to kill, the beltdrive supersix is available for test-rides. Tell the family that it's a local landmark...

[MattTuck]

[benb]

This winter when I was in the Fort Myers area and did a bunch of riding the GPS and/or barometric pressure drift error in my Garmin files was larger than the actual elevation changes along the route, and we're talking 50 mile files. Amazing. The largest elevation changes I remember going over were the bridges across the river between Cape Coral and Fort Myers and the teeny little overpasses over the canal so the residents could take their powerboats out. That whole thing of cutting the entire city up with canals is going to be really ugly for Cape Coral when sea level rise starts happening.

[ripvanrando]

Just go north of Orlando. I did a 200k with 4500 feet of climbing. Not flat but not hilly either. Biggest climb might have been 200 vertical.

[carpediemracing]

I've ridden around Gainesville and around New Port Ritchie. Gainesville has a set of rollers somewhere, everyone there knows where they are because if you're doing a "hilly ride" it means heading over there. I struggled on them even though they were the kinds of hills I usually manage (big gear, hard, 30-40 seconds? maybe a minute?).

New Port Ritchie I saw some scary pictures. Realized it was scaled wrong due to the "road" being a bike path and therefore the hill that looked about 400m long was only 200m long. Or something like that.

But as pointed out there's wind. There's no "punch and coast" like there is up in CT, there's always a minimum amount of power necessary simply to stay on wheels. I have a very hard time doing group rides in flatter areas for this reason.

[bikinchris]

Originally Posted by David Kirk

I lived in the western panhandle for years and it's downright mountainous compared to central or southern FL.....that said we still did hill repeats on a highway overpass as that was the biggest and steepest thing around.

dave

That's what I was going to say. The panhandle is far more hilly than the lower parts of Florida. For more large expanses of flat, the entire part of south Louisiana all the way to Houston is used to calibrate carpenter's levels. When I hosted the Southern Tandem rally here, they complained the whole weekend about having to pedal every single inch of the way. No coasting here.

[bikinchris]

Originally Posted by jr59

But we have wind!

Fl not as flat as New Orleans, but still flat. Bring big gears.

Anything less than 20mph wind is a "calm."

[Ti Designs]

Yeh, it's flat. It's also damn fast. I showed up for a group ride, it was 7:00pm and we had maybe an hour of daylight left. They were doing a 28 mile loop and nobody else seemed the least bit worried. In any area, most large, fast rides turn into what I call "shark rides". The sharks are the guys who can put the hurt on, the rest of the group are just fish. When you see a bunch of sharks move to the front, you either find a wheel or wave bye-bye. In the Boston area I'm usually a shark 'cause I can climb, I have good flat speed and I can sprint. In Florida, my flat speed only gets me as far as fish status, my sprint gets me across gaps when they open, and my climbing ability counts for squat.

I love a good challenge like this. At the end of the season I'm shipping my Tarmac (with it's 44/56 up front and 11-21 in back) to Florida and I'm planning two more trips this year. It's time to learn how to go really fast...

[ultraman6970]

The only climb in miami it is a bridge.