Tampa

[11.4]

May be making the move to Tampa. What are training conditions and racing like there? Do the bridges have reasonable bike access? Regions to prefer or avoid?

[TampaJim]

May be making the move to Tampa. What are training conditions and racing like there? Do the bridges have reasonable bike access? Regions to prefer or avoid?

Depends on what area of Tampa your in. Up in New Tampa Flatwoods park has a paved 7 mile loop, you can ride all day long without stopping and ther're 25 miles of single track there. Then there's the Pinellas trail, upper Tampa Bay trail, and something up off the Veterans. The Withalocoochee as well.

Mtb riding is good within a reasonable distance as well.

[fa63]

I lived there most of my life (now live in Atlanta) and I would say that it is not a very cycling friendly city. For the most part the roads aren't very cycling friendly and drivers don't respect cyclists. That said, racing scene isn't bad if you are willing to drive a couple hours to get to the races. Quite a few crits as well as a few stage races. What the races lack in elevation change they make up in speed. Anyways, not sure where you plan on working, but if you don't mind living outside the city a bit, there are lots of rural and hilly roads in San Antonio / Dade City. Even if you lived in Wesley Chapel / Land'O Lakes area you would have easy access to those roads. Or you can live in St. Pete, the cycling/racing community there is pretty good as well.

Good luck.

[J.Greene]

Floridacycling.com is our statewide website for all info road racing. We have a full schedule that goes year round if you include a few months cross. Our track program at the Brian Piccolo Velodrome has been getting better the last few years with new folks running that. There are lots of really good racers from the Tampa Area and it shouldn't be hard to learn who they are once arriving. The race community is really small considering there are 18 million people here.

I don't know the roads around Tampa but if you want to explore some roads 90 minutes east around Orlando I'd be happy to show you around.