The Promised Land

The fat guy has just had the best week of cycling to date. The fat guy took the family down to Destin, Fl. for spring break. Under concealed protest (don't want to go there) from the fat guy's wife he took the Trek down to Destin along with all the baggage and the family.

The first two days were spent riding on HWY 98 which for anyone who has been down there is not the lightest traffic in the world. It can be down right dangerous. The first day was spent riding across Destin Bridge towards Okaloosa island. This was a fun ride and the traffic wasn't horrible since it was early on a Sunday morning. Going across the Destin bridge was fantastic! This was about a 12 mile ride and would have been longer if the territory was better known.]

Day two sees the fat guy traveling towards San Destin. The fat guy's wife wanted to go to the outlet malls the day before and we noticed it was around a 15 mile round trip. This day was different since the traffic was MUCH worse.

The fat guy really wanted to find a safer and better route and had made attempts before leaving Murray to find out if there were cycling clubs. The Destin Chamber of Commerce was nice but had no clue as to any routes and there was no time before we left to contact Ft. Walton. One thing is for sure, if there were any, you could not even google them. Nothing, nada, came up.

As far as bike shops, all google produced was Billy Bobs Bike-o-rama where for $30 a day you could rent a fancy beach cruiser or a moped.

It was on the way down to the outlet mall that the answer finnally came. On the right side of the road, there it was. . . .Robin's Bike and Fitness. You could tell it was a real shop from the highway.

The fat guy's wife let him drop them off that evening and go to the shop to have a look see. When asked for a ride map I was told by Amy that a group left from there every morning at 7:30 a.m. and did a 30 mile route. I made sure of the average speed and decided to try it.

The story will continue in another post. . .