this is mile marker zero of route us one
it symbolizes the southernmost point in
the continental US but clearly the house
behind it is further south to me the
real reason to visit mile marker zero is
to drive through the Florida Keys from
downtown Miami it's an epic three-hour
drive
starting with skyscrapers and ending in
seven mile long bridges through the
Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico
depending on which car window you're
looking out of the final stop is Key
West and it's worth the trip if you like
coconut trees flip-flops and stiff
drinks you may find no better place of
course
relaxation was the last thing on my mind
when I agreed to pedal to Key West from
my house in Fort Lauderdale this is
actually not bad right here a little
bungee around my stem brakes still work
shifter selfie oh okay I'm pretty sure
was Alex's crazy idea and who could
blame him
the poor guy has been off his mountain
bike since November when he dislocated
his shoulder a road bike adventure
through the flattest state in the nation
would be a piece of cake so we threw
caution to the wind did absolutely no
research and retrofitted our road bikes
with racks and luggage I guess this tent
would be nice thing to have I mean
without the time a mosquitos yeah then
as he goes our bad B it's a word rain
that would make for a really not fun
night all right
so we need to take Alex had a lot of
camping experience and I went through a
road biking phase a few years back I was
no stranger to high mileage 200 miles in
three days would be easy so the goal for
day one would be a campsite 90 miles
away in Key Largo as we set out from my
house and high spirits we had no idea
how quickly we would be humbled Alex and
I fell short of Key Largo by over 40
miles on day one allow me to summarize
why that was the case reason one rody
miles and by cracking miles are not the
same when you ride for training or for
the sake of riding you choose your
favorite route we were forced to ride
through Fort Lauderdale Hollywood
Hallandale all of Miami and homestead
encountering ridiculous amounts of stop
lights traffic collapse in general
treacherous the rock we were moving at a
snail's pace
which leads into reason number two the
worst route ever go
I used Google Maps to plan a route and
capture a little bicycle icon this is
great for finding the closest bike way
but terrible for finding directions I
think we got to make a left rather than
have you ride for a mile on a less than
ideal Road but Google would rather you
get on a ferry our situation just got so
much better
sometimes it want us to take a bike way
for a few miles
making u-turn and backtrack a mile to
get on another bike way this instead of
just hopping over one median for the
record I now know the best route but I
can't go back in time to Wednesday
afternoon which brings us to reason
number three a late start we did some
preparation in the morning and mosey on
down to the coffee shop we didn't start
pedaling until around 11:00
since we wanted to wait until rush hour
was over I don't know why it didn't
click that we be in South Miami during
the second rush hour since my
calculations were based on roadie miles
I figured we being a sieve by then but I
didn't account for all the stop crap
loads of extra weight and reason number
four mechanical problems for the record
I did one thing right and that was to
buy two really good brand new tires and
a reasonably sturdy rack with ten years
Alexander's bike was straight his tires
were really old as rack consisted of two
backpacks and 14 bungee cords the only
thing on his bike that worked
consistently with the horn morning Smith
Alex kept getting flats on his rear tire
and it took forever to take the wheel on
and off the bike due to the rear rack
between stops to fix the rack multiple
flats and a detour to restock our
supplies we burnt through two hours of
daylight which brings me to reason
number five bad luck which I admit is
sort of a cop-out for bad planning
Google Maps led us to a really jagged
and rough fire road which was out of the
question considering Alex's tire issues
so we tried to find a way around it and
found ourselves trash that's definitely
not it
what's that
this road right here is too dangerous
I was going to do it but Alex was
actually the voice of reason you might
have saved both of our lives
during the day maybe at night it was
sketchy we ought to just find a place to
crash for the night so 40 miles from Key
Largo we decided to throw in the towel
luckily motels and homestead are about
the same price of 10 sites in the keys
oh there's one thing I forgot to tell
you about the deluxe in motel is that
the Yelp reviewers were not very
generous with it
we were pretty bummed out and admittedly
doubtful that we would get to Key West
on time both of us were on a time
constraint and our day-to was looking
grimmer and grimmer by the minute I'll
go get us a room they're good dude is he
been in this closet which is a campsite
after 50 miles of arduous urban pedaling
we need something to boost our spirits
well does their meal we be Clif bars and
birdseed all day our goal for the
following day would be to make it to Key
Largo and keep pushing all the way to
marathon by the end of the day that was
a lofty 80-mile goal for day two would
we make it find out in the next video
thanks for riding with me today and I'll
see you next time
Oh
[Music]