By 2013, the St. John’s River To The Sea Loop will become the longest paved, off-road loop trail in the American southeast. That same year will also mark the 500th anniversary of Spain’s colonization of “La Florida,”
National Geographic, July 2009.
It was a glorious Saturday fall morning, and the Gators were still hours away from their Ole Miss date with destiny.
So I did what I love to do best. Cycled 20 miles on the St. Augustine-Palatka Rail-Trail.
At the Hastings Trailhead I came upon a poster asking me to sign a petition urging completion of the gaps in what is shaping up to be an impressive regional recreational trail system.
Specifically, the trail gaps between Crescent Beach, Butler Beach, St. Augustine Beach, and the City of St. Augustine.
“Safe, accessible trail networks are not a luxury. They are essential infrastructure that benefit residents, visitors, and local businesses alike,” argue the petition’s organizers, the St. Johns River-to-Sea Loop Alliance, A1A Scenic & Historic Coastal Byway, All-American Road and the East Coast Greenway Alliance
“Significant portions of this system are already in place or funded. However, without completing the remaining segments, particularly through St. Augustine Beach, the system cannot function as intended.”
Amen to that.
Time was I thought nothing of cycling A1A from Crescent to Flagler beaches and points south. But in recent years, more and faster-moving beach traffic has made cycling that stretch a risky business indeed.
Listen, if you love trails and want to sign the petition, please do.
It’s a good cause. Here’s the link.
But it wasn’t just the petition poster that suddenly whisked me back nearly two decades.
Rather, it was another sign that brought me face to face with some long unfinished business.
Next to the petition poster was a route sign put there by my old outfit, Bike Florida.
I was BF executive director for a few years after I retired from The Sun. But even before that, I was heavily invested in Florida’s premier bicycle touring organization.
In 2008 I participated in BF’s inaugural St. John’s River To The Sea Loop small group tour. Our purpose was to promote the development of a 260-mile trail loop that would connect St. Augustine in the north, Palatka in the west and Brevard County in the south.
The trail would wind its way through Volusia, Flagler, St. Johns, Putnam, and Brevard counties
When we envisioned the loop there were few trails along the proposed route. But we found the cycling, along ocean front A1A and through back country roads, to be drop-dead gorgeous.
The spiritual leader of our little expedition, was a guy named Herb Hiller.
Herb was a Florida travel writer. But unlike most Fla travel scribes, he didn’t think the state’s tourism destiny lay in promoting Disney, South Beach etc, ad nauseam.
No, Herb wanted to sell Florida eco-tourism. He envisioned visitors from around the world landing at Orlando airport and mounting bicycles rather than filing into tour buses.
As much as any advocate I know Herb – who is no longer with us – deserves the credit for inspiring the movement that, eventually, created an impressive, and still growing, recreational trail system in Florida.
(BTW: There’s going to be a ceremony to pay tribute to Herb’s work on October 20, 5-6 p.m., at Palatka’s River Center. Drop by if you’re in the neighborhood.)
Which brings me back to my unfinished business.
Although we have indeed seen impressive gains toward making BF’s St. Johns River To The Sea Loop vision a reality, the work’s not over. About a third of the loop remains incomplete… including gaps on the increasingly traffic choked A1A.
Which puts us 13 years and counting behind the originally envisioned completion date…optimistically selected to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Florida’s colonization by Spain.
Over the years I’ve ridden all or parts of the St. John’s Loop many times and I’ve never come away disappointed.
The trail I rode that glorious Saturday morning now stretches all the way from Hampton (just outside of Waldo) in the west to St. Augustine in the east.
Unfortunately, the St. Aug Trail ends west of I-95. And gaps make cycling into the heart of America’s traffic-heavy oldest city still pretty risky.
So here I am, two decades older, and happy to be one of the pioneers who envisioned a route that could safely take residents and visitors alike through some of the most spectacular and bike-worthy portions of northeast Florida.
Heck, I believe I’ll even live long enough to see Herb Hiller’s dream trail finished.
I’m an optimist that way.
