# Santos (Belleview) Florida for New Years?



## PMK (Oct 12, 2004)

Sometimes we will spend New Years camping and riding at Santos in Belleview Florida.

New Years is on a Friday, with Saturday being 01.01.

Didn't know if some of the folks that get snowed in would want to get in some riding at an IMBA epic trail system.

Santos has miles of trails, multiple ability levels, very little serious climbing, but overall, most of the trails seem as though they were designed for tandems.

Santos has a campground that joins the trailhead. They offer hookups, or if dumb like us you can use a tent. Cost is reasonable.

This link will give an idea of how much riding is available.

http://omba.org/index.php/Maps.html

The entire IMBA epic is around 40 miles. We have ridden even further west and know 50 is not out of the question. The best part is, you don't have to ride that far, most typically folks will ride from the Santos TH to the Landbridge @I75, then turnaround and take the inbound trail for about a 25 ride.

We could even do a night ride.

We have not yet committed to these plans but if others are interested, I'd bet we could squeeze it in.

I'm pretty certain Chris and Monica have rolled some miles at Santos, as has Rick and his wife (our first off-road tandem ever met). Maybe they can back me up about how tandem friendly these trails are.

Also there is word of some new bikes in the SE and even in Florida, so maybe if the folks from up north don't have the time to travel and ride, maybe those of us nearer to Santos could hookup for a couple of days of riding.

PK


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## clj2289 (Jan 2, 2010)

*wish we could*

Dang, already have plans for new year's. Lets plan it for next year. Ocala is so nice to ride that time of year. Monica and I road Santos on Christmas Eve last year and it was very nice to ride somewhere a little warmer.

Cheers,
Chris


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## giff07 (Jun 7, 2010)

Hi Paul and Jeanne,
New Years eve is my daughter in laws birthday and this will be my grandson's first Christmas so we will be staying up here for that. Its a great idea though.
Ed and Pat Gifford


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## PMK (Oct 12, 2004)

Honestly, I just tossed it out. We have no worries either way. Just a cool place to ride tandems, and for those with true winter seasons, somewhat of a get away. We are also in for the Tour de Felasco the following week. So for us that will be plenty of riding to start the year off.

Don't forget about the Santos FTF in March. This is an entire weekend of MTB activities. If anyone wants to plan for that there is another option.

Also, Alex is planned to setup a sales tent along with the other (non tandem) MTB vendors.

This is a big event and will probably fill quickly.

The Santos FTF would be pretty cool with a squadron of tandems terrorizing the singles on trails that seem perfect for riding tandems fast.

Imagine the horror of the single riders as a group of experienced tandem catch and pass them in rapid succession. Oh the horror of it.

Almost forgot, I believe there will be at least one tandem terrorizing Santos for the first Halloween ride...what did team Judd's decide to dress up as. 

PK


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## clj2289 (Jan 2, 2010)

*We are going to the FTF!*

We're going to be at the FTF next year. I would encourage anyone that is interested to make the trip. We are staying in the cabins at Silver Springs state park, they are very nice. We reserved our cabin 11 months in advance just to make sure that we have it.

Here is the event registration page http://www.active.com/cycling/ocala-fl/santos-fat-tire-festival-2011.

We have gotten great comments on Santos while riding the tandem, ranging from "sick" to "look at those crazy people".

We did the full epic ride for the first time this year and we try to ride some of the trail anytime we are headed south. The trail at santos is very different on either side of the land bridge. The segment that starts in Santos (the city, if you could call it that) and goes to the land bridge is fast rolling. The other side rolls across some spoil piles from what I think was historic phosphate mining. That segment is great, but there is one place where we always hit our boob tube, its not bad, but prepare to get hung up once. There is also another place on the return segment of that trail where I always bang Monica's bars into this small pine tree. I don't know what it is about that tree, but it always gets us.

I've been dying to do a night ride at Santos and I think it would be great to ride from the Santos trailhead to the land bridge. Maybe at the FTF?

I'll let Monica tell you what we are dressing up as for the Ride of the Living Dead. 
... here I am! So, we brew beer and ride right? so why not combine the two? Chris will be Captain 6-pack and I will be the Refreshinator... our bike, the kegerator. I've made silver capes faux black leather edging for chris and mine has black feather boa on the edge. Hoping to incorporate actaul beer cans and such... : ) silliness but fun, as we are! And yes, the bike has it's own silver 'outfit' all will be very simple so we can tuck things in and ride the 50 miles! ...

Will we see you there????

Chris & Monica


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## PMK (Oct 12, 2004)

No Chris and Monica, we aren't doing the Halloween ride. Sorry.

Plans are that we will make the FTF in March.

We too agree about the trail having two distinctly different flavors.

We've ridden the the front half to the Landbridge a bunch of times on tandems. We've also ridden west of the Landbridge on the Cannondale and Fandango. During the race a couple weeks ago, the section from Landbridge to the 49th underpass was closed. Regardless, the section from 49th west to 200 (beyond the epic) was open. FWIW, we mounted helmet lights at the Landbridge trailhead and departed that trailhead about 8pm. It took us quite a while riding, and plonking our way through there at night. Lot of fun, but stressful after already logging 120 miles.

We have two spots that get us, one is the big rocks we can never steer between (really tight left turn), the other is a small step up, and somehow we always think there is a "B" line to go around and end up in the bushes.

The spot where you scrape, is that climbing out of a quick drop then up?

The bike and costumes sound pretty cool. Have fun.

PK


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## clj2289 (Jan 2, 2010)

*ride of the living dead: awesome!*

Just wanted to report back on the ride of the living dead @ Santos in Ocala, FL. It was great. Very well supported and the route was well marked. There were 4 sag stops, a lunch stop and a final stop with hot dogs, chili and a keg of beer. To my mind, it was the best supported of all of the one day single track events that I have been on. Plus it is just hard to beat the trails at Santos, I think they are the best in Florida. The other nice touch done by the OMBA folks was having the bike patrol out on the trail. They really made you feel welcome. We will do it again.

Cheers,
Chris


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