360Bikers Foundation

We had lunch at an Irish place called Erin’s Isle. Highly recommended as the food was good and the prices extremely low.  We also have to compliment the waiter for taking on 24 customers he wasn’t expecting, doing individual checks, serving us, and keeping everything straight.  He was impressive as the owner, who was very accommodating for our group.

After refueling at the gas station next door, we organized again and got underway.  I had gone over the route because with a group this size traffic lights make it tough to stay together.  We had a couple riders that did not keep the group tight and sure enough we got split.  After turning at Immokalee Road we waited for the rest of the group before getting underway.

Now, we were out of the traffic and headed towards Immokalee on a nice road that disappeared into old South Florida. I remembered this part of the ride from the previous year and the nice turns in the road as it twisted from running east to a northward path.  Once in Immokalee I took a route that avoided traffic lights so our gappers wouldn’t split the group.  In minutes we were on the road headed north.

— Video Coming Soon —

About 13 miles north of Immokalee I was looking for Keri Road.  This would lead us through our fourth or fifth park of the day and take us on two roads I had never seen before.  The park is Okaloacoochee Slough State Forest (yeah, you say it three times real fast) and the road was nice with little turns.  A couple road patches did make it rough, but overall I’d ride it again.  This road gave us a left turn at the end of it to get on a road that led us to SR80, a familiar road to most of the riders in our group.  From here, we road to Clewiston for our last fuel and rest stop before heading home.

LK

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We prepared to leave the gas station as two other large groups that were there rode out ahead of us.  We actually ran into the BMW group later on the ride.  Our number of bikes was now 21 as we prepared to get onto US41, the 2-lane highway that preceded the Interstate as Alligagor Alley.  The beauty of this ride is the changes in geography.  We begin the ride with a lot of sawgrass in the Everglades.  We ride past long expanses of the grass with obvious paths cut through it by the airboats.  This ride is a peak at what Florida was like 100 years ago.

Riding west, we come to Big Cypress and begin to leave the sawgrass plains behind.  Along the right side of the road is a guardrail and then a ditch that is about 10 to 15 feet wide.  Along the shore away from the road you see alligators resting in the sun as it rises in the South Florida sky.  The temperature is rising and the cold-blooded reptiles come out to warm themselves.  What struck us all was the quantity of gators.  We say hundreds of them along the shores just a few feet away from us.  We saw more alligators in 50 yards of ride than most people see in their lives!  They were everywhere and occasionally you’d see a couple riding in a canoe.  It must have looked like dinner to some of them.  It looked dangerous to us.

We saw a lot of beautiful birds, too.  Everything from egrets to herons to eagles to hawks.  This is a ride with nature that is perhaps the best in South Florida.  Leaving Big Cypress we actually ride along the southern border of Collier-Seminole State Forest.

Riding further along the cypress give way to an open plain that isn’t as wet as the sawgrass swamps.  We came to CR92 in Collier county and went down the road that was new to most of us.  The short ride of about 5 miles took us to a small causeway and across to Marco Island.  We rode through the short island in about 10 minutes and came across another causeway leading us towards Naples and our lunch destination.

Lee

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This entry really should have been written by someone that rode the ride.  I, unfortunately, managed to get sick and miss one of the most exciting rides I’ve created.  Of course, the one thing that makes it great is the people, and there were lots of people.

On January 25th the 360Bikers had a convergence ride.  The ride was designed to give opportunity for any level 2 rider or better in our group to meet others in our group.  I was really four different rides from different geographical areas that members.  All the rides converged and gave everyone a chance to meet.

Well, even in a group our size it’s luck to get more than 20 people together on one ride.  This ride culminated with over 50 bikes and more than 70 people.  I have heard more nice things about this event than any that I’ve planned so far.

Below is a slide presentation of over 150 of the photos submitted from the ride.

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