Cycling to Key Biscayne

Yesterday was a gorgeous day, perfect for a ride. Like I said in my previous post, I came here largely for the year-round riding conditions. Where else can you take a 26-mile ride in the middle of February? Below are a few of the pictures I snapped along the way.

The road sign leading to Key Biscayne. You can see the classic Miami colors of orange and seafoam green everywhere you look. I actually saw an art exhibit which was just a collage of pictures of signs featuring these two colors.

Crossing the Rickenbacker Causeway's longest spain is an experience. It's somewhere around a mile long. The first half is a disgusting, leg burning climb, but once you're a the top, it's a pretty intense coast to the bottom.

This is a good view looking back at the longest span of the Causeway. It's around 10 stories at the highest point. Must be so high for the big masts of sailboats, because cruise liners and container ships enter the Atlantic a different way.

This is just one of the many beaches that are along the Causeway. I happened to see a photo shoot while I was biking by this one. Can you ask for more?

Just your average Peacock hanging out at the beach. No zoom on the camera here. I was really as close as it appears.

Here's the story. This is Stiltsville. I thought they were oil dikes at first, but a fisherman on the pier filled me in on their story. Basically, they are stilted-houses, exactly one-mile from shore that were used to gambling back in the 1930s, when it was legal to gamble...one mile from shore. More houses were built and it became an area for socialites and the wealthy to hang out, have parties, etc. A good quote from Argosy magazine about the Bikini Club stilthouse, "Off Key Biscayne is a renegade village on stilts where weekend residents live by their own laws. Their town hall is a floating Bikini Club that swings both day and night."

It should be noted that they're currently owned by the state and are part of the Cape Florida State Park.

A lighthouse built in 1847 on the very tip of Key Biscayne. Lots of history here regarding the underground railroad and the early explorers. Many escaped slaves came to the tip of Florida and paid to sail on merchant sloops to the freedom in the Bahamas.

Can't ask for a better way to finish a day-long bike ride. The couple had no idea I was taking the picture. Could be a postcard.