Night Ride w/ Kona Bikes at Central Florida & Orlando area MARKHAM WOODS MOUNTAIN BIKE Trail

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Me:
"Today is Wednesday, February 20th and I'm about to pull into the Markham Woods trail. Let's go for a ride."

Two Orlando area bike shops collaborated with Kona bicycles and on this day they showed up with the Kona factory van and a full fleet of demo bikes for riders to try out.

Me:
"Now I'm here with Wilson, he's out of Richmond Virginia with the Kona demo truck, awesome setup here and all of these awesome Kona bikes. What can you tell us about Kona bikes?"

Wilson:
"Oh man so we've been around for a little bit over 30 years now, one of the last few independent mountain bike brands in the US. Yeah so we make all kinds of bikes we make bikes that are a good time have fun on, we make a range - so out here I've got my long travel enduro bikes, I've got short travel cross-country bikes, I've got hardtails that are fun for trails and going fast, I've got some gravel bikes - we have a new gravel bike out this year that's a good time on trails or the road. Yeah man I mean we're all about having fun on a bike and out there."

Me:
"Awesome! Well we want to thank you for coming to our Wednesdays at Markham ride it's it's quickly becoming one of the premiere weekly off-road rides in the Orlando area."

Wilson:
"Sweet! Awesome!"

Me:
"We're stoked to have you here."

Wilson:
"Glad we've been able to work. Yeah it's cool to see all
the enthusiasm in Florida."

Me:
"I'm here with Kyle from Kyle's bike shop."

Kyle:
"What's up John?"

Me:
"What's going on man?"

Kyle:
"Going good"

Me:
"Good deal. So tell us - people that are
interested in buying a Kona Bike, tell us about your shop where you're
located, that sort of thing."

Kyle:
"Sure, so yeah we're in downtown Orlando in the milk district in downtown. Wwe've been at Kona dealer since 2008,
pretty cool company to deal with we've always had good relations with them. One thing I like about Kona is they're a small company who has a big reputation. They're kind of rider owned, rider developed... everybody that works with their company rides, so you can tell when they put the packages together that these are
people that care more about the riders and say maybe the bottom end."

Me:
"Okay so am I correct in thinking that you are one of two Kona dealers in the greater Orlando area?"

Kyle:
"Right, that's right. There's this awesome new bike shop now in Sanford they're also a Kona Dealer you know so we worked together on this Kona demo to where it could be right in the middle between the two shops and we both came and help out and we're really far enough away to where we're really only helping each other grow the brand."

Me:
"Very cool, very cool."

Me:
"All right I'm here with Matt from...


Matt:
"...Pedal Driven in Sanford."

Me:
"Sanford. So you are one or two of two Kona dealers in the
greater Orlando area?"

Matt:
"This is correct."

Me:
"So if people on the north side of town and further want a Kona bicycle they would come to see you?"

Matt:
"Come to see me."

Me:
"What else can you tell us about your shop and especially in relation to Kona here?"

Matt:
"So we are Kona a shop obviously, we sell Jamis also, love everything steel,love hardtails, all that good stuff, yeah we just have a shop you want to come hang out and that's where we're gonna try to be very inviting. Come by and have a cup of coffee!"

After an entire afternoon of test riding various 2019 Kona bikes the riders turned their attention to the Wednesday's at Markham weekly night ride.

Central Florida & Orlando Mountain Bike Trails: MINNEOLA Mountain Bike Trail

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hey my name is Brian Baker and I'm the trail boss for the Minneola trailhead bike park here in Minneola Florida, and this trail has been here for about about five months now. It took what was a year in the making, actually started way back in last July, and had to work with City Council members and county officials and got together with OMBA and SORBA and got a whole bunch of help from everybody, and was able to put this trail together in a matter of four hours actually. We're able to cut it out to put it together in four hours with the help of about thirty-four volunteers, and it's really been an amazing gathering of people, amazing gathering of effort.

We have a lot of sponsors that we're very thankful for helping us out, helping us with the trailer bringing out free swag, free snacks, you know, keeping us hydrated out here, and as you can see you know we got plenty of riders coming out here and enjoying the trail.

We're right off the South Lake Apopka Trail, (the paved trail) that goes all the way over to Orlando, and all the way out to Groveland, so we have awesome access here. You can essentially you know come right off the trail right down here in Minneola trailhead and come over here - it's just a single track and get on and have a good time. We have so many bikers in the area - you know that's one of the things that really inspired me to get the trail going - is that you know we didn't have another trail for another 45 minutes from this destination, and so my kids and I, you know we wanted something that was closer to home, so I said "What the heck, you know let's see if we can get a bike trail here", and Minneola was you know really good about catching on and donating this terrain, this acreage here that we could put our bike trail on. So again, it was just really, to me, an inspiring gathering and support coming together to make it happen.

So here we are enjoying the trail, it's a beautiful day in Florida and let's ride!

Central Florida & Orlando Mountain Bike Trails: SOLDIERS CREEK Mountain Bike Trail

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi I'm Harry. We're here at Soldiers Creek Mountain Bike Park. This is a nice trail maintained by Sorba Orlando It's a singletrack it goes along the Soldiers Creek. The trail goes along soldiers Creek and it winds along about 1.3 miles. It's nice - a little bit of elevation here and there nice and cool under the big trees and it's a really good ride here and local, just outside of Winter Springs, and right near the Boombah Park.

Come ride with us!

Central Florida & Orlando Mountain Bike Trails: ORLANDO MOUNTAIN BIKE PARK at Lake Druid Park

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi how's it going? My name is Joshua Jianuzzi and welcome to the Orlando mountain bike park. We're located here inside of Lake druid Park which is off of SR 50 also known as Colonial Drive of back road of Coy drive here and we're in between Coy Town and just outside of the milk district about ten minutes outside of downtown Orlando.

This is a SORBA Orlando mountain bike park. This property was donated by the naval base about seven, eight years ago, we tried to open this once before and had some issues with soil and the city was nice enough to help us out get us going. With the help of city individuals, fellow mountain bikers, local organizations like Summit Church with their NiServ, Green Up which is also a part of the city Orlando, thanks to Janice Rahill and David Wagg, Tommy and Anton, big help all the individual riders have been a big part of the build up and construction of the park... Been here for a little over three years maintaining it.

We've got just under a mile of singletrack, we've got a pumptrack here, its a mix between a skills area and also another tot track with some other wooden features as well to kind of hone in your skills. We are mostly a beginner park as we are fresh here for the last three and a half years. We opened up October 31st of 2015.

Yeah so we've got new features we're building and designing, I'm out here as much as I can with different volunteers, different organizations I'm just digging in and trying to share the fun with everybody so you can get out and enjoy the ride.

Central Florida & Orlando Mountain Bike Trails: SNOWHILL ROAD MTB TRAIL Little Big Econ State Forest

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hello I'm Bobby and I'm the trail volunteer for the Florida Forestry Service out here at the Little Big Econ State Forest. The Snow Hill Bike Trail has been around here since the late 80's and it follows mostly in the deer paths. There's about 15 miles of singletrack out here at snow hill bike trail but most of it winds through the state forest here and a group of volunteers from SORBA Orlando comes out here and maintains the trail and works with the Florida Forestry Service.

The terrain out here at the snow hill bike trail consists of mostly sand but it's also mixed in with some muck and some loose dirt but most of it is sandy. This land used to be used for harvesting turpentine and it was a farm for cabbage and celery.

This is a wildlife preserve and there are all kinds of wildlife out here that are native to Florida. Since it's a Preserve you might find alligators in the water which is common here in Florida as well as snakes, turtles, gopher turtle and also wild hog and wild turkey. There's quite a few deer out here as well that you'll find along the bike trail.

A good portion of the trail runs along the little big econ River. On the weekends the river is quite active - there's kayaking and camping along the river.

The Snow Hill bike trail is located just outside of the town of Geneva and sits between Geneva and Oviedo Florida. The Little Big Econ State Forest is located about 15 minutes east of the University of Central Florida and it's about a 30-minute drive from downtown Orlando.

Central Florida & Orlando Mountain Bike Trails: MARKHAM WOODS Mountain Bike Trail

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
I'm Mitch Greenberg and welcome to the Markham Woods mountain bike trail. This trail was established in 2013 thanks to the generous contribution of Wekiva Springs State Park. We currently have about nine to ten miles of trail here, mostly beginner-friendly. We cater to mountain biking, trail runners, hikers, family use. We do have some interesting features on the trail such as log overs, jumps, various sinks out here, varied terrain for people to see but this area is generally beginner-friendly. There are some other interesting features such as palmetto roots and some historic features to this piece of property as well. We have a great facility here parking lot provided by Seminole County, restroom facilities that are taken care of also by Seminole County, parking and access is easy. The location is near I-4 & Lake Mary Florida, so check it out have fun!

What Goes Around Comes Around

What goes around comes around. We've all heard the saying. And I guess to some, or a great extent, it is more or less at least somewhat true, I don't really know. What I do know is that it usually seems to be associated with something negative - some sort of negative karma, or whatever.

Not this time. Two days ago I had just finished uploading and publishing a video to YouTube and was posting the YouTube link on Facebook when out of nowhere I received a private message from a friend whom I hadn't heard from in quite some time. The message read "2 years ago. Amazing trip....".

This is a screenshot of that message:

Under the text caption in the message is a short video. This is that video:



Kim is a fellow cyclist and mountain bike adventurer from Denmark. About 2.5 years ago I joined up with 2 other friends and Orlando area locals for a somewhat local overnight bikepacking adventure. Kim was here vacationing in the Orlando area and visiting one of the guys and he came along for the ride. That's how we met.

The ride was relatively short (by most bikepacking standards), but an epic one nonetheless. I had wanted to capture the experience as I do on many of my rides, so I recorded bits and pieces of video footage along the way, assembled it all into a timeline, and published it online. That was over 2 years ago.

Fast forward to this past Friday when I received the unexpected message above. I hadn't heard from Kim in a very long time and it was very refreshing and rewarding to receive a message of this nature. It made my entire afternoon to see that someone half a world away was reflecting back on some good times and epic moments that we had.

Cheers, buddy. We'll meet again sometime for another ride. I guess what goes around comes around is mostly true.

You can view the entire video of the ride I did with Kim & friends here: