27 October 2023
This is our post-rally report and I’m pleased to note we were able to enjoy all three days of riding at the Florida Tandem Rally in Wildwood, Florida hosted by the Florida Panthers Tandem Club based in The Villages adjacent to Wildwood. Note: I’m still waiting to see if the many photos taken by Bob Thompson throughout the weekend begin to appear somewhere on the internet and, if and when they do, I’ll add them.
As an added-bonus that can easily be skipped, this rally report also includes our post-rally stop at Jekyll Island where we spent another two days riding our fat-tire, Fandango tandem around the island on it’s lovely mixture of bicycle paths and off-road trails that crisscross the southern end of the island. Given Jekyll was just three hours-away from The Villages and the drive-home from there is only 5-1/2-hours vs. the 6-1/2-hours from Wildwood, it was just too hard not to tie-in a return visit to Jekyll even though it’s only been about a month since our last trip.
Pre-Trip Planning: After going out for a ride on Tuesday and getting serious about preparing for our trip down to The Villages north of Orlando for the 2023 Florida Tandem Rally, I began to toy with the idea of adding-on a two or three-day stay at Jekyll Island on the way back. However, as it was a few weeks back when I was toying with the idea, the cost for a three-night stay was what I’d expect to pay if we were staying in a room in the Jekyll Island Club’s San Souci Apartments were we’d spent our honeymoon back in 1993.
However, on Wednesday after taking care of the yard work, I went back on-line and son-of-a-gun if Sunday and Monday night’s rate had dropped to a reasonable — reasonable for a post-Covid 19 world of runaway inflation — rate that made the stop-over, albeit brief, worth booking: if Debbie said thanks, but no-thanks we had until Friday night to cancel the reservation at no cost. I let her know about my revised trip plan and she was thrilled! We’d take both tandems along for our trip and use the Calfee for the road riding at the tandem rally, and then pull-out our gravel-tandem for riding on Jekyll Island.
The change in plans now required that I figure out how to take both tandems along without putting one up on the roof of the truck: yeah, that wasn’t going to work. So, I pulled-down the Yakima roof rack that I acquired back in 2012 so we could roof-top the three-seat tandem and dug-out the rear-wheel holder that attaches to the fiberglass camper shell with two large suction cups and began to figure out what changes I’d need to make to accommodate the 3-foot shorter tandem.
After getting both tandems down from their respective storage hooks I remembered how heavy the gravel tandem was with it’s three-inch-wide rear tire that needed to be on the bike to roof-top it. So, it would be our super-lightweight Calfee road tandem that drew the short-straw and would be stuck out in the weather, 70-mph wind blast and bugs as well as getting soaked from the nightly dew and any rain on this trip.
After making some adjustments to the rack and what not, I did a trial mounting and all looked good. And with that, the gravel tandem went in the back of the truck along with all my tools and it’s massive tires as well as the short step-ladder I’d need to use to get the Calfee on and off the truck. And, I picked-up a small convex mirror to fit to my driver’s side mirror that would allow me to keep an eye on the tandem as we were driving, less the rear wheel start to move around.
The Drive Down to Florida & Our First Night at The Villages
Thursday: We had a casual morning and left around 10:30am for the for 6-1/2-hour, 419-mile drive to the Hilton Home2 Suites in Wildwood, Florida. Other than the usual, rolling traffic jam that adds 20-minutes to your drive on Interstate-75 drive through McDonough, Georgia just south of Atlanta, it was an easy and uneventful trip.
We’d already made tentative plans to meet with our friends Paul & Jody from Atlanta who we’d not seen in several years, so after arriving at the hotel and getting settled into our room we all jumped-in my truck and headed off to the Prima Italian Steakhouse in the Brownwood Paddock Square, about a 12-minute drive into The Villages. Note that, one of the benefits of having a long-bed, double-cab is that we retain our use of an uncluttered four-seat vehicle at tandem cycling events.
For those who don’t know, The Villages is a collection of four or five major “communities” comprised of 78 smaller neighborhoods, some with as few as 100 homes, while others have more than 1,000: all told, there are purportedly over 41,000 homes and over 80,000 residents per the 2020 census, with the actual number of full and part-time residents at somewhere over 141,000. At present, they’re still growing and adding about 4,000 homes a year. In terms of land area, The Villages covers 80 square miles, equivalent to more than 51,200 acres. Golf is the most popular avocation and there are 12 championship golf courses, 38 executive golf courses and 4 practice facilities, where playing a round at most of the courses is included in the annual homeowner association fees, as is lawn care, trash, etc. Yeah, it’s almost incomprehensible but we could see the appeal during our visit and also appreciated the very different feel each of the major communities had. Amazingly, The Villages is still owned by the Morse family, descendants of Harold Schwartz, who founded what became the The Villages in the 1970s as the Orange Blossom Gardens trailer park surrounded by pasture land that still sits on the eastern edge of The Villages. Schwartz and his son Gary Morse began to fully-developed the land based on the Sun City in Tampa, Florida, model in 1983 and renamed it as The Villages in 1992. A full history can be found here.
It was great visiting with Paul & Jody again, and our dinner at Prima was excellent: Pecan Encrusted Halibut, Pan Seared and Finished with Maple Brown Sugar Glaze, Paired with Truffle Mashed Potatoes and Grilled Asparagus. I must note, when we arrived at Brownwood Paddock Square around 5:30pm, the place was jam-packed with residents as a live band was playing in the square from 5:00pm until 9:00pm and it was also VIP night at Prima: VIPs get their entrees for half-price. So we had a good 45-minute wait to be seated, and it took a bit longer than normal for our meals to arrive. And, we’re told it gets even more crowded and busy towards December and through March when the ‘Snowbirds’ make their way to the winter homes in The Villages. Back at the hotel, we mingled a bit in the lobby area with other folks whom we knew from previous tandem rallies and then called it a night.
Friday: We were up, had breakfast and on-time for the rider’s meeting before heading out on the 37-mile ‘medium’ route on what was our 83rd tandem rally; our first was the Alabama Tandem Weekend at Fairhope, Alabama in 1998.
The weather was wonderful, although the ‘locals’ from Florida couldn’t believe we were heading-out in shorts and short-sleeve / sleeveless jerseys, but the high-60s and sun felt good to us. I suspect we rode a good 9-10 miles around the perimeter road of The Villages before heading off-campus and into the horse and livestock country to the north. Other than being mostly flat-riding, at times it was reminiscent of riding through Virginia horse country with large green, fenced-in horse ranches and cattle farms. We passed by Lake Weir and even encountered some ‘real’ hills with 6% and 10% grades.
We rode with three other couples for most of the route, mixing-it-up with several others as the different routes all began to converge towards the latter half of the ride. Our most constant companions were George and Marti, Art and Miriam and Philip and Beth, with the latter two having electric-assist on their tandems. But, they both used assist settings that were typically on par with our nature-assist tandems that reply only upon their human-powered drive systems. Back at the hotel, I put the tandem back up on top of our truck for the night vs. trying to take it up to our 3rd floor hotel room: that’s just not how we roll…. so to speak.
For lunch, we headed back to Brownwood Paddock Square and found some empty seats at the Harvest Restaurant and Bar outside bar on the square. We split their Harvest Burger on a brioche bun topped with brie cheese, crispy prosciutto, arugula, and truffle aioli; it was delicious.
Back at the hotel, I noticed the ‘plunger’ on one of the two ‘SeaSucker’ suction-cup/vacuum-fixed mounts that hold the rear wheel in place on top of the truck’s camper shell had ‘popped-out’ to where the orange band was showing as an indicator that the vacuum seal had been lost.
Sadly, it turned-out the 12-year-old plastic plunger had failed. I’ve always used two of these where one would suffice as a fail-safe in the event the other one ever failed and that paid-off. After doing an autopsy on the plunger assembly, I belief the plunger failed due to it’s age, and the other mount was just as old so my fail-safe approach was in jeopardy. My solution was to order a replacement ‘SeaSucker’ on line and have it over-night delivered to the hotel. Well, sadly, the earliest it could be delivered anywhere in Florida was ‘some time’ on Sunday, the day we’d be making a 200-mile, 3-1/2-hour drive over to Jekyll Island before noon. My fallback was to go ahead and order the replacement and have it delivered to our hotel at Jekyll Island so it would be there when we arrived to support our much-longer, 350-mile drive home on Tuesday. As insurance against the 2nd ‘SeaSucker’ failing, I used a few pieces of Gorilla Tape to secure the failed mount to the roof of the truck. And, as if that wasn’t enough misfortune, the small convex mirror I’d attached to the truck’s driver side mirror that allowed me to keep an eye on the tandem as we drove came loose. So, I had to get some double-sided mounting tape to address that.
With that all resolved, we opted to stay at the hotel for dinner, as our hosts and long-time friends Bob & Jan Thompson had arranged for a food truck that specialized in BBQ to come to the hotel, as well as food truck that served ice cream. That seemed like a great idea vs. heading off to find a place to eat on a Friday night in and around The Villages.
Saturday: Our day began with a 7:30am get-up so we could grab breakfast, I could get the tandem off the truck and be dressed and ready to go for today’s 44-mile riders meeting at 8:50am, We opted to stick with a group where we knew a few of the folks from Friday’s ride and our long-time tandem friends Lonnie and Carol. We also knew our friends George and Marti would be riding the same 44-mile route, and once again we had a great time.
The 44-mile ride pace was healthy, but not as competitive as what we typically found at other tandem rallies. And, as noted for Friday’s ride, it didn’t prove to be too awkward given there were quite a few tandem with electric-motor-assist systems. In fact, the electric-assist tandems helped to keep the pace high at times with a large group — without shedding teams and leaving many times riding alone — which honestly improved the riding dynamics and experience. Yes, it’s kind of weird to have folks riding at a level that’s on par with or even faster than what would otherwise be stronger and fast teams — and often times setting the pace — but by golly it worked. And, since we weren’t racing with rewards or egos on the line for finishing first, it just sorted itself out quite nicely.
Although, I will confess that during that final 8-miles before the lunch stop and back in The Villages — mostly riding on their very-nice perimeter road sometimes with and without bike lanes –– the pace did pick-up to where we were pushing it pretty hard at times, especially when we got caught at a very-long stoplight mid-pack and then felt compelled to chase down the front half of the group that had picked-up the pace, lead by the electric-assist bikes. And, as luck would have it, when we were within 100-yards of catching the group, we got caught at yet another stop light. This time we opted to just deal with the luck of the draw and rode the rest of the way to our lunch top with the rest of the group that got caught at the light at a more reasonable pace.
Lunch was served at the 38-mile mark at the Rohan Recreation Center at the southern-most point to our 44-mile ride and, once again, we probably rode at least half of the route inside The Villages. The Rohan banquet room we ate in was a lovely, way-too-nice for how we were dressed, airconditioned space with 8-seat ’rounds’ covered with white table cloths and the meal was a wonderful, buffet-style cold cut and cold salad lunch. We shared our table with our long-time tandem friends Bob & Jan, Jodi & Paul and George and Marti.
Again, just a great time to be sure, and despite having not a lot of time on the tandem under our belts since the 2023 Georgia Tandem Rally where our Saturday ride was cut-short at the 11-mile point when a large chuck of wire was kicked-up into our drive-chain and tore the rear-derailleur off the bike and bent the titanium rear-drop-out.
After our ride, we returned to the hotel to clean-up and then went off to explore a bit, making a trip back to the Lake Sumter Landing Market Square, the only other square we’d previously been too way back in October 2009 when the Southern Tandem Rally was hosted by what became the Panthers Tandem Club at The Villages. To say it had changed would be an understatement of the highest order. What was at that time a fairly quiet place on a Saturday afternoon in 2009 where we were able to have lunch at R.J. Gator’s bar, was now totally surrounded by tightly-packed homes on all sides with what must have been 200-people gathered outside for live music and dancing at their outside bar, at least 60-or-so who had brought their own folding sports-chairs on the far-side of the patio area.
We’d considered heading on to the Spanish Springs Town Square where our friend Lonnie had let me know they’d be having live-music and a cruise-in / car show, but fearing that too would be far-too crowded for our tastes at the moment, we opted to head back to the Brownwood Paddock Square where we found some empty seats at the BlueFin Grill and Bar — owned by the same folks as the Harvest — for dinner and had an even enjoyable time with ‘Mike’ tending the bar, a snarky-kind of fellow who has lived in and around Wildwood since before The Villages was founded. While watching college football we enjoyed their Oysters Rockefeller as an appetizer and then the Ahi Tuna steak off the Fresh Fish menu blackened with Mango Salsa & Dark Rum Buerre Blanc sauce and a side of delicious, grilled asparagus. It was hands-down the best Ahi Steak meal we could recall.
From there, we headed back to the hotel where we settled into lobby and watched the Major League Playoff games, which drew a fun crowd before heading to our room to finish up the game and read before bed.
Sunday: The day started-off a bit earlier than the past two days, as today’s rider’s meeting was being held at 8:20am, with an 8:30am ride start… 30-minutes ahead of Friday and Saturday’s ride starts.
I should note, we’ve probably skipped the Sunday ride on three-day tandem rallies for at least the last 10 years. But. we were feeling good and so enjoyed the group riding on Saturday and Sunday — never finding ourselves out in ‘no man’s land’ stuck between faster and slower groups — that we decided to hang-in there and give it a go.
We had no problem being ready to go for the ride and it was a great experience. We took our lead once again from our friends Lonnie and Carol and some new friends we’d ridden with on Friday and Saturday. It was 27-mile ride to the southern end of The Villages development and we were always riding with at least 6-10 other teams at a healthy pace with great weather on very good roads with mostly well-behaved motorists.
We opted to get packed-up and head-off for Jekyll Island right after finishing our ride and were on the road by 11:00am for the 200-mile, 3-1/2-hour drive. It was a relatively easy ride mostly on secondary highways where we by-passed Interstate-10 and a good portion of Interstate-95.
As for making sure our Calfee tandem didn’t come off the roof of the truck on the drive over to Jekyll, the Gorilla Tape held fast for the entire ride, noting that the single 6″ SeaSucker mount was probably more than enough for making sure the rear wheel of the tandem didn’t dance-around on the camper shell. We stopped at the Jekyll Island Visitor’s Center and Gift Shop on the way into Jekyll where Debbie found a Christmas ornament and we got a great endorsement for taking the Hollybourne Cottage tour from one of the folks at the store.
Our first stop once we were on the island was Tortuga Jacks, where we had a late lunch while taking in our million dollar view from the Tiki Bar before making the short drive back to the Home2 Suites by Hilton in the Village Green. As I was checking in our hostess handed me the Amazon package with the 4-1/2″ replacement Sea Sucker mount, so we’d be good to go for at least our drive home; a great relief, to be sure.
We stayed-in for the rest of the evening, with me reading my latest book on Jekyll Island during the Georgia State Parks era while Debbie jumped back and forth between the Sunday night football and Major League Baseball playoff game. All-in-all, it was another great stay at our beloved Jekyll Island where we got in another 2-days of tandem riding, about 23-miles on Monday and then another 20-miles on Tuesday, noting we extended our 2-night-stay to 3-nights and didn’t head home until Monday.
I will confess, what ever I’ve gotten into — be it poison oak or something else that has small welts all over my hands and forearms and now migrating to my chest that are irritating and itchy — had made for some restless nights and that’s starting to take a toll.
Monday: As noted, I had something of a restless night and finally got up around 6:30am and moved into the ‘lounge area’ in our room where I continued reading while Debbie slept for another 30-60 minutes before we got up, had breakfast and then got ready to begin our day with a tandem ride at 9:30am.
We headed out for our tandem ride around the island after breakfast and, all told, we rode some 22-miles exploring trails on the south side of the island, checking out the Christmas season lighting displays still being installed just as was the case in late September when we last visited.
We also took time to ‘cruise’ around the Historic District before heading off for the North island loop route where we stopped to find the Brown Cottage ruins, the Club Dairy Farm ruins, visit the fishing pier, and then find Horton Pond before finishing up our loop with a stop for lunch at Tortuga Jacks.
Our original plan was to only spend two-nights on Jekyll before heading home on Tuesday afternoon, giving us enough time to get in one more tandem ride around the island, etc. and time our drive home to get us through Atlanta after the evening ‘rush hour’ period.
However, once we were back at the hotel, Debbie opted to go and get some sun while I relaxed in the room, did some bill paying on-line and took a look at the one-night rates for Tuesday night just to see on the off-chance that they had enough cancellations that opened-up a reasonably-priced one-night rate. Sure enough, there were a handful of rooms for a much-more reasonable $171/night vs. $335/night that had been the going-rate when I last checked. After Debbie confirmed she’d enjoy spending one more night on the island before we headed home, I went ahead and booked it and also applied some of our ‘points’ that brought the room rate down to $85/night. So, we could now enjoy another full day on the island, something we were both enjoying immensely.
It was around 2:30pm when we headed over to the Jekyll Island Historic District to take a tour of the Hollybourne Cottage: wow; it well worth it. Zoe was our guide and it while it was only her 3rd week since starting to do the tours, she knocked it out of the park… and she and the other couple on our intimate tour appreciated my various historic footnotes. I have so enjoyed knowing so much more about the history of the island as I worked-through my journal entry and have been surprised at how often I’ve been able to share much of what I’ve learned when chatting with other guests, folks who work on the island and even some of the residents. Such was the case during our tour when I was able to help clarify and expand a bit on what Zoe had learned from the tour notes provided to her by the Jekyll Island History Department and other tour guides.
With regard to the Hollybourne Cottage, in 1890 it became the third of fifteen cottages built at Jekyll and the only one owned by the same family all the way through the Club years before the state of Georgia acquired the Island with all of it’s improvements for $675,000 via the condemnation process. It was designed by the owner and bridge-designer Charles Maurice with a bridge-like truss system that mitigated the need for second-story support columns in the middle of the large downstairs dining room, foyer and parlor and was the only cottage in the Club that used a concrete-like tabbi material for the exterior, load-bearing walls. As an interesting anecdote, in 2017 Charles & Charlotte Maurice’s great-great granddaughter Holly Maurice McClure was married on the front steps of the Hollybourne Cottage — something others can do — but had the unique experience of enjoying a private dinner in the partially restored cottage served on the Maurice family’s original dining room table Hollybourne that had been in storage and was restored for the occasion.
From the Hollybourne tour, we went to the shops in the Village Green for the first time and Debbie had a grand time and came away with a cute crop-top T-shirt and a dress. From there, we headed to Tortuga Jacks for an early dinner, despite the cool temps and 20mph winds. Our surf and turf entrée was great and worth fighting through the chill factor so we could once again enjoy that million-dollar view of the Atlantic Ocean.
We were back at the hotel by 6:00pm where Debbie got warmed-up and watched the Phillies vs Diamond Backs MLB division game while I began to work on this journal, with my first entries since the last one I published on 8 October: Yikes! I had a lot of catching up to do.
Tuesday: Our day began with breakfast before we moved from our 1st floor, pool-side room to a 3rd floor room that had the best view of the ocean at the Home2 Suites. Now set for a final 24-hours, we got ourselves dressed for our second bicycle ride around the island.
In what was essentially a repeat of Monday’s ride, we headed-off with mild, upper 60F temps and a brisk 17mph wind on a lovely, sunny day.
We headed south on the paved bike trail and then jumped-off onto the sand-covered off-road trails that made their way through almost a tunnel of trees on the mostly undeveloped south end of the island. Honestly, the addition of the unpaved riding on the south end of the island has truly transformed the quality of our riding around Jekyll. While it reduced our total ride distance from 24-miles for the out-and-back ride around the north end of the island by about 4-miles, it’s just so enjoyable when we get to disappear into the very lightly-used off-road trails that meander through natural, now overgrown area that’s dotted with small marshlands and ponds.
Having done most of our exploring on yesterday’s ride, today’s ride was all about just enjoying the views and taking our time since this was today’s primary activity. The only other tours we could take were of the Roosevelt’s ‘Indian Mound’ Cottage which we’d done while honeymooning on the island back in 1993 or of the Jekyll Island Club Hotel which was a distinct possibility, if not on this trip perhaps on a subsequent trip. The latter could come as early as late November or early December as we’d very much like to see the island all lit-up for the Christmas holiday now that we’ve seen how much time and effort they put into decorating the island, never mind that the rates are reasonable.
Serendipity: The luck some people have in finding or creating interesting or valuable things by chance.
While out for our late morning, daily tandem bicycle ride and on a whim, we decided to add a stop at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel to see how much it changed since July 1993 when we spent our honeymoon there. After parking our bike next to the porte-cochere, we climbed the steps to the covered porch, walked around the club house to find the old hotel entrance and as we came around a corner much to our absolute surprise found my former boss and retired Lockheed executive Ross Reynolds and his wife Debby enjoying some quiet time reading in the shade of the covered porch above the courtyard. No, I failed to get a photo, but I will say Ross looks unchanged, they both look great, are doing well and continue to enjoy life on both the east and west coasts, with Jekyll Island being a regular place to visit now and again.
After spending a good 30-minutes catching up with Ross and Debby, we headed-off for the 2nd half of our ride, with a lunch stop at Tortuga Jacks — surprise, surprise — before the short ride back to our hotel where I put the tandem away for the last time on this trip.
Wednesday: Unlike our original plan for Tuesday when we’d get in one final tandem ride before heading home in the early afternoon, we had ourselves up and packed before we headed down to breakfast at 7:30am and were on-our-way home by 8:00am.
The road-trip home was both uneventful and traffic-free with just two-stops: one right before we jumped on the interstate after leaving Jekyll, and then at around the 1/2-way point in Dublin, Georgia 2-1/2 hours later on our 354-mile, 5-1/2-hour drive.
It was good to be home as neither of us had any desire to head-out for dinner or anywhere else for that matter. We just unloaded the truck, unpacked and Debbie ran over to Publix to pick-up some fried chicken — comfort food, if you will — for dinner.
The TandemGeek's Blog 
I always enjoy your rally write-ups.