hig4s

I am writing a book, Mountain Biking Florida, it will be released end of May. It is mostly finished, for the next month I am just going trails to get pictures to add. It will have trail information, local restaurants and bike shops, and some local tourist attractions. It will also have links to various YouTube videos of the trails to give an idea of what they are actually like. Any suggestions of what else would be useful information would be appreciated.

trailangel

Would it be a book or a pamphlet?

rumrunn6

directions & parking maybe?

prj71

prj71

Places that are better than Florida for mountain biking.

Steeljag

hig4s

It will be a Kindle e-book with live links to trail maps, park websites, local restaurants, and other local attractions. As a Kindle book, it will be occasionally updated and will be available to Kindle Unlimited members. The brewery idea is a good one. There are a ton of local breweries in Florida, some of them quite good.

The bikes are called mountain bikes, so it is called mountain biking whether you are on an actual mountain or not. I started mountain biking in Michigan back in the 70s about the same time the Marin County guys did. That was before you could buy a mountain bike. You had to build your own, of course then we called them trail bikes.

I figure everyone here knows English well enough to know that it is mountain biking even if you are not on a mountain, but some people just wanted to bash Florida. If you live somewhere with great mountains, and serious downhill trail, good for you. Not everyone does. And while I travel to other places, I live in Florida. When there is several feet of snow on the mountain trails, and you can't ride, I'm still riding. Some people vacation here and don't even know there are trails and never bring their bikes.. This could be useful to them.

There are thousands of miles of single track in Florida. Alex from Singletrack Sampler first started riding mountain bikes in Florida. Seth, from Seth's Bike Hacks still comes down to ride occasionally when there is too much snow up north to ride. There are trails from totally flat easy gravel and dirt multi-use, to fast flow singletrack trails, (of course you have to peddle the straights at times to keep up your speed), to serious technical roots and rocks. There are not long ups or downs, but we do have a few, and we have dozens of serious organizations around the state that do a great job with what they have to work with. Both Santos and Alafia have a few gap jumps.

Here is the newest one at Alafia. If you miss, you could be lunch for a gator.

hig4s

I build my first mountain bike in 1970 when I lived in Michigan. I moved to San Diego and lived and road there for three years, then moved to LA county and live and road there for two more, then moved to Hawaii for two years. Did you know there are actual mountain bike trails there too now? I know there are real mountains that have bike trails available all year, but that is not the case in most areas of the country. And there are very few not on the West Coast. Not an option for everyone. If you don't like Florida and don't want to ride here, fine. Not everyone likes California either. But if you are ever in Florida and want to ride just to see, and don't want to buy my book because you think a book on mountain biking Florida is lame, let me know. I will personally show you the best trails here for free, I will introduce you to some people here that can really ride (I'm not really one of them). You may still think the trails are lame, but I bet you meet some good people and still have fun. And as far as I'm concerned that's what it's all about.

hig4s

Of all the thousands of trails in the US. very few are in actual mountains and open all year and even those that are are not riden by most of the 40 millions mountain bikers during the winter. A lot of people don't like to ride in the snow even if they can. So just because you don't like Florida it is no reason to keep being rude here. So it is not for you, move along, these are not the droids you are looking for.

prj71

Dirt Pathing.

carlosponti

youtubers BKXC, Seths Bike Hacks and Singletrack sampler all have some nice videos on the Florida trails some look really fun.

hig4s

There will be youtube links to videos by them and many others in the book for almost every trail listed in the book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q434LC8

PaulRivers

A map of florida with dots showing where each place is. When you're in fort lauderdale, it makes it way easier to look up "what trails are by me" via a map than paging through each one.

hig4s

Oh, that's a good idea. Damn it, I thought I was almost done.

avmech

prj71

Pssst...

https://www.mtbproject.com/mobile-app

https://www.mtbproject.com/directory...ort-lauderdale

hig4s

I am hoping most people know about this, and the TrailForks website and app.
The book will have active links straight to each trail's MTB Project and Trail Forks map, (if they have one, not all trails are on both).
I use the websites and phone apps for both sites regularly, they are invaluable.

mixteup

I think what it is, is that many people's sole experience of Florida is I-95, and south FL, at the end of it.
I live in rural NW Florida, and there are a LOT of hills here, some pretty steep, and miles and miles of single track and dirt road riding
in the national and state forests, and some very extensive watershed management lands.
So, yeah, I think a book on off road riding in Florida is a great idea.

hig4s

Mountain Biking Florida Kindle book is now available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q434LC8

qclabrat

well done, and good job deflecting the noise
I'm going to pass this on to my buddy who moved down to Tampa from NJ. He's shown us pics where he's been riding. While it may not have the epic climbs and gnarly tech we have in the NE, it makes up for endless flow. It's all mtbing to me.