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Old 03-02-21, 06:17 PM
  #26  
OnTheTarmac
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Originally Posted by DocJames
What's the route like from a safety and traffic standpoint? Wide shoulders?

Planning at least one (will probably be more) trip to Florida this year myself. Have been there many times, but never with a bike.
Highly recommend it! This was my first bike trip in FL. I was on route A1A for pretty much the entire ride. Overall, did 215 miles over a few days, most of it was up and down that road, with a few detours. Coming from Philly, I was happy being in the sun so I didn't care that I was being repetitive.
The bike lane is wide and drivers stay out of it. Even more surprisingly, the cars respect the speed limit and generally let you merge, turn, etc politely. I had a close call with a beachgoer walking out between the cars not looking. Traffic is steady and often congested in the busy areas, but not dangerous. As you get farther away from Ft Lauderdale the roads become much nicer, with more scenery and far less traffic. The only problem is it's about 20 miles to get out of the busy FTL area so if you want to do short/medium rides, you have to deal with cars and the usual resort area commotion.

The stretch between Delray and Palm Beach was the best part, but like I said is ~20 miles north of FTL. Delray is a quaint little beach town, if I was going again I would stay there.

Once you get a few blocks from the water, it's like riding in a busy city, so best to stick to the barrier islands.
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