Home > News

Ottawa cyclist treks to Florida in deep freeze

Stephen Keeping laying on his base miles by riding to the Sunshine State

Racing cyclists know they have to put in some serious base miles in order to prepare for the season. For Canadians, that often means travelling thousands of kilometres to escape winter’s deep freeze. But it’s not often they do both at the same time.

When Ottawa cyclist Stephen Keeping sat down to plan his 2013 season, a lightbulb went on: instead of driving or flying to Florida to put in his base miles, why not simply ride there and get his base along the way?

“I knew that it was going to be challenging to get the miles in, so if I did a trip like this, I’d have nothing else to do but ride,” said the Stevens Racing presented by The Cyclery rider.

So Keeping, 26, loaded up a trailer, hitched it to his cyclocross bike and headed south on Jan. 21. The only problem: Ottawa was in the grips of the coldest snap of the winter. When Keeping rolled out of town, it was -25 C and the roads were covered with snow. It didn’t take too long for the endeavour to seem like a very bad idea.

“I did take a tumble on day one,” Keeping said Monday from Goshen, N.Y., eight days and about 700 km into his trek. “I was just trying to get too far off the road for cars, and there’s just no shoulder.”

After 100 km of battling the snow and wind on that first day, Keeping ended up rolling into the border town of Cornwall, Ont., hours after sunset having bonked, unbonked and bonked again along the way.

“It just took me way longer than I thought and it was way harder and way colder,” he said.

Fortunately things improved from there. Keeping made steady progress, reaching Lake Placid, N.Y., on the third day and struggling over the Adirondacks with his 80-lb. trailer. He’s settling into a rhythm and knows what to expect.

“I’m learning to be a bit more prepared and learning from my mistakes,” Keeping said. That included Monday’s ride, which he had to cut short after 50 km – ironically because of warm weather.

“It was weird. I woke up to a bit of snow and it just warmed up a little bit,” he said. Although he was able to ditch his ski goggles for the first time, things quickly turned sour. “It was actually tougher because the snow really packs into your fenders and weighs the bike down.”

Keeping’s feet also quickly soaked through and he called it a day at a motel. Although he’s hauling a tent and camping gear, so far Keeping has enjoyed the hospitality of friends of friends and a couple motels along the way. He expects to camp more as he gets farther south.

Keeping has been chronicling his trek in a blog, called “Florida Or Bust.” The subtitle is “surprise mom!” – a reference to the fact he didn’t tell his parents what he was up to until after he’d left. Happily, they reacted well.

“They were very supportive actually,” he said. “I was worried they’d be worried, so I was delaying the inevitable.”

Keeping’s slow progress has forced him to revise his initial estimate of 25 days for the roughly 2,500-km trip. He now expects to arrive in Florida after 35 or 40 days. He’ll get some racing in on the bike he rode down on, a Stevens Prestige aluminum cyclocross rig. He opted not to use a carbon frame because of the stress of hauling a BOB trailer.

In order to keep it race-ready, he’s stuck with 39-53 chainrings and an 11-25 cassette. The only concession to touring is fenders.
Keeping’s advice to anyone else who wants to attempt a similar trip?

“Wait until it gets a bit warmer.”

Categories: News |