Nature Deficit Disorder: is the idea that human beings, especially children, are spending less time outdoors, and the belief that this change results in a wide range of behavioral problems (Wikipedia).
I will later touch basis in how I feel that I am dealing with this nature deficit thing later on in this post… with that being said lets get more into the Huracan300 experience.
Everything started a year ago when Forever Young wanted to do the Huracan 300 and we (Alex and I) backed down just a couple days before the start of it.
This year I wanted to back down again, but I didn’t because it wasn’t going to be fair to forever young. So…. we packed our car with our bikes and bags and headed to Santos, Ocala -FL.
Huracan 300 is a 670kms “bike race” in the center of Florida. Starts and ends at the same point; the Santos Camp Ground. It’s a self-supported event where the “organizer” gives you the GPS coordinates in a map for $45. There is no actual winner or loser in this race per say, you just take how many days you need to complete the “race” and that’s it…. the person who finishes it first has the best time… that’s it. As the organizer says “it only gives you bragging rights to say you completed it the fastest” and “The Journey is the prize”, statement with which I agree 1000% even though I did not go past the second day….. http://www.bikepacking.com/routes/huracan-300-bikepacking-route/
/https://www.singletracksamurai.com/about-singletrack-mountain-biking/
It’s a pretty brutal event let me say and even though I was only able to finish the first day, around 30% of the distance… It was a life-changing experience since it showed me a whole different perspective of cycling. I already knew that cycling could take you to breathtaking and remote places. I also knew that the feeling of accomplishing a tough ride compares to very few other things in life, but this whole bikepacking thing took cycling in my eyes to the next chapter. Just imagine that feeling you get when you finish a 30miles ride with tons of elevation and technical terrain….. well now add the fact that you don’t have to ride back to the starting point, you can just keep on pedaling until when your legs give up, set up camp, cook something in the middle of nowhere so you can hit the replay bottom the next day.
What I packed:
- Ultralight tent
- Ultralight sleeping pad
- Emergency blanket
- MSR portable ultralight kitchen
- Dow jacket
- Rain jacket
- 2 bibs, 3 jerseys, 5 pairs of socks, one night change
- 15 cliff bars, 12 Huma gels
- One headlamp
Bags wise, I had a Rapha saddle and handlebar bag. The handlebar bag fits the tent and some clothes without any problem, the issue comes with the saddle bag…. you can only fit either one sleeping pad or one sleeping pad, not both. I believe that this is because Rapha makes stuff for road cycling only basically and Roadies are not gonna be spending several nights in the outside, so if you are planning to do a multiday bikepacking trip, I would invest the money in another saddle bag.
As for my frame bags, I have two fairweather bags… all of them waterproof. They are hand made in Japan, quite expensive but I love how they look and are great quality.
There are definitely people who travel more minimalistic, and that’s my aim. I also was traveling with a Dakine Camelback… it wasn’t too heavy nor did it feel uncomfortable at any times, but by seeing and talking to other bike packers I now know there are more simple ways to bike pack.
Day 1 (planned 200kms vs. 175kms ridden)
The “race” starts with almost 30kms of Florida’s single track. Super flowy and actually beautiful (never thought I would say this about Florida’s Mtb trails…). This start was kinda painful to watch… we had been in our bikes for a little over two hours and we hadn’t even ridden 25kms… we thought to ourselves right away, it’s gonna be a long long night (which it was).
We rode for around 3 hours in the Santos/Ocala singletracks to the head towards the Marshall Swamps trailhead (what a beautiful scenery this was). Again, as I kinda mentioned before, I’m not a huge Florida nature fan, but this place was just out of a movie. I would definitely recommend everybody to head over there if given the chance.
After exiting the Santos trailhead you hit the paved road for a few kilometers until you get to a gas station (the last refill stop for the next 80kms or so). So we stopped here, bought some Gatorade and snacks and kept on pedaling. After entering a few minutes riding in a park we started seeing a kinda swamp nature paradise… I had never seen anything like that, but it was truly breathtaking. Then after exiting the swamp scene, we headed towards some fire/sand roads parallel to a field where the US airforce practice throwing bombs at targets. This place is in the middle of nowhere… We saw some cars in the field limits were they just park waiting for the US Airforce to drop bombs so they can hear the sounds of the explosions… Kind of random what activities or hobbies Americans have… Some of the roads were closed due to the bombing practice, so we had to take a parallel path to the one provided by “thesingletracksamurai”… This was a sand road… it was so sandy and so bad that we even saw some off roads vehicles (maybe jeeps) stuck in the dirt… We tried pedaling as hard and fast as we could to see how far each of us would get just for fun….. Turned out not to be a good idea to burn even one unnecessary calorie due to the distance we still had to cover ahead.
MiBiCi Adventures 