Bike riding at The Villages

After visiting the farmers' market on Saturday, we checked with one of the security folks that we saw onsite to determine if we would be allowed to ride our bikes on the golf cart trails, and he indicated that it would be fine! Since the bikes were in the back of the Jeep, we decided to go ahead and bike ride right then!

There are golf cart trails all over The Villages - there is really no reason to use a car for most daily activities - even going to the grocery store or doctor's office can be accomplished via a golf cart (link to google map bicycle layer view: https://www.google.com/maps/@28.8236329,-82.0101404,14z/data=!5m1!1e3)

We crossed over County Road 44...

... and then headed along Meggison Road.

When we were on the trolley tour on Friday, Mike had mentioned the "Water Lily Golf Cart Bridge" over Florida's turnpike, so we decided to try biking over it...

Approaching the Water Lily Bridge

Crossing the Water Lily Bridge

Tollway down below

Now on the west side of the turnpike, we decided to continue south and cross back over using Warm Springs Avenue that was indicated as "bike friendly".

Along the way, we came across Hogeye Pathway (https://www.thevillages.com/whatsnew/recreation/hogeye-preserve-path) -- which Mike had also told us about on the trolley ride.

We studied the information...

...it seemed that golf carts were not allowed, but walking and biking were, so we decided to ride through the preserve.

It was really beautiful -- some of these houses have really great views!

Very quiet and peaceful.

When we eventually got down to Warm Springs Avenue, we found that it was not particularly bike friendly, but we managed to use it to cross the toll road and then got back onto golf paths on the east side of the tollway.

As we got back up to the area where the Water Lily Golf Cart Bridge was located, we stopped to take a picture of one of the golf cart traffic circles. There are a lot of traffic circles within The Villages for cars - and a few for golf carts too!

We ended up biking a little over 10 miles - it was enjoyable, though the golf carts go pretty fast (we'd be going 15-16MPH and they would power past us).

There are musical groups performing at 3-4 different locations within The Villages every night. We decided to return on Friday night to see "Think Big Band"...

At the stop light to turn into the Brownwood area, a little further down County Road 44, you can see the golf cart bridge that we crossed at the beginning of our bike ride earlier in the day.

We were thinking that "Think Big Band" would possibly do big band music, but they did 60s and early 70s rock music. Some people were line dancing in the area in front of the band. We only stayed about 45 minutes -- the skies were threatening rain, so we headed home, encountering rain soon after we got back in the Jeep.

We are enjoying this area of Florida!