Because my brother lives in the Tampa Bay area I have occasion to visit there. You would normally think that an area like Hillsborough has no safe places at all to ride, but you would be as wrong as I was. While there visiting back in January he suggested a visit to one of the parks in the immediate area for a trail ride. After being disappointed by several we visited, which had looked like good candidates for a ride, only to see large signs saying "No Bicycles on Trails", we happened upon the Hillsborough Wildlife Management Area (Flatwoods Wilderness Park). It turned out that this park has a nine mile paved bike trail running through it. The only sign of civilization visible while riding the trail was the presence of an occasional small pump house in the distance down pickup truck trails leading off the pavement at points around the loop. While my brother and I rode this loop, we saw only 2 other persons on bikes (on a Monday morning). We did see, however, five armadillos (alive) rooting around in the grass along the edge of the paved trail, a large black snake (alive) slithering across it, several egrets, an owl, an osprey, lots of squirrels, a couple of wild pigs, and a variety of wild flowers, trees and a small lake.
At various points along the loop, unpaved single track could be seen leading off into the woods beckoning us to leave the pavement. My brother and I are easily lead astray and took several of these trails off through the woods. The trails varied, some were easy and some technical. One crossed a nice little babbling creek after riding through a tree-canopied pine needle covered single track, another lead us along the perimeter fence of this huge park into grass too tall and thick for us to push through, one lead through winding flatland with lots of overhanging branches and tricky maneuvering between narrow tree pairs (the kind that most appeals to the Rambo tendencies in my brother). One trail lead out to a tall grass covered containment hill on which we practiced climbing. Trails and thrills for every taste.
While there we noticed that a facility was under construction which appeared destined to include rest rooms and a concession stand (probably finished by now).
The Flatwoods Wilderness Park is located NE of Tampa on Morris Bridge Road, north of Morris Bridge Park.