Event Article

Through Time on a Bicycle

by George Edwards

AN INTERPRETIVE RIDE THROUGH THE NATURAL HISTORY OF NORTH FLORIDA

 The Gainesville Cycling Club will present a monthly interpretive bicycle tour along part of the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail.  This will be a gentle, short ride, pausing often to notice things we might otherwise miss, and to learn about the rich and diverse natural history and culture of this area we call home.

We will start at Boulware Springs City Park, and talk about how Gainesville got its start at a picnic there in 1854, and how the picnic area grew to become an amusement park to which Gainesvillians could take the train to enjoy boating on the little lake, a dance pavilion, a shooting gallery, and a tiny zoo.  And we will tell the story about the bear.

The majestic vistas of the great basin of Paynes Prairie will present themselves for our viewing, and we will learn how this enormous sinkhole was formed as sea levels fell during the great global cooling of the Cenozoic, and imagine how it looked when elephants and lions roamed this vast plain.  And how the First People encountered them.  And hunted them.

Along the Trail we will remember the days of railroading, and perhaps find a fragment of bituminous coal, proof that steam engines once chuffed along this route.  We may see bits of rocks alien to Florida, fragments of granite that had to be imported, at great expense, to build a roadbed strong enough to support the massive weight of the trains.

We will pass by the site of the Seventeenth Century Rancho de la Chua, and the remains of its Twentieth Century successor, Camp's Ranch, and learn about the electric power plant that Bill Camp wanted to build here in the 1880's.

We will follow in the footsteps of William Bartram, who walked around the rim of Paynes Prairie in 1774, and learn how his writings made this area famous in every high school English class. 

We will cross Prairie Creek near where Bartram did, and hear the story of how the Seminole chief King Payne encountered marauding Georgian Daniel Newnan, and what happened then.  There we will walk out a boardwalk through a cypress swamp, and try to figure out why cypress trees have knees.

Through the Hammock we will see a successful longleaf pine ecosystem restoration, replacing early Nineteenth Century cotton fields.  Perhaps near there we will meet a gopher tortoise, another key element, along with the longleaf pine, in the natural Florida ecosystem.

We plan to do this tour once each month, from October to April, weather and interest permitting, and reservations are required.  We will have room for up to 15 persons for each tour.  To make a reservation, RSVP in the Members Area, News page, or call George Edwards at 352.373.2502.  Besides a reservation, you must have a serviceable bicycle with aired-up tires (there will be an electric pump at the Start, plus a few bike tools). 

As with all GCC rides, you must wear a helmet.  Rides are subject to weather restrictions, and may be cancelled at the last minute if the weather is less than clement.

To find the tour start, go South on SE 15th Street, and turn Right into the second (South) entrance to Boulware Springs City Park.  Not the first (North) entrance.  Park near the large white brick building in the sinkhole.  If you do not see a large white brick building you are in the wrong parking lot.  Go back to SE 15th Street, turn Right, and then Right again into the South entrance.