One of the guys in my Vulcan Riders Club wrote this response to my concerns about riding in the open midwest compared to the metropolis of Tampa-St. Pete-Clearwater:
Wow!!! Now that you've heard from all the experts that DON'T live here, I'm not sure what I can add.
Lemme offer a couple of corrections first:If you head east from St. Pete, ya don't get rural, ya get wet. St. Pete is a peninsula that sticks out between the Gulf and Tampa Bay. You either go south to a bridge and keep goin' south until ya can go east, north to a different bridge and THEN head east, or north to, well, north. West just gets ya wetter.
The Cuban population in St. Pete is minimal. Most of the Cubans are either in south Florida (which is not where St. Pete is) or Tampa.....not St. Pete. When I moved from St. Pete to Tampa, even though it was a relatively short distance across one of the bridges, it was a culture shock. I suddenly heard the K-Mart blue light specials in Spanish; wouldn't happen in St. Pete.
Happy: if "happy" is defined by where you are, you may not be happy here. Maybe anywhere. My riding might be more enjoyable if I lived in the mountains, but I doubt my level of overall happiness would change much. Talkin' with Fred at the Kickstand several years ago, I was lamenting my lack of good riding roads in Florida and he agreed; he lived here for a long time. Then we talked about his travels to Home Depot to get building materials for the campground and how he was something like two hours from from the Kickstand to Home Depot. I'm five minutes. He had a helluva long way to find a Kawasaki dealer, I have four to pick from within thirty minutes. We agreed there are trade-offs.St. Pete and the whole bay area is not a bad spot to ride, I've logged tens of thousands of miles here and I still enjoy each one. A lot. Stoplights, intersections, bad drivers, of course. Same ones I've seen in rural North Carolina, rural Maine or rural California, just more of 'em. Either ya get used to it or ya hang up the bike. Most get used to it and enjoy it but some never do. Most times when I hear someone complaining how they quit riding because of the area, they're just whiney asses that woulda quit for some other reason anyway. Either that or they're fulla crap and never did ride. There's a reason the Quaker Steak and Lube in St. Pete is the biggest bike night I've ever seen......thousands every Wednesday. They must like it.Old people: yeah we got 'em and some are lousy drivers. Most of em brought it with 'em from the north when they migrated, it ain't necessarily related to their age {;>)Depending on where in St. Pete ya start and where ya go, you can be outta town and on open backroads in twenty minutes. Bring the bike, ride it and see for yourself what ya think. I'm guessing you'll like it.
JokerVROC
93Rogue
Tampa,,,,FL
Wow!!! Now that you've heard from all the experts that DON'T live here, I'm not sure what I can add.
Lemme offer a couple of corrections first:If you head east from St. Pete, ya don't get rural, ya get wet. St. Pete is a peninsula that sticks out between the Gulf and Tampa Bay. You either go south to a bridge and keep goin' south until ya can go east, north to a different bridge and THEN head east, or north to, well, north. West just gets ya wetter.
The Cuban population in St. Pete is minimal. Most of the Cubans are either in south Florida (which is not where St. Pete is) or Tampa.....not St. Pete. When I moved from St. Pete to Tampa, even though it was a relatively short distance across one of the bridges, it was a culture shock. I suddenly heard the K-Mart blue light specials in Spanish; wouldn't happen in St. Pete.
Happy: if "happy" is defined by where you are, you may not be happy here. Maybe anywhere. My riding might be more enjoyable if I lived in the mountains, but I doubt my level of overall happiness would change much. Talkin' with Fred at the Kickstand several years ago, I was lamenting my lack of good riding roads in Florida and he agreed; he lived here for a long time. Then we talked about his travels to Home Depot to get building materials for the campground and how he was something like two hours from from the Kickstand to Home Depot. I'm five minutes. He had a helluva long way to find a Kawasaki dealer, I have four to pick from within thirty minutes. We agreed there are trade-offs.St. Pete and the whole bay area is not a bad spot to ride, I've logged tens of thousands of miles here and I still enjoy each one. A lot. Stoplights, intersections, bad drivers, of course. Same ones I've seen in rural North Carolina, rural Maine or rural California, just more of 'em. Either ya get used to it or ya hang up the bike. Most get used to it and enjoy it but some never do. Most times when I hear someone complaining how they quit riding because of the area, they're just whiney asses that woulda quit for some other reason anyway. Either that or they're fulla crap and never did ride. There's a reason the Quaker Steak and Lube in St. Pete is the biggest bike night I've ever seen......thousands every Wednesday. They must like it.Old people: yeah we got 'em and some are lousy drivers. Most of em brought it with 'em from the north when they migrated, it ain't necessarily related to their age {;>)Depending on where in St. Pete ya start and where ya go, you can be outta town and on open backroads in twenty minutes. Bring the bike, ride it and see for yourself what ya think. I'm guessing you'll like it.
JokerVROC
93Rogue
Tampa,,,,FL
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