Coming back after crash

For starters, stay the hell away from Sanibel. It's beautiful and all that, but the Q-Tips will kill you. The average driver down there is like 87, suffering from Alzheimer's, legally blind, driving a Caddy land whale from the 1980's and they usually have the reaction time of a Giant Hairy 3-Toed South American Tree Sloth.

Other than that, seek out quiet yet wide enough to be safely passed on back roads and have at it.

Maybe providing your age, health, cycling goals, type of cycling you do or want to do will generate more specific answers. i.e. you might be happy on multi-use bike paths or not. Are you training for competition?

I always advise people to find the local cycling clubs and organizations and see if you can ride with them, use their preferred routes, etc.

Good comments, all.... Some further information: I'm 60, in quite good shape (combination biking/running), would rather ride on the roads than bike paths, generally cycle at about 17-18 MPH, and not training for any competitive events. Thanks for any thoughts.

We're the same age and I also prefer riding and training on roads...although the slowly growing number of Rails-To-Trails bike paths are getting a little of my training time because they offer nice scenery.

I may require tossing the bike in a car or onto a bike rack, but getting away from urban/suburban Gold Coasters is going to be your best bet. I've ridden my motorcycles in your area (Ohio Snowbird) and that entire area is a traffic disaster.

One of Florida's problems, as far as road cycling, is finding safe secondary and tertiary roads to ride on. It seems like as soon as they build a road down there, condos follow with the traffic out-pacing the road development. Northern Florida seemed better for riding in my humble non-local opinion.

Again, I would suggest riding with a group, when possible. Your age and speed range should make it it easy for you to fall in with any number of club groups from sportive level to aspiring racers to triathlete types to fast tourists, etc. There is safety in numbers and often more fun to be had than training solo.

I've bicycled the East coast of Florida a time or two and I wish we had your fine weather!