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SWAMP Members Serious About Biking

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By RICK FOLSTAD, Tribune correspondent

Published: November 2, 2007

TROUT CREEK PARK - They're gone.

Only a second ago, the pack was just a little ways ahead of me, almost within yelling distance. I could even see an occasional flash of blue spandex through the trees, so I knew I was still in the hunt.

Then I hit a thick branch crossing the bike trail and did a little crash and burn, swallowed some dirt and pride. I was lucky. I was running dead last, so there was no one behind me to see me take the header or, worse, crash into me.

So now they're gone, out of sight, peddling away into the quiet wilderness without me. Suddenly, I'm alone in the wild; just me and my one-speed, $75 Huffy special.

We're about one mile into a 15-mile bike ride, and I've already been abandoned.

It's so quiet.

But it's probably best. I didn't want to slow them up, become a burden. Instead, I'll just work my way back to the starting point. Pretend that's what I had planned to do all along.

Realizing that my group is already far away, I come to the quick conclusion that the members of the SouthWest Association of Mountainbike Pedalers (SWAMP) are pretty serious about their biking. And they don't need mountains. They've got the woods.

When I recently asked to ride along with the SWAMP club on its regular Morris Bridge evening ride on Tuesdays, I thought we'd be riding bulky, coaster-brake bikes on wide, smooth, park-ranger maintained paths. We'd pedal a few miles, stop and examine the fauna and flora, maybe tell some jokes, sip some wine.

I didn't know.

According to Wes Eubank, founder and 'honorary Grand Pooh-Bah' of SWAMP, the Tampa-based club has almost 550 members, many from as far away as Miami and Jacksonville. Eubank said that's because the Tampa area has some of the best and most accessible bike trails in the state.

'Many other areas, like Miami, Jacksonville and Orlando, are just too built up. They have very few places to ride,' Eubank said. 'We've built and maintain about 150 miles of trails within a 45-mile radius of Tampa, the most in the state. Our club's primary goal is to create cycling opportunities, and we have them here. We also put in about 3,000 volunteer man-hours a year just on the trails.'

Eubank, 61, was the club's first president when it started forming out of a bicycle shop in Clearwater in 1988. The initial membership numbered about 15 riders. Today, the club holds cookouts, weekly rides, special weekend rides and sponsors weeklong trips to places such as Moab, Utah, and Asheville, N.C.

While Asheville and Moab actually offer mountains or hills for mountain-bike riders, Florida's flat countryside still offers a lot of challenges. They're just different challenges.

'To us, mountain bike is kind of an oxymoron,' said Marty Eubank, Wes' wife and a serious biker herself. 'We call it more off-road riding.'

I started that Tuesday, and now, staring ahead at a winding bike path that's empty and about as wide as a balance beam and just as tough to stay on, I figure the hell with it. I don't have to keep up. I just hope they don't come back looking for me. I'd rather die lost in the woods.

I should have seen it coming. When I arrived at the parking area at the trail head, I had an uneasy feeling. I was wearing cargo shorts, white sneakers, a $15 helmet I bought that day at Wal-Mart, and a T-shirt with a fish on it. Everyone else was wearing spandex, special biking shoes, neat-looking helmets and shirts with different biking logos on them.

Pulling my Huffy out of the back of my pickup, I noticed a spider web with empty egg sacks had spread out in the spokes of my front tire. I quickly wiped the web away. I hadn't used the bike for a while.

Before we took off, I asked Eubank if maybe I was in over my head. He didn't say anything. He just kind of shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Bad sign.

Then we were off, our group of eight or 10 riders suddenly barreling down the narrow trail in single file. I slipped into line and thought I was holding my own pretty well until the first set of tree roots snaked across the bike path.

My Huffy doesn't like roots or bumps. Hates them. The bike doesn't have a lot of give and take. It didn't fly over the roots, it clanked over them. I could feel my teeth jarring. And the tree roots were snaking across the path every few yards. When we finally made our first stop, I was proud that I was still with the group.

'You all right?' Marty asked me.

'Fine,' I told her, though my legs were already tired.

'Do you have any water with you?'

'No,' I said. 'But I finished off a bottle of Propel just before we left the parking lot.

'I felt like I was in one of those Holiday Inn Express commercials.'

Marty gave me the same doubtful look her husband had given me just before we started the ride.

'Well,' she said. 'It's going to be like this for the next 15 miles.'

No it wasn't. Not for everyone.

When we started out again, I was in the middle of the pack. A few seconds later, when I began to fade and fall farther and farther behind the leaders, I yelled back to the riders behind me to pass me. I'd pull over a little and they would zoom around me, each one thanking me, glad to be passing the idiot on the Huffy.

A few minutes later, bringing up the rear, I took my first spill. Then my second. Then my third.

As it was, everyone made it safely back to the parking area. The only difference was, I got there an hour earlier than everyone else.

I took a shorter path.

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