Key West Tour 2017-Day 11

Today's ride will take us 31.3 miles from Hollywood Beach to Coral Gables . We will enjoy three separate but neighboring trails that are part of the East Coast Greenway. First, we pick up the South Beach Trail at Indian Beach Park (mile14.5). It begins as a boardwalk and will take us all the way through South Beach (think Miami Vice and Scarface). Next we pick up the Miami River Greenway. As of 2014, just over half the Greenway was open to the public—including sections known as the Miami Riverwalk and Baywalk—with many new segments underway. We won't know what to expect until we actually get there but I've read that the views are spectacular. After crossing the MacArthur Causeway to get back mainland, we will pass by the Perez Art Museum, American Airlines Marina (home of the Miami Heat), Miami Marina, Bayside Marketplace and Bayfront Park Amphitheatre. Then we cross the Miami River via Brickell Avenue Bridge and at mile 26.4 we'll join up with the famous M-Path trail. The M-Path is a paved multi-use trail in urban Miami-Dade County, which was opened in 1983 and is part of the Miami-Dade Transit (MDT) system. It runs close to 10 miles and helps cyclists avoid the extreme traffic going through Miami. It links up with the South Dade Trail which we will start out on tomorrow. The 30-mile long M-Path and South Dade Trail combined make up a nearly continuous paved path from downtown Miami to Florida City along the Metro-rail elevated rail line and the South Miami-Dade Busway transit facilities. We plan to stay at the Holiday Inn Coral Gables - University of Miami - 1350 S Dixie Hwy, Coral Gables, FL 33146 - (305) 667-5611