Maitland Art Festival by Bike

The Maitland Rotary Art Festival is this weekend.

Click to go to Google Maps

6pm-10pm Friday
10am -10pm Saturday
10am – 5pm Sunday

If you’ve been to events at Lake Lily, you know traffic is heavy and parking isn’t free. So, go by bike!

I’ve drawn out some pleasant bike routes from three directions: Downtown Orlando and College Park; Winter Springs/Tuscawilla; and Altamonte Springs/Wekiva Trail.

For all of these routes, I’ve selected the roads with the lowest traffic interactions. You can, of course, modify them for your own comfort level to use bigger roads.

Downtown Orlando and College Park

This route is essentially the 17-92 bypass route discussed here. Rather than turning off on Central, take the trail into Lake Lily Park. You can connect to this route from anywhere in the Downtown Orlando or Winter Park neighborhoods.

Winter Springs/Tuscawilla, Deer Run and Casselberry

A boardwalk connects the Dommerich neighborhood to Maitland Community Park. A hard-pack dirt trail leads through the woods to Mayo Ave.

Much of this route is used regularly by fitness cyclists. You’ll see lots of other cyclists in Deer Run. The route uses the Kewanee Trail, discussed here, to avoid some bigger roads. It also uses one of my favorite connectors—the trail through Maitland Community Park and the bike bridge over U.S. 17-92.

Maitland Avenue is actually very easy to ride on, though it may have backed up traffic this weekend. The reason I moved the route behind the park is the RR tracks are treacherous. The angle is almost parallel, so it is difficult to align yourself perpendicular to them. Many, many bicyclists have fallen hard on those tracks, so I recommend using the neighborhood streets by Lake Sybelia, the little trail extension to the east (it only goes to Horatio), or dismount and use the sidewalk.

Altamonte Springs/Wekiva Trail, and parts north

This route has more traffic interaction than the other two, but it’s a good bike route. I use portions of it quite often, although I prefer 4-lane Maitland Avenue to 2-lane Wymore.

From the Seminole/Wekiva trail, there is an entrance to Sanlando Park. It’s a crazy tight turn, but it gets you into the park. I think it’s the only connection to that trail between 434 and Montgomery (heaven forbid they should connect the neighborhoods!).

Unfortunately, there’s no light at Central to make a left turn, but traffic shouldn’t be too bad on the weekend. Central is an easy road to ride on and it’s recently been repaved. Like any 4-lane road, cyclists fare best when we claim our space and make motorists change lanes. Going through the Mall is easy, but be on the look out for crossing traffic near the Renaissance Center. Sight lines are bad, right-of-way violations are common. Hattaway Dr. offers a lovely, shady ride past Lake Orienta. When you get to Oranole, you can go left and take Maitland Ave (faster), or go straight and use Wymore. The bonus of using Wymore is the scenic ride around Lake Sybelia. Again, I’ve brought the route in behind the park to avoid the RR tracks.

Have fun! And if you don’t make the art festival, there is a farmer’s market every Sunday at Lake Lily, too.

EDIT 10/4: Here are a few photos from yesterday.