Take 429 / 408 / or the Florida turnpike to the town of winter garden. Park at the public parking at Chapin Station on the west orange trail. Head west on the trail. It is 5 miles on the trail and then you can jump onto the back roads that go out towards Minneola, Monte Verde, Astatula, Howey in the Hills, ext.. Ironically, riding in Clermont is actually not very good! It is just a good place to START your rides. But Winter Garden has better facilities, a nicer downtown, and is much easier to get to from the attractions or downtown Orlando.

Winter garden is a great little down town with places to eat, coffee shops, frozen yogurt, a Tri Shop, and a great bike shop.

If you don't like riding on the rails to trails system I would drive to the Killarny Station and start my ride from there. Check the link for bathrooms, showers, ext. http://apps.ocfl.net/...aps/WOT_TrailMap.pdf

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Austin Hardy -

Been in that area 3 times, and did variations of this loop, starting from Windermere, FL (~100km without hill repeats):

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/76537751

Some pretty nice climbs there. There's a house at the end of the Sugarloaf hill (the steepest) that keeps a huge team-type water bottle to refill your bottles. Few pics taken the last time I was there on this loop:
https://www.facebook.com/...e=1&l=dd5471618e

Hope this helps!

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T. Guertin / Spocket

I second Winter Garden.

I normally ride towards WG coming from Mont Verde.

From WG you can take the trail either way towards Clermont or Apopka.
Its definitely a nice place to ride, plenty of folks out there on the weekend.

if you just want to ride the hills i'd suggest parking at the top of sugarloaf. there is a short cul-de-sac, Sugarloaf Ct, where cyclist park. No houses at the end, just empty lots. From there there are lots of ways to go for longer rides or there's a 16 mile loop for hilly repeats. The above mentioned water stop is just around the corner from this so you can fill up after loops.

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"Competetive sport begins where healthy sport ends"