Snake Road & Ribs

It’s great when you plan out a ride with a few friends then on the day of the ride you wind up with a whole bunch of extra bikers. That’s just what happened this past weekend. One of the groups we hang out with called Motorcycle Riders of South Miami (MRSF) decided to go on a ride up to Immokalee Florida and a little rib joint called Rib City. Seeing that most of their members are also members of the group my wife and I belong to, they invited us along. The initial response was about 20 to 25 bikes, however by the time we had our kickstands up, we had a good 50 bikes joining us.

The ride started out at a local biker hangout in west Broward County called Café 27 at 9am. There my wife & I and another couple we ride with sat down at the outdoor bar and had breakfast. At about 10am bikes started to roll in either in small groups or individually. The plan was to head up US 27 to Big Cypress Indian Reservation then cut across to the town of Immokalee. The ride would be about 86 miles one way.

By 10:30am we had way more bikes show up then anyone expected. Someone counted 48 bikes while someone else counted 50. Before riding into Big Cypress Park we stop at the only gas station around for miles to fill up again and picked up a woman who had been riding around on her Road King and had no particular plans for the day. So we told her to come ride with us.

The road around Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reserve is called “Snake Road”. It has a lot of nice turns and curves, but it also has 3 small Indian towns in which the speed limit is STRICTLY enforced. When they say 15mph, “they mean just that”. Not only can you get a ticket for speeding, but if they choose to, they can also confiscate your bike. This is Seminole Indian land, and “They don’t mess around”. There are also a few speed bumps that you need to watch out for. We learned that last year someone had a nasty fall because they weren’t paying attention and went over the speed bump too fast.

We finally arrived at Immokalee and Rib City just in time for lunch. You should’ve seen the look on the waitress when they saw so many bikes pull up to the parking lot. The place is not big enough to seat so many people but some how or another we managed to get everyone in and gave the waitress a helping hand passing the trays around for them. You can check out a short video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbYcreJ6VH8 .

The food was absolutely awesome. I can’t remember the last time I had baby-back ribs that were so tasty and which the meat would fell off the bone so easily. I mean you barely had enough time to put them in your mouth before they fell back onto your plate. Their prices were also very reasonable. My wife & I will definitely be coming back this way again soon.

After a great lunch we rode south on State Rd 29 to US 41 then back east where we stopped off at Dade Corners. A lot of bikers usually fuel up here before heading towards the west coast of Florida. Dade Corners is a very biker friendly place and you can usually get some pretty good deals on jackets and other bike accessories. They also serve Cuban coffee and snacks so you don’t have to get on your way on an empty stomach.

After hanging out at Dade Corners for a while most of the riders went on home while a few continued to other hang outs. My wife & I decided to ride over to Pit Bar B Q with 6 other riders. Not that we were ready to eat more ribs yet, but this place is also known for their Friday “bike nights” where you can get a pitcher of beer for $5.00. Luckily for us they were still serving the $5 beer pitcher even though it was Saturday.

After spending an hour at the Pit, one of the girls that rode with us earlier that day called us up and invited us to her house for some appetizers. We all hanged out at her house until 11pm talking about what a great day it had turned out to be and how much fun we had. No one expected so many bikes to show up, but I guess when you have such great weather as we had and nothing else planned for the day, you just gotta ride.