We really enjoyed the ride. We rode with three friends from Everglades Bicycle Club (EBC). We did the 68-mile route.
Tour Latino has found itself a unique spot in the Central Florida hilly event ride category. There are two fall rides. The Horrible Hundred is a one day fall ride that does all the favorite major climbs in the area. The Mt. Dora Bicycle Festival is a three day fall event with rides for everybody in the family. You can do a lot of climbing or just pedal rolling hills depending on what you choose to do each day. Tour Latino is a one day winter ride that falls somewhere in the middle with respect to ride difficulty. It has about a third less climbing than the Horrible Hundred, and it only does some of the major climbs in the area. It goes down Sugarloaf. (I thought I would be disappointed as this is one of my favorite climbs in the area. Instead it turned out to be a lot of fun. Wheeee!!) The route circles through Mt. Dora, too.
So, to summarize, Tour Latino is a one-day February event that does just two-thirds the climbing of the Horrible Hundred. What's not to love? It's good to have another ride, another option.
Being a relatively new event, there are some kinks that I'm sure will eventually work themselves out. The route markings were excellent. But the SAG stops weren't on the cue sheets, just given as part of the announcements at the start. And a couple of the stops were just too far apart for an event ride. (Since we were pedaling through some towns, we didn't hesitate to stop at convenience stores when we needed a break.) But all was forgiven when we discovered that at the finish line they had ice cold chocolate milk and event medals! (Bling is fun.) And, of course, the after-ride lunch.
Will we do Tour Latino next year? Yep. We'd be fools not to!
