Jekyll Island has become our ‘Happy Place’ that we’ve visited three or more times a year since rediscovering it back in 2022. Our explorations of the island include the Historic District, sights like Driftwood and St. Andrews Beaches as well as the Great Dunes Beach and engagement now as both ‘adoptive parents’ of sea turtles undergoing rehabilitation and being members of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, never-mind enjoying all of the other amazing experiences Jekyll Island can provide. However, of all those experiences, the one that we so appreciate is the stress-free, amazing cycling we enjoy on Jekyll’s road, paved multi-use / bicycle paths and the off-road trails.

Back in July 2024 during one of our ‘quarterly visits’ to Jekyll, where we enjoy a daily ride around the island on our ‘go-anywhere’ hardtail, fat-tire tandem bicycle, we decided it might be worthwhile to create a ‘Virtual Bicycle Ride Around the Jekyll Island Bike Paths and Trails’ by capturing our ride on video with my old GoPro cameras that had been gathering dust for several years.

Before we headed to Jekyll, I had to pull-out and get my now antiquated ‘GoPro’ camera gear sorted out; most of which was acquired second-hand over 15-years ago when I decided it might be fun to capture video some of our off-road tandem cycling adventures, and then stepped-up my game when we began motorcycle touring from 2011 to 2022, before closing that chapter.

Needless to say, I was able to amass quite a collection of GoPro gear by buying other people’s used equipment with all the accessories that came with them, and then added a few newer, better cameras over the years.

However, since 2019 when we flew to the British Virgin Islands for a 10-day catamaran cruise with another couple and used the gear to capture video of on-deck activity like me on the helm as we plowed-through some angry seas, and of course our snorkeling dives, it’s been gathering dust ever since.

It was actually Miss Debbie who said, “You know, we should pull out those old GoPro cameras and use them to capture some video of our rides around Jekyll Island.” And, for this trip, I finally did that. Again, it was a lot of gear but it turns out, after all these years it all worked pretty well.

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We began Day 1 of our visit with our first of two tandem rides around the island and the time on the bike was everything we needed, hoped for and thoroughly enjoyed.

While not our usual three days of riding on a four-day visit, we rode our 20+ mile ‘loop’ around the Island on Monday and Tuesday with two cameras on both days.

That yielded about 8-hours of video I ended-up reducing into three video’s, a 4-minute video of the ‘South Jekyll Island 7-mile loop’, a 5-minute video of pedaling a couple miles in and around the ‘Historic District’, and then a 6-minute video of the ‘North Jekyll Island loop.’

The highlight of our two days of riding included our surprise sighting and capturing on video a Roseate Spoonbill that came out of the Crab Creek Marsh area along with a few white ibises that I continue to mistakenly call great white egrets. Regardless, it was an amazing sight and perhaps the most amazing moment of our 40+ miles of riding on Jekyll Island from that visit.

So, here now are the three videos our little ‘project’ yielded. For those who’ve ridden the trails and paths, perhaps it will bring back memories and fuel your next outing, for those who’ve thought about it but never done any cycling on Jekyll, perhaps it will inspire a future outing on a two-wheel pedal bike, and for anyone who never knew about, or considered cycling on the island, not knowing what to expect… perhaps a ‘bucket list’ item to pursue?

Note: Sorry about the watermark on the videos from the software host, and note that you’ll need to hit “Expand” to see the subtitles that provide cues as to what you’re seeing in some of these three videos.

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Part 1: Our tandem bicycle ride begins in the Jekyll Island Village headed south along the Beach Road bicycle path, with several cross-island, off-road excursions before heading back north on the River Road bicycle path and trails.

Part II: Our ride resumes along the old Rockefeller-Crane Bicycle Path into the Historic District from Ben Fortson Parkway, and then we ride along the River past Millionaires Row and the Jekyll Island Club and Hotel grounds.

Part III: Our daily loop ride around Jekyll Island continues onto the North Island Loop.