Despite the threatening weather, the clouds soon parted and, on the road again, the bikers were treated to some of the secrets of Florida’s natural landscape all too often eclipsed by its strip malls and gated communities. The Legacy Trail is restricted to pedestrians, skaters and bikes, and cuts through Florida wilderness atop what was once a rail line, shooting past ancient abandoned factory buildings, idyllic nature reserves and placid bodies of water. Not too long into the ride two kittens trotted across the path — no ordinary house felines, but bobcats — followed by their sleek mother, who sauntered across after them into the foliage where one of the bikers was able to snap a picture.

It wasn’t just Florida’s fauna that caught the bikers’ eyes that morning, but a bit of its flora, too. Saw palmetto berry, or bolita in local Spanish, was found in abundance along the trail, bringing the tour to a halt while some of the CIW members posed with their valuable find. The harvest of bolita is a common income supplement for Florida farmworkers during the tomato off-season — and a dangerous one, too, as a snakebite claimed the life of a forager near Lake Placid this past year. The staggering bounty discovered along the route to Sarasota was fodder for many a text message back to Immokalee, along with photos of the branches heavy with fruit.

Further down the trail, the bike crew arrived at the St. Andrew United Church of Christ, a congregation distinguished as few others for its years of support for the CIW and its commitment to advancing efforts for a more humane tomato industry. The sign outside the church greeted the bikers with a warm word of welcome that brightened their arrival.

Church members recounted tales of their long involvement in the campaign, including a special stop by CIW members during their 230-mile march between Ft. Myers and Orlando back in 2001. The story goes that the pastor began to get quite nervous that Sunday service, as the guests of honor — around whom he had developed the whole morning’s liturgy — had not arrived as the opening hymn started. Moments later, several dozen workers and allies streamed into the sanctuary, making for an emotional entry that has powerfully stuck in the minds of congregants ever since.

Next, the team biked several miles out to the coast. There Maria Wattleworth (above) enthusiastically shared impressions of her first encounter with the Campaign for Fair Food, a visit by the CIW’s Modern-day Slavery Museum to a Presbyterian women’s retreat earlier in the season. She then introduced CIW leaders to Siesta Key Chapel members, who then shared a lunch and a reflection on the roots of — and solutions to — farmworker poverty and abuse.

That evening the bike crew headed to yet another supportive Presbyterian congregation, this time for supper and a worship service at Pine Shores that included a prayer published in the bulletin “for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers; the cyclists currently on pilgrimage; and Mr. Crenshaw, CEO of Publix, to receive the motivation to participate in the Campaign for Fair Food.”

And straight from the pews the bikers headed to the decidedly more secular confines of Sarasota’s own New College, Florida’s premier honors university. Last year, New College students carried off a wildly successful campaign, in coordination with campuses across the country, to urge their food-service provider, Sodexo, to put its purchasing power behind the Campaign for Fair Food. Dozens of New Collegians showed up for a presentation in Palm Court, nearly all of whom would soon be pumping up their tires and joining the tour the next day for a two-wheeled parade of sorts through the streets of Sarasota.

But before the tour would return to the streets of Sarasota, members of Slow Food of Greater Sarasota had the Immokalee contingent over for a delicious lunch, the contents of which their hostesses, Jayne and Ellen, explained in great detail — where exactly each ingredient had been grown and harvested or otherwise procured: gleaned from an absent neighbor’s fruit tree, a backyard herb garden, a nearby rooftop hydroponic vegetable-growing system, or else purchased at the local farmers’ market or Whole Foods, the lone grocer with a signed Fair Food accord. Slow Food’s aim is to promote access to food that is “good, clean and” — last but definitely not least — “fair.”

At last the time arrived to embark upon a 10-mile cruise together with allies — starting in Siesta Key and winding throughout Sarasota — in a sweep of the town that included several stops at local Publix stores. Their ranks swelled to more than thirty-strong, with Episcopal, Presbyterian, Ringling College and New College supporters reinforcing the humble crew of Immokalee bike messengers.

Their first stop was the Paradise Plaza Publix, where the bicyclists fanned out across the parking lot to hand flyers to Publix shoppers for a good ten minutes or so. Not a single customer refused the flyer, and most expressed their gratitude for the bikers’ efforts and agreed to encourage their local Publix manager to support what the shopper in the photo above described as “a just cause.”

As the bikers continued their tour of Sarasota area Publix stores, they did run into one man who never seemed exactly happy to see them. The man of mystery, pictured above, has been shooting video of protestors in Punta Gorda, Sarasota and Bradenton and, disconcertingly, calling organizers by name without introducing himself, reminding the bikers of another uncomfortable episode in the Publix campaign from nearly two years ago.

Next the caravan, or bikeavan if you will, headed toward the massive new Publix under construction near the intersection of 301 (a road they would later take up to Wimauma) and 41. Oscar gave a rousing, impromptu speech on the sidewalk, promising to return to that site along with a sizable delegation from Immokalee as soon as the store opens for a high-profile protest, garnering the commitments of the dozens of solidarity riders there to not only join him but to bring numerous others, as well.

Soon the bike brigade poured into the Promenade Publix parking lot, where several dozen picketers awaited them on the sidewalk along 41 and the already great energy somehow managed to grow still stronger.

For the rest of the evening, the protesters’ sheer numbers…

… and simple, direct message ruled the street outside the luxurious Sarasota Publix store, spreading the word, consumer by consumer, about the Campaign for Fair Food and the urgent need for Publix to bring its real world business practices in line with its public image and professed ethics.

Next stop: Bradenton!