sch
Pilot has been pushing to do this on the tandem for the past year. Opportunity knocked
with Jack and Susan organizing a partial ride from the Anniston, AL end of the rails to trail
that now extends from a few miles north of Anniston to Smyrna, Ga (just north of Atlanta)
with a gap of 8 or so miles in Georgia. About 20 teams showed up mostly from Alabama
but a few out of state teams, one from California, were there. Plan was to ride about
50 miles over to Cedartown, spend the night and ride back with banquet Sat nite. Pilot
wanted to ride all the way to Smyrna, (~96-98mi) spend the nite and ride back Sunday.
Weather was very good at ~60F on Sat and 46 to 60F on Sunday. The initial section is
typical rural Alabama, nothing to get excited about but about 20mi into the ride you start
getting into a heavily wooded section and this pretty much lasts the rest of the ride with
a few exceptions. The road surface is not perfect but generally acceptable but the pilot
dropped the speed to 16-20mph on the concreted Georgia portions because of subtle
vibrations affecting his neck. Elsewhere we were able to oscillate between 18 and 26mph.
There is a lot of walking, skating, jogging and local cycling on the trail, most clearly by locals
confirming the 'if you build it they will come rule'. This was especially evident with in 30miles
of Smyrna. One nice aspect in Georgia is the frequency of park and ride access points,
usually with portajohns. The flowering wild azaleas, dogwoods and red buckeye were especially
attractive. Having never done back to back centuries I was a bit worried about the legs
giving out but now appreciate how far you can go when you have less than 2000' of climbing
per 100mi of riding, which is pretty close to as flat as it gets. 196mi in the weekend was
well worth doing, but I definitely need a new saddle and randonneuring is not in the cards.
with Jack and Susan organizing a partial ride from the Anniston, AL end of the rails to trail
that now extends from a few miles north of Anniston to Smyrna, Ga (just north of Atlanta)
with a gap of 8 or so miles in Georgia. About 20 teams showed up mostly from Alabama
but a few out of state teams, one from California, were there. Plan was to ride about
50 miles over to Cedartown, spend the night and ride back with banquet Sat nite. Pilot
wanted to ride all the way to Smyrna, (~96-98mi) spend the nite and ride back Sunday.
Weather was very good at ~60F on Sat and 46 to 60F on Sunday. The initial section is
typical rural Alabama, nothing to get excited about but about 20mi into the ride you start
getting into a heavily wooded section and this pretty much lasts the rest of the ride with
a few exceptions. The road surface is not perfect but generally acceptable but the pilot
dropped the speed to 16-20mph on the concreted Georgia portions because of subtle
vibrations affecting his neck. Elsewhere we were able to oscillate between 18 and 26mph.
There is a lot of walking, skating, jogging and local cycling on the trail, most clearly by locals
confirming the 'if you build it they will come rule'. This was especially evident with in 30miles
of Smyrna. One nice aspect in Georgia is the frequency of park and ride access points,
usually with portajohns. The flowering wild azaleas, dogwoods and red buckeye were especially
attractive. Having never done back to back centuries I was a bit worried about the legs
giving out but now appreciate how far you can go when you have less than 2000' of climbing
per 100mi of riding, which is pretty close to as flat as it gets. 196mi in the weekend was
well worth doing, but I definitely need a new saddle and randonneuring is not in the cards.