Bike Forums - 50 Miles on the Silver Comet Trail

A beautiful day on Saturday for a ride on the Silver Comet Trail in Georgia connecting to the Chiefl Ladiga Trail in Alabama. My friend Richard, my son Ethan and I parked at the Cedartown Depot and rode out to Piedmont, Alabama and back. It was about 59 and sunny. This was Ethan's longest ride by far. The trail was littered with a lot of pine straw mostly in Georgia. We met riders of all different types and skills along the way. We got to smell fresh manure as a farmer spread it on an adjacent field.

Ethan is a pretty new rider and he began to lag behind on the way out so I was a little concerned about the trip back. There is a long, gradual uphill nearly until the Georgia line. He is really into basketball and has been collecting basketball cards recently so I got the idea of offering him 2 packs of cards if he drafted Richard closely until the Georgia border. He perked up a bit. Then we were off. Richard led the way and Ethan stuck right to his wheel for the 14 miles to the border. I was psyched. We still had 10 miles to go to get back to the van though so I repeated my offer for 2 more packs. He was clearly getting kind of tired, but that was enough to motivate him some more. Richard pulled us all back to the van in a neat little peloton.

I'm very proud of Ethan. He's 14 and has only a couple hundred miles on a road bike now. I asked him later that evening what he learned from that experience regarding how the cards helped. He said: "I learned that I need a goal". Right on target. Now we need to find goals for him that don't revolve around my buying stuff for him. :)

I'd like to add pics, but it says my photo is too large. Does anyone know how to change the format so I can add them?