Stopping by Woods on my Way to Work

This park is a half-mile from my house. My daughters both learned sliding boards and swings here as well as practicing soccer skills and building sand castles. We've played chase, hide-and-seek, and stopped at the water fountain after running a few miles. It's been our neighborhood park.

This morning I saw it anew. The sun was just right. The air smelled just right. The stars were aligned.

My bicycle wheel just kept going around the park until the goodness had filled me to overflowing.

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 24.8
Number of Cyclists seen: 5 inbound and 25 outbound.
In-bound Route: Orme Park then Lullwater/PATH Trail
Out-bound Route: Inman Park, Kirkwood, Oakhurst, Decatur then back through Emory Village.
Weather: whoa

GPS Games on a Bike

 

N 33.76220 W 84.36044

When I first learned of geocaching (an outdoor treasure-hunt using GPS co-ordinates), it occurred to me this would be fun on a bike. The distances between caches (treasures) are often walking distance, but a bike is really the ideal vehicle for getting from cache to cache.

A game we like to play to celebrate birthdays is a treasure-hunt with hidden clues. Each clue leads you to the location of the next clue until you finally arrive at a birthday present.

For my wife's birthday, we combined the two. I laid out a bicycle-friendly 12-mile course near the house that passed through or near various landmarks, some obvious and some subtle. I used photographs (like the one shown here) to indicate the destination, and when it wasn't recognized, provided GPS co-ordinates to get us close.

This has been a great way to

• Spend time outdoors on the bike
  
• Engage people in a fun game
  
• With kids, provide practice navigating a bicycle safely
  
• Share good bike routes with others.
  

It takes a while to create the route and take pictures for the clues, but the time spent is well worth it.

Fay-driven headwind on the way home

 

When the headwinds get too strong to ride a bike, sometimes the thing to do is go fly a kite.

Tropical Storm Fay made my morning ride in easy, but was still blowing strong out of the east on the way home.

The spot photographed here is where the wind blows me around the most. The Freedom Park Trail crosses open fields at a good elevation. This spot is just east of the intersection of the Freedom Parkway and Moreland Avenue, north of Little Five Points and east of the Carter Center (all of these are great bike destinations).

Commute Summary

Round Trip Distance: 18.5
Number of Cyclists seen: 22
In-bound Route: Lullwater/PATH trail
Out-bound Route: Emory via Clifton and the Kroger
Weather: Kite weather; overcast but dry and WinnnnnDEE.