Make it up as we go along

Today's ride goes along with a Talking Heads song I've had stuck in my head recently. "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)", like many of the Talking Heads songs is upbeat, quirky, and just fun. Most of the time, I want to get the song out of my head, but this one I don't mind staying a while.



Our Sunday Morning group has a special charm because we never know where we're going until everyone is ready to start riding. It's almost like unwrapping a present.

This morning, we rolled out of Aurora Coffee with only a vague idea about getting to Silver Lake and using Shallowford to cross I-85. Michael T suggested this and the idea quickly gained momentum. It's been a while since we visited Silver Lake and the shade would be welcome on a warm day. Dave suggested an neighborhood approach to Shallowford, and someone else suggested the secret short-cut by the pool. Michael N suggested an alternate to Windsor Parkway. I lost count of how many different ride leaders helped us "make it up as we went along".

So I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet [ed. wheels] on the ground
Head in the sky
It's ok, I know nothing's wrong . . nothing

Today's route can be found on Bikely.com at http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/SilverLake-via-Shallowford.

Recent VaHi Velo routes can be found at: http://routes.cycling.jettmarks.com/showRoutes.html?tag=vahivelo

Cyclists can benefit from Urban Sprawl

Whether you've never visited Atlanta or lived here for 30 years, you can't help but notice how spread out it is. There are no natural boundaries, so new sub-divisions keep springing up further and further out from the city's center.

The average commute by car exceeds 30 miles -- for years I traveled close to this distance daily -- which was further than a trip to our family's summer home from the house where I grew up.

The spread is bad for air quality and also the quality of the commute, but it also means lots of roads to explore on bike.

We rode southeast of town this morning along some familiar roads, but also several roads I've never been on. There's a 50-mile loop that takes us through 4 counties that we like. It only takes about 30 minutes to get out of the city and onto low-traffic roads with lots of shade. Coming back, there is a substantial amount of climbing along River Road and Bouldercrest, so we tried finding a different route back into town. This brought us down a whole set of roads I've never traveled down, lakes I've never seen, High Schools I've only heard of, and neighborhoods with different personalities.

What I find impressive is I've lived here 30 years, we ride almost every week, and we're going down new roads all the time. SO many roads, so little time.

Even though so many people have to drive so far to get to work, it is a delight to discover new places to go and new roads to ride.

Oh, we did have to make up that elevation eventually, so we only managed to substitute one set of hills for another. White Oak needs to go on our Dirty Dozen list of hills.

Unintentional Metric Century

Sat, Mar 15, 2008 - 62.70 mi [Cycling]
62.70 mi in 03:44:27 hours at 16.76 mi/h on Trek 1200. [Cycling] We had planned a 47-mile ride, but when we reached mile 32 and were just pointed back home, we realized we made a mistake. The route we were following didn't start/stop at the same place we were starting/stopping.


So, we ended up with a metric century.

We got a nice break from the storms that have been coming through. There was a nice one last night and then another this morning. Another crop of tornadoes are supposed to come through NW of here. We rode SE.

Two flats required four tubes. I brought a dud and Dave's had a hole. Fortunately, Barry brought two tubes.

The route took us through Arabia Mountain and Panola Mountain parks. The PATH trail runs for about 10 miles through what feels like remote countryside. And then Alexander's Lake Road was a nice way to ease back into traffic. Will enter this route into Bikely.com.
Posted from My Cycling Log

Variety is the Spice of Cycling

Jack took us on a different route today. After riding in this town for nearly 30 years now, I'm still fascinated by the number of good riding roads I've never ridden.

I would love to have a picture for you, but I'll have to get you to imagine a sunny warm day with crisp shadows of pines dancing across a winding, rolling road with no traffic. Imagine an historic covered bridge, a single lane wide, 7 foot height restriction (don't stand up), and wooden planks for the wheels to ride on. Then imagine this bridge crosses a rocky stream nearly hidden by the trees about 40 feet below. That was our ride destination today.

We paid for the scenery however. The most direct route to the covered bridge takes you across a sharp ridge on the west side of the Chattahoochee River. You can pick between a lot of climbing stretched out over a mile or a lot of climbing stretched out over a third of a mile. We picked the "gradual" route up Veterans Parkway, but we still came through the neighborhood with no one outdoors that I wrote about last November.

Ride Summary

Distance: 49.7
Number of Cyclists seen: Mass quantities
Route: Six Flags with an extension over to Covered Bridge and Silver Comet (thank you Jack for the route, I wish I brought a camera)
Weather: Blessed sunlight -- everyone we met was in a good mood because of the weather

Long Ride - Fall Version

The Friday after Thanksgiving is always a good day for a long ride away from the malls. The Silver Comet Trail allowed me to put sufficient distance between myself and distracted drivers.


I wanted to explore a different route across I-285 to get to the Silver Comet. I chose a route that took me into a neighborhood that I knew was hilly. I just didn't imagine it would be granny-gear hilly for so many hills. There were several 100-200m stretches of >15% grade. Of course I got turned around and had to go up and down more than I bargained for. Particular painful were the stop signs at the bottom of the hill. I won't recommend this route.

Besides the hills, what I found striking about that neighborhood was no one was outdoors. I saw four people. All of them were getting in their car. How well could these people know their neighbors? It felt colder than the temperature.

I had wanted to ride at least 60 miles which would have taken me past Hiram. I would go out and see what kind of time I was making against the wind. I reached Dallas, GA after milepost 19, and realized I was only 3.5 miles from the Pumpkinvine Creek Trestle. This trestle was the highest point above the ground and would have an expansive view. I was ready for more miles.

I was surprised to find so much housing in view of the trestle. This was disappointing because the developer was the "trees must go" sort of developer. I guess we don't have to go far to find 3rd-world deforestation. The trestle was still nice.

At this point, I was within striking distance of the Brushy Mountain Tunnel at milepost 31 even though this would take my ride beyond 90 miles for the day. I had not seen the tunnel and I still felt good, so I rode on.

Beyond milepost 27 or so, the trail enters a State Wildlife Management area and the terrain becomes noticeably more contorted. The trail stays at an even grade while the land rises and falls above and below the trail. You'll be riding through a cut in the rock and then 2-3 hundred meters further you're looking down into a deep ravine. This was worth riding 80-90 miles to see. Not even a video would do this justice.




The Brushy Mountain Tunnel is bigger than I imagined. There is room for two lanes of traffic inside and tall vehicles that would have trouble with interstate overpasses would have no height problem in the tunnel.

The outbound headwind did not switch directions for my ride back in, and I had an easy time raising my average speed although I wasn't working as hard. As I came back into Smyrna, I found that I was able to clearly see Stone Mountain about 25-30 miles distant. Days that clear are getting fewer and fewer in Atlanta.

Sun, Nov 4, 2007 - 47.20 mi [Cycling]

Sun, Nov 4, 2007 - 47.20 mi [Cycling]
47.20 mi in 02:46:29 hours at 17.01 mi/h on Trek 1200. [Cycling] Stiff wind out of the west. Made good time overall, but whacked my legs pretty good on the Stone Mountain outer loop. We were climbing the last stretch at 25 MPH. Head wind back home didn't let us slack off.
Posted from My Cycling Log

This is my first check of posting from My Cycling Log to this blog. I do think it's good ;-).

Stone Mountain - South Approach

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

BRAG 2007 Route Announced

The route for the Bike Ride Across Georgia (BRAG) has been announced for 2007. We're starting in Columbus and ending in Savannah. Kala rode this the past two years and Jett joined in last year. I've begun a bikely.com route that shows the cities (not the exact turn-by-turn) on a map of Georgia.

BRAG is the Cadillac of bike rides -- well-organized, great company, great scenery, the towns go out of their way to show the riders a good time, and a favorite they didn't have when I rode in back 1990: a shower truck. No running out of hot water.

There's a Wikipedia article as well.