from left to right: Matt Whetten, me, Curtis Whetten, Tim Brady, Ben Peoples, and Matt's friend (don't remember his name now)We biked a 1/2mile before me made it to the end of the Silver Comet trail and the beginning of the Chief Ladiga trail. Silver Comet is in Georgia and the Chief Ladiga is in Alabama.
Matt, Tim & BenMatt was the ring leader of the ride. He had organized the ride on the Silver Comet in the spring before I had moved back. It was an overnight thing. He wanted to ride the rest of the trail so he was in charge of it again.
Ben has been a biker for only 2 years but he is an avid mountain bike racer/winner in his 60's. He has macular degeneration though so he is now leaning more toward non competitive cycling.
Tim hasn't really ever biked since he was a kid. This seems a rather rough ride to start on seeing as it was almost 70 miles. But he's in shape. He ran a marathon two weeks before this and he did fine.
Curtis is not a biker, though he does occassionally bike the few miles to work and back home. He did the ride to support his son when all the other young men dropped out of the ride at the last minute. In one of our ward 4th of July parties, there was a jump roping competition. It started out with a bunch of kids and me and Curtis. We were the final two and I won. It was a lot of fun.
Matt's friend doesn't bike either and I doubted him making it but he did too. He actually took the time to take the long way around one of the towns so he could see more of it.
Matt riding out front with a non functioning derailleur
The three house pictures are of the Piedmont Welcome Center. The people inside were veryf riendly. They sell some bike things like tires. They also sell t-shirts. I got a map of the trail from here.
Here we are again at the end of the trail. We all sat in the parking lot and ate the lunches we brought. This is where Matt decided he had had enough. Curtis and Matt's friend headed back to Jacksonville, 8 miles back up the trail, before also getting into the car.
The first cotton field I've ever seen. It was so pretty...like a field dusted with snow. There was some cotton balls on the side of the road so I picked them up...except for the seeds still in them, they look like a commercial cotton ball.
We made it back to the parking lot. I had pushed myself for the last 10 miles and was already feeling it in my knees but nothing like what I would be feeling for the next week. It was ALOT of fun! We found out about another bike trail in South Carolina. There are no plans on when we'll go do it but everyone expressed a desire to go ride it. Maybe I'll have to roganize that one.
3 comments:
Pretty pictures. Sounds like it was a good group of people...everyone made it, no one died like I would have. :) Good job!
It's so pretty there! The cotton field surprised me. I didn't know that cotton plants looked like that. So...how does he ride with macular degeneration? Sounds difficult and dangerous.
Yeah, I didn't know they were so pretty either. I didn't really ask him how he bikes but he did say some surfaces are harder to ride on then others because he can't discern shadows from actual things. He's crashed a few times. Seems a little dangerous to me, especially in Atlanta but he loves it and he won't stop.
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