TODAY’S CREATIVE LOVING PROFILE
Mile marker 8.6 was an important landmark for me. That's when I realized I may have bitten off more than I could chew. But by then it was too late. Water bottles had been filled, bikes rented, boyfriend recruited. I was committed to giving it a go. Mission objective? Pedal our way there and back along the finished 37.5-mile portion of the Silver Comet Trail. A railroad-line-turned-bike-path, the trail begins in Smyrna, only 13 miles northeast of Atlanta, and wends westward through Cobb, Paulding and Polk counties, ending in downtown Rockmart. By December 2002, the trail will be merged with the 33-mile Chief Ladiga Trail that ends in Anniston, Ala., to form one continuous trail that will measure 57 miles.
We decided to embark on this adventure on the first Saturday in July. After looking up directions on the interactive map on the trail's official website, we made our escape from Atlanta smog. It took about 25 minutes to get to the bike rental shop from where we live in East Atlanta. Because my own bike is such a dinosaur, I decided to rent one (gasp) with gears, at a busy bike and skate shop, the Silver Comet Depot ($22, full day). Located on the side of the path on Floyd Road in Smyrna, the place has a whole range of rentals, including recumbent bikes, tandems and inline skates, all available in hourly increments.
Packed up and helmeted, we headed out at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m. Surprisingly, the air felt cool as we pedaled our way along the bucolic first stretch. Trail traffic (which is usually pretty congested in the initial miles), was light, probably because all the unmasochistic riders had already finished their pedaling for the day.
We breezed optimistically along this shady stretch for a while, slowing down only for the road crossings, which average about every two miles. Then before I knew it, I was there at said mile marker 8.6.
That's when I started to get an idea of what 72 miles round trip really meant. Around mile 11, I told Tim (aforementioned boyfriend) that I wasn't sure I could make the whole trip. "But that's the whole point," he said. "That's what you're going to write about, right?" I responded with something about it being about the journey ... blah, blah, blah.
Despite my doubts, and already tiring legs, I did want to press on. In the initial miles of the trail, there are the peaceful and pretty woods, but there are also those road crossings, and you never really get the feeling that you're very far from busy places or developed neighborhoods for more than a small stretch. As you get further into the Cobb County portion of the trail, you'll also be afforded spectacular views of a power plant, a sewage treatment plant, big plots of land cleared of all their vegetation for imminent development, and several eerily fake-looking condo developments. Ultimately, I wanted to keep going so we could see what was to see once we got farther and farther from the city.
It was right after passing the sewage treatment plant (which we pretended was a trout farm), when we started to feel as though we were getting "out there." We saw fewer houses, cars and people. On one memorable small stretch, there was an open area completely coated with kudzu, and a little house right in the middle of it all. It looked like a setting for a Southern fairy tale.
At mile marker 22 in Paulding County, we passed the Rambo trailhead -- a good place to start, if you'd like to begin somewhere in the |middle. Not long after, we noticed a sign for a restored Pumpkinvine Trestle. We agreed that would be our turnaround point.
Two miles later, we made it to the bridge. It was enormous and high, and offered a pretty disappointing view of the muddy mess below, which was a far cry from our fantasy of finding an ice cold crystal clear gushing river with waterslides on its banks.
I stopped talking by mile 16 on the way back. The pretty views suddenly didn't look as pretty as I had remembered on the way in. I wilted down on my handlebars so I could expend as little energy as possible.
A couple on a tandem bike passed us. "How ya doin?" the woman asked. "Fine," we said, trying to be polite. "How are you?"
"Hot," said the man. "I think I'm dying."
By then, there really weren't too many people passing us. I saw a man and a red-faced boy who looked like he wanted to kill his father for getting him into such a godforsaken situation. But we spotted no more families. Tim kept turning around to see if I was conscious. "We're almost there," he repeated over and over. "We must be almost there."
By the time we managed to roll back into the rental shop, we had been on the trail for over four hours -- for me, the equivalent of an Iron Man. The thing is, I'm more of a tin foil girl. Nonetheless, I'll try it again. Next time, I'll start a lot earlier, and a little bit farther along the trail.
