Cycling
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Pale Rider in the dark shadows
My new habit of carrying the small camera everywhere with me is a good one I think. We are also entering prime cycling weather. A certain amount of wind chill is an incredible feeling.
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The heart of Saturday night
Saturday I decided to go for a quick 16 mile ride before it got dark. Somehow it turned into a 35 mile trek from Avondale to Stone Mountain to the Freedom Parkway area and back in the dark. Riding at night, in the relative cool, is soothing and pleasant. Much like the other times I’ve ridden that late, people became abstractions and it was like having the city to myself. This ride was for much longer though. I kept the darker parts mostly in neighborhoods and the path so there was a large degree of safety.I mapped it out, it’s available here. I haven’t figured out how to get the maps to display in the blog posts themselves yet. On an unrelated note, the camera on my phone is working again. The photo above is from a pedestrian bridge over Freedom Parkway.
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More Silver Comet News
Paulding.com (an odd mix of local newspaper and blog) has more news. They claim the body was found approximately here.
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Scary
First Michelle and Luke get their car broken into, and now this. I ride the Silver Comet at least a couple of times a month, and some other, probably more dangerous routes as well. I think the Comet is the only route where one would stay missing though. From Today’s AJC
Woman missing from Silver Comet Trail
Searchers are combing the Silver Comet biking trail in Cobb County today for a missing Sandy Springs woman last seen Monday afternoon.Two helicopters and about 100 family, friends and law enforcement officials are hunting for Jennifer Ewing, 54, who left from home in a Honda minivan with her red bike about 2 p.m. Monday to ride the trail.
The helicopters are equipped with infrared radar, a heat-seeking tool that allows searchers to see through dense woods and differentiate bodies on the ground, said Georgia State Trooper Larry Schnall.
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Jennifer Ewing makes the outing on the 50-mile wooded path through Cobb and Paulding Counties about four days a week, said Smyrna police Sgt. Robert Harvey.
Update: Police have found a body along the trail, somewhere in Paulding Country.
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Rematch with the Alabama ride
The above is actually spray-painted at the end of the Silver Comet Trail. It ends about 3 feet after this and becomes unpaved Alabama.I decided to try the ride to the Alabama state line again on Saturday. It was brutally humid, and in the 90s, but why not? This was my last endurance goal for the summer.
I wound up making it successfully making the ride. It was 126 miles; over eight hours in the saddle. I wound up drinking 5-7 liters of water, 4 power bars and two bottles of Accellerade. It was a fun, but extremely draining ride.
I saw about 10 deer, probably over a hundred rabbits and I almost ran over a dead snake. Two days later and I’m still exhausted.
Sitting in Alabama, looking at Georgia
The Brushy Mountain Tunnel -
Not dead
And I did make it to Alabama, just not all the way back under my own power (though I did make it back, thanks Mike and Erin!).
More details later.
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15 million illegal immigrants can’t be wrong
Happy Birthday America!
You’re 230 today! That’s 1,610 in dog years. And over 140 years without a civil war, which isn’t that bad, considering.
I’m off to celebrate the day by riding to Alabama and back. If this site isn’t updated by this time tommorow, would someone please look for me?
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Sweet!
The Silver Comet Trail is to be completed by next May. Thank you Coca Cola!
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A record of sorts
10:23 PM makes for the latest I’ve ever been out riding. Yes, it’s quite dark.
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The century
Saturday I biked a Century (100 miles), which was a lot harder than I thought it would be.The middle 16 miles are on a highway, and not a trail. That puts you in the direct sun and very rough blacktop from Rockmart to Cedartown, which makes for a draining adventure. I also ran out of water for 30 miles, which was horrible. But, I did finish in a little under 7 hours, albeit in the dark, with an average speed of 14.7 miles and heart rate of 140 bpm. It was the first time in a long time where my legs have ached during the ride.