Greenway Trails and Ales - Walk n' Roll (Fulton County, Georgia)

 

The weather has been extremely volatile the last few weeks. With the super high humidity that this time of year brings in the southeast, thunderstorms seem to pop-up just about every single day. This has lead to a lot of inactivity for me recently, but today, I'm trying to break that at least a little bit and get my bike out for an event held by the nearby city of Alpharetta. The Greenway Ales and Trails program organizes a bike ride along the Alpharetta Greenway starting and ending at Jekyll Brewing. And of course, there is beer involved. I had registered for the event online a few weeks ago and received the confirmation. 

With the event starting at 11 AM, I loaded my bike up and headed over a little early. When I arrived I saw twenty or so people in various states of preparing for the ride, but no organizer. After asking around, it seems the organizer had not yet shown up. Once the start time rolled around, we all decided to continue on the ride and sort it out when we returned over a cold brew. 

For my part, it was just nice to be outside again. The weather was just about perfect for this kind of thing (or at least as perfect as Georgia has available this time of year). I first rode north on the paved greenway for about 2.5 miles, making good time. After hitting one of the dead ends of the Greenway, I turned and went back the way I came. The Greenway actually runs about 40-miles, but in some sections there are connector trails to continue the paved path and I didn't take the time to try and find the one here. 

With it still be pretty early when I got back to the brewery, I decided to keep going and rode another 2 or so miles southward. There were a few people out and about, but it wasn't nearly as busy as I would have thought it would be. That said, it was nice to be able to cruise at a pretty good speed. I'm getting used to shifting on this new bike and feels good to be able to 'open it up' a bit on this well-maintained bike path.

Returning to the brewery just before noon, I checked and found that I had rode for a total of 8.4 miles. Nothing crazy, but a good 'wake up' ride. A couple of others had arrived and I loaded my bike back onto my roof rack and headed inside for a beer. It seems there was still no organizer and a couple of us contacted the city of Alpharetta to figure out what was going on. The young lady on the other end of the call, was very nice, but had no idea about the event and urged us to contact her supervisor on Monday. For now, I'm just going to enjoy some really nice beer.

South Rockdale Park (Rockdale County, Georgia)

 

Between birthday parties and vehicles being in the shop, I haven't been able to get out much the last couple of weeks, which is okay. It was good to spend some time with family, but I've been yearning for some outdoors time. Originally, I had planned to be camping near and hiking up Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina this weekend, but with rain being called for in the forecast, an ascent of that precarious trail seemed like a bad idea. Instead, I opted to head out to a new park with the meetup group. Today, we're hiking at the South Rockdale Park near Arabia and Panola Mountains, a few miles southeast of Atlanta. 

As I signed up last minute, the group leader was a bit surprised to see me, but we've become friends over the past couple of years and I always feel welcome. There was some confusion on the meeting location and some of the hikers who went to a different area, just decided to head out on their own. Nearly thirty of us that made it to the correct spot though and after a quick round of introductions, we headed into the balmy Georgia woods. 

The single track trail runs parallel to the paved bike path, which is part of the Arabia Mountain Heritage Trail (and which I intend to ride in the near future) for much of it's distance. Our path will take us on numerous side trails though. It's a pretty standard trail system with not much being noteworthy. One item that was pretty cool though was a suspension bridge deep in the woods over a large gully. Of course I had to run across it to get it bouncing for those that followed behind me. I'm sure they appreciated it, lol. Strangely, the South River is just a few footsteps away from the end of the bridge. You would think they would build something like this over the actual waterway and not over a small depression. Ah well, I didn't built it.

After a quick 6.5 miles through the woods, we headed back to the cars and were off to enjoy some barbeque and brews at a local establishment. The trail was okay, but nothing worth going out of your way for. As always though, the company is what makes some of these trails tolerable. I also have to admit that it was nice to get my legs moving again.