We'd gotten our bikes tuned up before the trip, a good thing because we did a lot of gear shifting, and really needed our brakes as steep downhills lead to road crossings directly off a highway. It's got enough climbing to be a real workout. Past Rockmart, the Silver Comet stops following a former rail bed, and turns into a hilly ride next to a highway for several miles. We only logged 16 miles on day 3, but this turned out to be a lucky break. We hung out in the hotel as long as we could stand it, then headed back to Rockmart for a short afternoon ride in between bands of the storm. We did find the mile markers on this section odd, since they aren't placed at any sort of regular intervals, so that you might have a mile marker 3.9, but no mile marker 4. We also liked that each town we biked into had their own customized trail signs. The surface of the trail was excellent, there were bathrooms, parks, and even a bike shop along the route. Still, we finished the first day excited by the potential of the trail. Our ability to really enjoy the ride was offset some by witnessing numerous near collisions. As avid bikers, Cheryl and I get annoyed by families spreading out to cover the whole trail, but even more annoyed by bike racers who treat a mixed use trail like an interstate. It was a Sunday, sunny and warm, and the trail was crowded! As often happens on popular greenways, there's a tension between serious bikers out to race as fast as they can and whole families leisurely meandering along the trail with strollers and leashed dogs.
We did get nearly perfect weather for our first day, when we started at mile 0 in Smyrna and rode to Hiram, logging about 29 miles round trip.
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