Biking the Silver Comet Trail, Smryna Georgia to the Alabama border

 

• Date Biked: March 14-17
• Posted Mileage 61.5
• Total miles Tracked:  122
• Type of Trail:  Paved rail-trail
• Conveniences:  Nice trailheads, good signs, plenty of bathrooms and picnic tables near trail
• Best Features:  Great surface, access to downtowns
• Worst Features:  Busy road crossings, though all with lights. Also, "Surprise Hill." 
• Wildlife spotted: Hawks. Turkeys. 
• Vegetation:  Hardwoods, pines, wildflowers
• Associated Website:  https://www.silvercometga.com/index.shtml
• Primary Author: James

I don't know if anyone ever looks at the labels we attach to these posts, but for this one we're introducing a new label: Vacation Destination. A lot of the trails we've written about are near where we live, and they are perfectly fine trails. But, no one is going to take off a week to ride, say, the Thermal Belt Trail in Spindale. Vacation Destination Trails need to be long enough to justify hotel stays (or camping), plus several days exploring them. Of trails we've already written about, the Greenbriar Trail in West Virginia is in this category. Also the Tammany Trace in Louisiana, and the New River Trail and Virginia Creeper in Virginia. 

Our latest vacation destination trail is a twofer. The longest continuous paved rail trail in the eastern US is the combined Silver Comet Trail (Georgia) and Chief Ladiga Trail (Alabama.) Combined, they offer nearly 100 miles of riding. Some bikers might be tempted to race along the whole length in a single day, but we took our time, taking photographs as we went and spending a little time in the towns the trail passes through. We planned to do the whole trail system as out and back rides from different trailheads each day, over five days. Fortunately, we'd built in a buffer for a rain day, because, yeah, it rained. A lot. 

The first day, there was enough sun to cast shadows...

...by midweek, we counted this as dry. 

The nice thing about rainy day rides is that it does tend to thin out the crowds!

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. 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. 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. Our ability to really enjoy the ride was offset some by witnessing numerous near collisions. Still, we finished the first day excited by the potential of the trail. The surface of the trail was excellent, there were bathrooms, parks, and even a bike shop along the route. We also liked that each town we biked into had their own customized trail signs. 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. It's more quirky than annoying. 

Mile 0.0 is the last obvious mile marker you'll see for a while.

Trailside bike shops are a great feature of any serious rail trail. 

The towns along the route all seemed proud to be part of the trail. 

The next day we biked from Hiram to Rockmart, a round trip of 45 miles. This section leaves behind the more populated sections of the trail, taking you through forests and farmlands, and through the Brushy Mountain Tunnel. Rockmart welcomes you with a lovely small town center and ample places to sit at a picnic table and enjoy a long break. We expected some crowd-thinning on a Monday, but were surprised to find ourselves alone mile after mile on this section. But, we were riding in the face of an oncoming stormfront. We lucked out and made it back to the car before getting too much rain. After two days, we'd already knocked out so much of the Silver Comet, we started to think we'd maybe finish it the following day. 

The caboose in Hiram is actually a sheriff substation. An officer patrolling the trail on bike was very helpful.

Many of the trail heads had little libraries, so I could mix a little business with pleasure, seeding Georgia with my books! And thus began the legend of Johnny Dragonseed.  

Right on the verge of spring, little flowers were peeking up everywhere. 

Brushy Mountain Tunnel. 

Then, the rains came. 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 only logged 16 miles on day 3, but this turned out to be a lucky break. Past Rockmart, the Silver Comet stops following a former rail bed, and turns into a hilly ride next to a highway for several miles. It's got enough climbing to be a real workout. 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. That said, in the parts of the trail where you get away from the road, this section is lovely, with rolling farmland along both sides of the trail. We got behind a pair of wild turkeys grazing on the margins of the trail and they took off running down the greenway ahead of us, so we had escorts for about a mile before they finally veered off into the woods. We got back to the car soaked, but pleased with our progress. 

Our final day on the Silver Comet, we parked at the visitor center in Cedartown. It was strangely devoid of information about the trail itself, but has all the trailhead essentials like bathrooms, water, parking, and a place to rest. It was still raining, but we headed east to Grady Road, where we'd stopped the day before. The stretch immediately west of Grady road is the infamous "Surprise Hill." It's very steep, but the worst is behind you in probably a quarter of a mile. We got back to our car as the rain died off and changed into dry clothes. We weren't finished! From Cedartown, it's only about 10 miles to the Alabama border, so we were determined to knock that out. Fortunately, after the challenging landscape between Rockmart and Cedartown, the ride to the border is once again a true rail trail, flat and straight for most of the ride, and through farmlands well removed from any traffic noise. There's a nice archway at the border between Georgia and Alabama, where the Silver Comet meets up the the Chief Ladiga Trail. You can read about our adventure riding that trail here! 

The cows looked at us like we were crazy to be out in this weather. 

The finish line! But only for Georgia! Another state awaits! 

All in all, the Silver Comet section of our ride was a grand experience. This is a well designed trail with a lot of support from the surrounding communities. There are any number of great day rides possible, and if you wanted to attempt the full distance purely on a bike, there are campgrounds and other places to stay along the route. There are numerous restaurants only a few blocks from the trail at many of the towns you ride through. There aren't many other trails that offer the same freedom to just get out and ride as far as your legs can take you. If you love biking, the Silver Comet should definitely be on your bucket list.