Riding the Silver Comet Trail

I rode a bike a lot as a kid.  We lived in South Jersey, which is fairly flat.  Not "calibrate your level" flat, but no hills that seriously impeded bike riding.  The rural roads had wide shoulders and limited traffic so we could even venture out of our subdivision for longer rides.

When I got out of college and got a job I lived a couple miles from the train station where I caught a commuter train each day.  I thought it would be fun to bike to and from the station instead of drive on nice days, so I went to a local bike shop and purchase a Schwinn Continental 10 speed bike. I rarely used it for that, but did pedal around the area a bit for fun.  I moved, got married, moved a couple times more, had kids and the bike came along, but didn't get used much.

Along the way, I converted the drop style handlebars to the more comfortable upright style and got a cushier saddle.  But, the Schwinn bikes of that era are "lead sleds".  They have super strong welded mild steel frames, crank and steel rims and are very rugged.  Schwinn added a few aluminum parts as a token effort are reducing weight, but the net result is the bike weighs about 40 pounds.  That's a crazy amount for a road bike.

The sad truth is that I have rarely used it.  I would occasionally ride it around the neighborhood, sometimes with my kids in tow and would take it on camping trips to Myrtle Beach to ride around the campground, but that was about it.  Our local neighborhood is very hilly and the local roads have almost no shoulder making biking rather unattractive, so the bike has just hung from the garage ceiling for most of the past 20 years.

Then COVID hit.  The gym closed and I was looking for some fun way to get aerobic exercise that was easy on my knees.  Time to dust off the bike!  Literally...

The tires had dry rot.  One of them was an original from the 1970s.  The brake pads had hardened and needed replacement.  Thank goodness for Amazon.  A couple tires and tubes, brake pads, and some lubrication and shifter adjustment and it was ready to go.  I also added a cell phone holder, a rear view mirror and a bell.  Oh, and a new helmet, too!

New tires on.

Rear view mirror added

The bike was built in April 1980 in Chicago. It had the largest frame make by Schwinn - 26" - prefect for my long legs.

I started out riding in the local neighborhoods, just managing to get up and down the hills.  As my biking skills came back, I ventured out onto some local roads and explored other local neighborhoods.

In the past 20 years, the county and local towns have built some multipurpose, paved trails in parks and greenways.  So, I bought a bike rack for the car, and tried some of them out.  As long as you picked off peak times, they were mostly fun to ride, and some are pleasantly flat!

But, the real attraction for me was the Silver Comet Trail.  It's a Rails-to-Trails trail that runs 60 miles from the west side of Atlanta all the way to the Alabama border.  Is is the former CSX right of way that was abandoned in the early 2000s.  It was once the route of a streamlined passenger train called the Silver Comet operated by the Seaboard Airline Railroad from the Northeast to Birmingham, Alabama.

All of it is paved and, with a few exceptions, is on top of abandoned railroad right of way.  That means there are no grades of any length greater than about 2% (two feet rise for every 100 feet of trail).  It has several trestles and a long tunnel and is generally shaded.  Additionally, there is another 30 mile extension in Alabama, all the way to Aniston - the Chief Ladiga Trail.  90 miles in all, great for summer riding!

Let's go!

I printed out a map of the trail and got the miles between trailheads with parking, then divided the route into sections I could comfortably pedal out and back in an hour or two.  I decided to make the first chunk pretty small since I didn't know if I could trust my 40 year old bike and wasn't sure what other issues there might be.

June 1, 2020.  Put the bike on the bike rack and drove over to the trailhead at milepost 0, Marvell Road in Smyrna, Georgia.  I rode from there up to Floyd Road and back.  Lots of walkers and joggers and cross streets to navigate, but it was pretty easy to maneuver and lots of fun.  Stopped at Floyd Road to have a snack and pedalled back to Marvell.

My second trip over was on June 5th.  I had checked the weather the night before, but failed to check it that morning before heading out.  As soon as I was on the road, driving to the trailhead, a huge thunderstorm struck and continued nearly unabated until I arrived at the trailhead, when is stopped.  I check the radar and it looked okay for the next couple hours, so I decided to chance riding.  I carry a rain jacket, so I was a least somewhat prepared.  The trail was soaking wet, but soon dried out and I had few problems with wet brakes.  The rain had reduced foot traffic on the trail and it was easier to navigate than the first day.  I easily managed the 11 miles out and back with a lunch stop along the way.  No sooner did I load the bike back on the rack, it started pouring.  Good timing!

Riding after the rain

Lunch stop

A trestle on the route

The Trailhead at Hiram

What I hear when I pedal on an old RR right of way

The next day out was June 8, Hiram to Rambo Trailhead.  An easy ride.  The Norfolk Southern mainline from Atlanta to Chattanooga follows along for a bit and crosses at one point.

Now, we're starting to get quite a ways from home and the "deadhead" trip to the trailhead is getting longer and longer.  At the start, it was a 35-40 minute drive.  Now, the trip to Rambo trailhead is 60 miles and an hour and 20 minutes.  But, the trail gets more rural as you go, with fewer cross streets and fewer walkers.

June 11th I pedaled from Rambo to Coot's Lake.  This, so far, is my favorite section.  It passes over a high bridge, through a protected forest, and through a long tunnel.  There are long, steady grades approaching the tunnel, but they are easy to pedal.  The more rugged terrain had lots of cuts and fills as it wound through the forest.

Coot's lake is a really nice place to stop for lunch before heading back.  I would definitely do this section of the trail again!

Peavine Trestle

Brushy Mountain Tunnel

Riding through the tunnel

Me, my bike, the tunnel

Lunch stop at Coot's Lake

Coot's Lake

on the trail

Over Peavine Creek

This was my last section for a while.  I got back out to the trail on July 2nd, tackling a 12 mile stretch that include going by the town of Rockmart, Georgia.  Around Rockmart, and for a ways to the west, CSX is still using the old SAL right of way for an active railroad, so the trail isn't quite as easy to navigate.  There is a nice stretch through Rockmart along a creek, then it passes through some athletic fields, then along a highway for four miles, up and down a couple of small hills.  Finally, the trail runs adjacent to the railroad, crossing it a couple of times and making a couple of excursions into the woods and through some farms.  I ended up at Grady Road trailhead, which was an okay spot for lunch, but I'd have been better stopping a mile back at Don Williams trailhead.  Much nicer and has restrooms.

The stretch along the highway isn't much fun, but the farm and wooded sections were very scenic and the part along the creek in Rockmart was very nice.  In non-COVID times, this would have make a nice trip with a stop in Rockmart to eat lunch.

Winding through Rockmart.  A vestige of the trail's past.

Through the farmland

Along the highway

At Rockmart, the Norfolk Southern mainline turns north toward Rome.  

I did the last two sections in one day, parking and making a round trip, then moving the car to the end of the first section and pedaling the rest.

I parked at the Don Williams trailhead and used the one mile section up to Grady Road to get warmed up so I could tackle the grade of "unexpected hill".  It almost worked.  I managed all but about 200 feet pedaling westbound and all of it eastbound.  The trail follows the railroad tracks until Grady Rd, then takes a "shortcut" over a hill until it gets back to the railroad just before Cedar town.

The view from the top.

At the top of the grade

Still smiling!

The trail winds through Cedartown via a collection of short, new path, side streets, glorified sidewalks until it passes the restored Cedartown train station, now a visitors center.

Both CSX and NS still serve Cedartown, so no proper "rails to trails" here.

Cedartown

Departing Cedartown, the trail, again, wanders around city streets and short, new sections until it climbs up to a main highway.

I turned around at Martin Trailhead.  This is where the trail once again is on top of the old railroad right of way.

I had a quick snack and water break, then pedaled back to Don Williams, then drove back over to Martin to start the second section.  The trail was gently uphill all the way to the Alabama border, which is nice since who wants to pedal uphill on the way home?  This part of the trail has lots of long straight stretches that border farmland.  I saw the most wildlife on these two parts.  Lots of rabbits, a deer that crossed in front of me, a fawn that paced me, about 40 feet ahead for a couple hundred feet, a ground hog and a turkey with some chicks.

I made it!

The last foot.

I had lunch at the border, pedaled back and headed for home.

All in all, I traveled the entire 61.5 mile trail in both directions over 6 days.  Shortest day was the first  - about 8 miles.  The longest was the last - over 32 miles.  It was a really fun adventure!  The bike held up.  I held up. ...I might want to get a  more comfy saddle...

I would definitely do some sections of this trail again.  My favorite part was from Rambo to Coots Lake, over the trestle and through the tunnel, surrounded by forest all the way.

When we get to a post-COVID world, I’ll definitely make some day trips out to ride again.  Patti can shop. I’ll pedal.  We’ll have lunch along the way!

Picture of the Day

Since the Coronavirus deal started, I've been posting a picture of mine each day on Facebook.  I've move it here.

July 4th.  Mount Rushmore, SD.  July 1971.  Time exposure at night using my old folding camera and Kodacolor film.  Picture from processed from negative.

July 3.  Kruger National Park, South Africa.  Sunset. March 2016

July 2.  Gamla Stan, Stockholm Sweden. Sept 2018

July 1.  Columbia River Gorge.  Not steam. A forest fire.  Sept 2017

June 30.  Yellowstone.  Not a fire. May 2019.  Burned trees from fire decades ago.  New trees below.  Steam from the thermal basin.

June 29.  The Road to Hana HI.  Dec 2018

June 28.  Roanoke VA.  Old passenger station, now  O. Winston Link Museum.

June 26.  Monterrey CA.  A couple of sea lions stand guard - more or less - over a fishing boat.

June 23 Cape Lookout State Park, Oregon.  Sept 2017

June 22.  Halfmoon.  Yosemite National Park.  July 2007

Blowing Bubbles - don't get sick!

I've been thinking about airflow a lot lately because the best way to avoid catching SARS CoV-2 is don't breathe in the virus.  Yeah, you can get it by touching stuff and then sticking you finger in your eye, but that's ain't what's driving this thing.  It's breathing.  It's a respiratory virus, after all. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html

(also interesting...not all fomites are created equally. It's hard to get virus on your hands from cloth https://aem.asm.org/content/79/18/5728)

Not all breathing is created equal.  A breath can spew 50-3000 particles.  A cough, 3000, and a sneeze, 30,000.  A person breathes about 15 times a minute.  So, for round numbers' sake, lets just say that minute of breathing equals one cough, and 10 minutes of breathing equals one sneeze.  So, while you don't want to be around sneezing and coughing people, it's not great to be around plain old breathing for long periods of time.  It's the sneaky way the asymptomatic are getting the job done!

So, people breathe, cough and sneeze and then you breathe in the same air space.  You can only get infected if you breathe in enough.  So, how much is "enough"?   It seems, no less than 1000 virus particles to maybe 10 times that is a minimum infectious dose.  That's the range - based on how its kissing cousins behaved (SARS and MERS)  If you get less than the minimum dose, your body just throws the bugs out with the rest of the trash.  More than than, it can get overwhelmed and you're infected.

So people spew out particles.  Wouldn't it be nice if they could just blow away before you could breathe too many of them in?  It happens.  It can depend where you are.  Big volume, big air flow will move and dilute the droplets.  Small volume, little flow - not so much.

Airflow is a complicated thing.  Engineers try to grasp it working backwards from tests, generating all sorts of equations fitted empirically to test results.  Scientists try to grasp it from the physics, working from the fundamentals toward predictions that can be tested.  There's a lot going on in a mixed gas like air.  Atoms vibrating and banging into each other depending on temperature and pressure.  There's a big gap between science and engineering with air flow.  What you are trying to find out and what you need the results for will determine what approach you take.  There is no "one size fits all" approach for air flow.

Commercial buildings often have rather sophisticated HVAC ventilations systems.  Much of the air is recirculated.  It has to be.  It's the only practical way to deliver enough heat or cooling without installing enormous, prohibitively expensive systems.  Still, most are designed to exhaust some air and introduce some outside, make-up air.  A typical system will replace about 99% of the air in the building in about an hour (ACH = 4 means roughly 2/3 of the air is changed every 15 minutes.  1/3 ^ 4 = 0.01)

Airplanes have high air change rates, zoned airflow and very good filtration. Some specifics here https://www.erinbromage.com/post/flying-in-the-age-of-covid-19

Cars have "flow through" ventilation.  They used to use this as a selling feature in the 1970s.  Now , all cars have it.  Air comes in the cowl, exits by vents in the back of the passenger compartment.  So, as long as you have the recirculation off and the fan blowing, you have good airflow through the car.  It's about 10x the ventilation of a building.

Much less airflow in your car if you have this turn on.

Homes are a mixed bag.  The HVAC systems are 100% recirculating.  The air change rate depends on how often you open and close doors and windows and leaky your home is, in general. Nice, tight new replacement windows?  Not leaky.  Old, draftly wood double hung?  Leaky.


This nasty virus is really a wimp, unlike the norovirus, which is a tough bugger.  Coronaviruses fall apart under all sorts of circumstances.  The fat covering dissolves almost immediately with soap, alcohol and other disinfectants.  The protein spikes denature with light, heat, rough surfaces.  The RNA inside gets blown up by UV light.  The virus is most happy when it's floating around protected in a drop of water and that's exactly what our respiratory systems do - blow out drops of water.  Very small, to be sure, but drops none-the-less.

Many of these drops are 100 micron range and pretty much fall straight down to the floor when you exhale, but most are around 1 micron and float around for a bit.  Some also evaporate and leave the "solid" content - virus and some salt and some other bodily goo, floating around on their own for a quite a while.   The longer a person is in a place, the more breathes are being breathed and the more of these droplets are hanging around in the air. They can accumulate until a steady state is reached where the amount dropping to the floor, sticking to the walls and exiting the building is equal to the rate new ones are being breathed out.  The smaller the space and the lower the air change rate and the more people are in the space, the greater the steady state density of breath droplets.

How long does a "naked" virus remain effective floating in the air?  I can't find a good answer.  The trouble is, it's hard to test.  Those "it lasts three hours" articles you read are the result of testing for fragments of the RNA.  The virus has long lost it's fat coat, spikes and probably intact set of RNA.  It's like asking how long cars can last and pointed to a Ford Model A in a junkyard.  Yeah, it looks like the husk of a car.  It's still made of steel.  But I hasn't been able to run in 70 years.

So, maybe a viable virus can hang around in the air, naked, for several minutes?  Plus, there are all those viruses still hitching a ride in very tiny water droplets?  I needed a good way to visualize what's happening.  I thought of soap bubbles. You know, the kind kids play with or are modern day substitutes for throwing rice at weddings.  You blow them, they move on the air currents until the water evaporates and the bubble "pops".

Perhaps a good way to think of your risk is to think about everyone around you blowing soap bubbles.  Every breathe blows out bubbles.  They are carried by the airflow.  Your goal is not to have many soap bubble land on you.  One or two, not so bad.  Dozens and dozens, not good.

So if you are outside and there's a breeze going, with air swirling all over the place, it's gonna be really hard to get any bubbles on you.  The very turbulent air flow pushes them up, down, left and right and they have all the open space to flow into.   If you're inside, with a lot of people, and the air flow is very low and recirculating, you have lots and lots of bubbles, barely moving at all, with no place to go.  Just hanging around - hard to keep them off you!

The longer you hang around the bubble blowers and the closer you get to them, the more they're gonna get on you!  So, avoid the bubbles!  Stay healthy!



Some really excellent reading in links below.  All of these are footnoted with links to studies used in their blog.  My blog post here is really a "meta-post" leveraged from these.


https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them?fbclid=IwAR37zdJrhlCadX28hrt9S4QwXiS5HWIZKWLI5ViSivz5_-sjUgWUecI7ecQ


https://www.facebook.com/jenniferkastenmd/posts/119907962995484

https://www.facebook.com/jenniferkastenmd/posts/120574959595451?__tn__=K-R