THE WORLD AS SEEN FROM TWO WHEELSor,MEN IN TIGHTS

Elisson and Gary: the Bikey Boyz, coming in after a fifteen-mile ride on the Greenway.

With temperatures here having plunged into the Frozen Zone these last several days, my new-old road bike has been unused since last weekend... but before the arrival of wintry weather, I managed to get a few good rides in.

My buddy Gary turned me on to the Big Creek Greenway, a fine paved trail that wends its way from Roswell to Alpharetta/Johns Creek, roughly paralleling State Route 400. If you take it from end to end, it’s a fifteen-mile round trip... and when the planned hookup with the Forsyth Greenway is complete, it will be even longer and better.

The Greenway is pretty quiet during the week, with the occasional pedestrian, dogwalker, or roller skater; on the weekends it gets a bit busier. There’s a nominal 10 MPH speed limit that seems intended to keep bikers from using the trail for wind sprints, but I suspect it’s not heavily enforced except maybe during trafficky weekends when roadies zooming around all the curves would create a major hazard. I generally average about 13-14 without getting so much as a raised eyebrow, getting up to 20 on the straightaways if there are no pedestrians nearby.

One of the nice things about a trail like the Greenway is that it’s well away from automobile traffic. There’s only one spot where you have to cross a street. And it’s scenic...





...although if you want even nicer scenery, you take the Columns Drive trail. The northern end takes you past pricey real estate, after which the trail continues along a cinder path that runs alongside the Chattahoochee River. On a sunny afternoon, there is no finer place to be.


A Sunday afternoon at the river. Nice, eh? [Click to embiggen.]