Fine tuning Arabia Mountain Route

I got a free day today. I was scheduled for Jury Duty and planned for the office to do without me today, and then found I wasn't needed. I spent the day on the bike.

I had been wanting to improve upon a route that takes us to PATH's Arabia Mountain Trail. The route we had been riding followed Covington Highway which is a four lane with fairly high-speed traffic. It's not bad, but we thought we could do better.

Arabia Mountain

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The route (clockwise from the NW) follows much of the same route we had taken out to Stone Mountain nine days ago. The road leading into Lithonia was about what I would expect for the "City of Granite" (lithograph, monolith, Lithonia) -- you felt like you were surrounded by quarries. Still, it was an improvement over the four lane.

I also explored the newly constructed trail leading into Panola Mountain (not drawn on the route). It may be possible to stay on the trail without having to double back along this spur.

Going through the Arabia Mountain preserve presented a couple of challenges I don't usually face on a bike ride. Fallen trees had blocked the trail at one point and collapsed a boardwalk in another. In both cases I had to dismount and lift the bike over the obstacles before continuing. I wasn't expecting an obstacle course.

The heat was more of a factor than I expected as well. Over the 60 miles, I drank 7 quarts and all of it came back out as sweat.