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Friday was a blustery, cloudy day.  Not the best of days to be running the trail blower and cleaning the Silver Comet Trail.   It’s difficult to work against the wind.  Like riding a bike in windy weather, you learn to take what the road will give you.  It’s all good if your head is right.  Just part of the challenge.  Like learning to love the rope.

Early in the day I planned a turn around on Landfill Hill.  Why? It’s one of two, steep, winding sections on the Comet, with a couple of sharp downhill turns.  It’s a bad spot for less-experienced riders where they have, in the past, let the speed get away from them. Debris on this section of trail can be a serious hazard.

Land fill Hill isn’t a pleasant place with winds out of the South like they were Friday, not the usual north-westerly winds.   The sun had peeked out in the last hour and warming the ground, and with recent rains, the humid stench of landfill was over whelming.  Fighting the wind I increased speed and edged to the left to avoid lifting and blowing debris adjacent to the trail.  Rounding the second, outside corner I spotted the turn around.   The second hump and top of Landfill Hill.  Still working against the wind I edged over 2 ft from the left and increased speed, leaving me just enough room to use the wind on the return pass.

I cruised to a stop at the top, jerking the ATV to the left for the turnaround.   It was then that flashes of color caught my eye.  What the he**??  My first impression was colorful tattered Tibetan prayer flags, fluttering in the wind,  like I had seen in movies.  Puzzled, I stopped the ATV and walked up the ridge.

Landfill Hill flags.

A multi-colored array of plastic shopping bags,  lofted from the landfill and into the air had snagged on the brush in a make-shift pattern, as if strung together when viewed at distance.  Yes, it was just trash, snagged by the brush and trapped by the wind, but I can’t shake that lingering first impression of prayer flags fluttering in the wind.  I still find the incident a bit haunting.  The other side of the trail, I looked, there were no flags.

Tibetan prayer flags.

This is about LA, Lance Armstrong and it’s definitely not about the bike.

One of the people that I follow on the web is Dan Zarrella.  Dan compiles data about social web sites like Facebook and Twitter.  What I like about Mr. Zarrella’s work is that he generates data from linguistic/cultural structures and social networks, something he refers to as Memetics  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics.

Dan recently published a list of rankings for Twitter Celebrity Clickthrough  Rates of various well know Twitterati; one of those ranked was Lance Armstrong, a well-know cyclist, cancer survivor and a leader in the battle against cancer.  Dan often talks about “influencers”, the personalities that other people follow and listen to.   Unfortunately (in my view) most of the people that were ranked were people without a message; just reality-actors, musicians, etc. Only a few of the ranked celebrities fell outside this circle.

Twitter Celebrity Clickthoughs

Visit Dan’s website: http://danzarrella.com/celeb-ctrs.html#

It was good to see that Lance ranked fairly high on his ability to influence Twitter followers.   What surprised me most was the overall low response all these people had, <2%.    I would have expected better results for the likes of Mashable which has more informative content links rather than the reflective tweets of most twitters.

A cold morning with frost on the ATV windshield and saddle.  I needed to wait for sunrise before heading to Rockmart, fortunately everything had thawed by the time I got there.   You certainly can’t run the blower with a frosty windshield and no defroster in the ATV.

Stats for the day: 50.48 miles, average speed 9 mph.  Normally the average speed is higher but the huge quantity of debris in Polk County was a major problem.  The section of the trail cleaned ran from downtown Rockmart to the Alabama state line.

Polk County has been trimming shrubbery along the trail and leaving a huge quantity of hazardous debris on the trail.  Thank goodness we have the blower running, there was so much mess I couldn’t get everything like I usually do, but I got probably got 98% of the debris off the trail. At least when you blow the trail, what gets missed is visible and easy for others to avoid or remove. The GRITS guys do a great job of following up and fixing things, in fact I saw Junior out riding Friday and we discussed the follow-up.   I’m very proud of the work that the blower does.  Here are a couple of before and after photos.

(click images to enlarge)

This is how one of the worst debris strewn areas of the Polk County section of the trail looked.  Hundreds of debris chunks that are a serious hazard to bike and rider.

Debris on the Silver Comet Trail

Of course the trail blower did a great job of cleaning up the mess.   This is how it looked on the return trip.  Quite a difference.

After the cleanup.

After the cleanup, note all the debris adjacent to the trail.

Finishing in Rockmart I get to treat myself to dinner at Frankie’s.  A good way to finish a hard day of  work making the trail safer and more enjoyable to ride.

I don’t know that I’ve left the trail a better place, but certainly cleaner.

I ran the trail blower from dawn to dusk today.  Unfortunately my Garmin 305 locked-up today so I don’t know how many miles of trail I cleaned, but I’d guesstimate at least 35 miles.

( click images to enlarge )

Silver Comet Trail

The trail blower really does an amazing job at cleaning the trial.

Here it is with it’s new winterizing accessories.

Trail blower with winterizing accessories.

Trail blower with windshield and lights; rigged for winter running.

I don’t know what they call this location west of Landfill Hill, but it is a scenic stop with a panoramic view and some Fall color.

Panoramic view and Fall colors.

Finished cleaning the trail between Rockmart and Cedartown today. Two very tough days of work. Completed all the trail sections between Rockmart and the Alabama border.   Jim and I have now cleaned the entire trail from the Cobb County line to the Alabama border.  It’s like a new trail in places.  I’ve included three videos from today’s work, which show the power and speed of our ATV-blower.

My favorite for the day was video #3

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Video #1

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Video #2

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