Allatoona

About a week ago it hadn't rained for a couple of days, and Allatoona was actually open. Given how I'd unsuccessfully tried to ride there the previous weekend, it seemed like a good place to go, so I got all my stuff together and headed up there.

Unfortunately, though it hadn't rained in long enough for the trail system to be open, it had rained enough to flood out various parts of it. Rusty Bucket, for example, was completely closed.

At least some of the other trails appeared to be open, but everything was a bit damp. No bombing downhills or railing corners. It was a better day to explore than to shred, and as that had been my plan last time, I figured that's what I'd do.

There's kind-of a roadbed that follows Allatoona Creek from County Line Road north until it just ends at a bend up by the lake. Though I'd ridden the road itself, I really never explored to either side of it, south of the bridge at least, and I'd heard that there was a new trail down that way.

Getting to it was somewhat challenging though.

Everywhere I went there was standing water. There were, fortunately though, several different paths to take, and with a bit of backtracking, I managed to find a manageable route.

There were several side trails to the east. The first just led to somebody's house. The next was an actual trail though, and led to a school. At the back of their running track, there was even a gateway and signage.

Nice!

The school turned out to be Frey Elementary. It and Durham Middle appeared to share the same general property though, and might have shared the same PE facilities. When I rolled out of the woods, there was a family out there enjoying the sunshine, running on the track, and playing on the playground. We waved at each other, and I explored the property a bit.

To the north there was a bus depot, with a million buses parked inside the fence.

A paved trail led around the side of Durham to the front lot, and there were various roads, car lots, and bus lots around both buildings.

One thing that caught my eye though, as I was riding out to the main road, was this port-a-potty just sitting off in the woods. I probably wouldn't have seen it in the summer, but the trees still haven't really leafed out yet, and I noticed it as I rode by.

I didn't immediately see a trail leading to it, so it was a little odd, but a little more exploration straightened it all out.

Back toward the schools, I noticed another trail gateway.

A gateway to the Gary Jordan / Karan Wood Trail, apparently.

Interesting!

It looked like a nature trail. There was a kiosk...

...and various little posts with signs on them labeling things.

As elaborate as it was though, it didn't look like it had gotten much use in recent years. There was a huge tree down about 30 yards down the trail, and the surface was really leafy.

There were various outdoor classrooms along the trail. Eg. the Old Oaks Classroom:

I guess I should say "along the trails" as there were multiple different trails.

Ahh, the port-a-potty.

From in the woods, it was easy to spot the trail that led to it. In fact, it even led up to the road that I had been on earlier, but deadfall right up by the road had obscured it.

Oh yeah... Classrooms. There was the Windmill Plains Classroom:

And the Creekside Classroom:

Which, instead of benches, just had this overgrown trailer hulk.

There was also the Anderson Gazebo Classroom:

All of these seemed to have seen better days.

The trail around that gazebo was chewed up by some machine with tracks, and after milling around a bit, I found a dingo parked nearby. The tracks actually led to a much more modern looking trail, with tire tracks on it even. I figured maybe that was the trail that I'd originally been out looking for. Maybe it wasn't complete yet, thus the dingo.

This turned out to be the case.

But more about that later...

There was an Amphitheater out there too:

And it appeared to mark the end of the nature trail loop.

There was a very distinct loop from one of those gateways to the other. There were a few side-trails, like the one to the port-a-potty, but the main trail seemed to just lead from classroom to classroom.

After exploring all that I headed back to Allatoona proper and kept exploring to the south. There were plenty of footprints and tire tracks to follow, and they ultimately led to this sign.

A-ha! That looked semi-official. This must be the place.

About halfway up the first climb, I was overtaken by a guy on an e-bike.

Yep. This is the place.

The trail led up to the top of a hill, where I found another "classroom":

Though this one was unnamed.

Then it wound around a bit and passed by a couple of "artifacts", lets call them.

I was first treated to my second favorite thing to find in the woods. A toilet:

But, nearby, lay two of my first favorite thing to find in the woods. Boats!

IDK, this might not actually be a boat, but I thought it was at the time:

This is definitely a boat though. Definitely:

Boats. Way back in the woods. I know they were just dumped there, but it's always funny to me.

Another toilet!

I literally laughed out loud seeing that there was a second toilet out there.

While taking that photo, I noticed some duded downhill from me, standing in the trail, watching the guy on the e-bike down below both of us. He noticed me right as I got moving again. We waved, and I rolled down to say hi. Turned out his name was Tom (I think, I'm bad with names) and he was out working on the trail. He'd just rock armored a turn and was curious how well the e-bike guy was able to negotiate it. The dingo was also his. He'd tried to use it earlier to do some drainage work, but the ground was too soft, and he was doing more harm than good just moving it around, so he'd parked it and got some hand work done. The name of the trail was apparently Fern Gully, and though it wasn't officially open yet, it was reasonably well known by the locals, and even up on some trail sites.

The e-bike guy had apparently cleaned a switchback just up the trail, but I wasn't so lucky. It was just too slippery still. When I came back down the hill, I ran into the same guy again, working near that Sorba sign that I'd seen earlier.

Past all of that, I passed through the Fern Gully classroom:

No doubt where the name comes from.

The trail was pretty good. Easily as good as the rest of the trails out there. It had a bit of exposed rock on it too, and was maybe a bit rougher than some of the others, but that might have to do with it not being finished yet. I'm looking forward to adding it into the Allatoona Big Loop though.

I rode Wildcat on the way out, just to do something else, then I headed across the road, rode half of Turtleback, screwed around in the bike park for a while (which was surprisingly dry), hit Echo a few times, then rode out. It was a pretty good day, actually. My bike was completely covered in a thin film of mud, but otherwise unharmed.

Most notably, my back brake worked. After all of the trouble I'd had with it recently, I'd finally bought an entire new lever, hose, and caliper, and taken them to Glen the day before. The lever had been leaking, so we first just changed that, and it made almost no difference. It still felt like there was a ton of air in it, and it just would not bleed. It turned out that the "olive", that little piece of copper that goes around the hose and compresses into the lever, had gotten cocked sideways and was not only crimped oddly, but was also digging into the hose. It wasn't sealing well, and the hose itself may even have gotten a hole worn into it. Instead of just swapping the hose, we ended up swapping the hose and caliper together, as they were attached to each other and it was just easier to do that. After bleeding, the brake at least felt "like a brake". It didn't feel like I was just compressing air, but it still didn't really work. It was like maybe 50% of the stopping power I'd expect. I even rode around on one of Glen's bikes with working brakes to verify. TF else could be wrong? The rotor was super blue in comparison to the front rotor. Glazed maybe? I sanded it until it didn't look blue anymore, and that made a big difference. I still coudn't just lock it up, but it was way better. The pads were brand new, and still needed to bed in. Maybe if I ride it a bit?

Turned out yes. As the day wore on at Allatoona, the brake worked better and better. By the time I got off of the trail it felt like I expected it to.

Woohoo? We'll see. Given that thing's history, I'm not ready to declare it fixed just yet.