137 miles round trip on the Silver Comet and Chief Ladiga trail!

This past weekend we went camping via bicycle from Atlanta to the Talladega National Forest in Alabama.Jon who piloted a custom built Bilenky touring tandem, with Bobby Costello stoking the fully loaded tandem (you can kind of get an idea of how much stuff is on it from the picture below).

Kyle took his Keirin frame on a journey that Vivalo would have never foreseen. He stuffed his Freight Baggage slingbag to the brim luckily he opted for the x strap.

Shakes Monroe rode a carbon fiber/alluminum frame that had some lower end stickers on the tubes.

While I rode a custom Bilenky tourlite which I had recently fitted a front constructeur rack from Velo Orange (we are now a dealer!) that I managed to stuff all of my gear on with one weird bungee…besides a packet of macaroni and a tiny camping bowl that I couldn’t find a cool looking way to strap onto the thing.

It was lightly raining and very cold as we started unloading our bikes and gear from the van in the Publix parking lot. It took some time to put the bikes and gear together, and pick up some last minute crucial supplies…

After we had all of our liquor packed up and we were on our way. Less than ten miles down the trail, the rain gear, and layers started coming off. We realized that our bargain to start the trip under stormy weather left us with fresh and sparsely populated road ahead of us. By our first short stop around mile 24 the sun was out.

After a bit of food and a couple of cutting edge grocery bag footwear modifications we continued on our way….

Read Part 2.

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