The Pocket Ride--April 14, 2018

After three months of weather-canceled rides we finally got lucky. Eight of us took off this Saturday morning, in spite of threatening skies, to The Pocket, a park on the far side of Johns Mountain in Floyd County.

The main route west would be Ga 136 but we took a diagonal route, cross country, to see how Henderson Mountain and the Jerusalem Church area made it though the winter. All was well except for the clear cutting here and there, to make room for more subdivisions I suppose.

We picked up Ga 136 in Blaine and soon passed Carters Lake, Petersburg and Nickelsville hoping to stop in Resaca for a break. The truck stop in Resaca filled the bill, once we learned how to get in (and out).

Soon after our Resaca rest stop we made our way over to Sugar Valley to head up Pocket Road to cross Johns Mountain. We soon learned what the squiggles on the map foretold: a series of left and right up hill and downhill turns, a motorcyclist's delight, except when things go wrong. Al's bike got a little to close to the pavement on a downhill ninety degree right hand turn and some metal parts hit, taking him down. Happily, the damage to both bike and rider was not great and Al saddled up and finished the ride with the rest of us, albeit minus a windshield.     

Once down the western side of Johns Mountain it was only a short distance to The Pocket. Surprisingly, with the exception of a couple campers and two dogs swimming in the creek, we had the place to ourselves. I guess the storm warnings for late Saturday and Sunday kept folks away.

Soon a few of the riders started thinking of lunch so we started out for Adairsville where we hoped to have lunch at the Adairsville Inn. Once we finally passed a couple of cruisers that insisted, for miles, to ride 20-30 mph in the mostly no-passing Everett Springs Road, we got on Ga 140 and were soon in Adairsville having lunch. The Inn's food and service were fine, the only drawback was the noise level that made conversation with anyone, other than the person next to you, near impossible. This was not something inherent to the Inn but rather came from a very large group celebrating something at the other end of the dinning room.

After lunch our group split with some heading for Cartersville, others Waleska and four turning north at Pine Log, to ride over Johnson's Mountain and take Salocoa road back to Ball Ground.

Here's some VIDEO from the ride:

It was a good ride, and it was great to have the group together on the road again.