These two trails link together at the Alabama/Georgia state line to make up 94.5 miles of paved rail trail. The eastern trailhead is just outside of Atlanta, which is just over 4 hours away from my house. This is either a 3 or 4 day bike tour, depending on how I want to do it.
The Plan
I drove down to Smyrna on a Monday afternoon and spent the night at the LaQuinta Hotel. There is a three mile spur trail that I biked on Tuesday morning that took me to the start of the Silver Comet Trail. The hotel let me park my car in their lot until Thursday evening without charging me. I’ve also heard that you can overnight park your car in the Publix parking lot that is close to the start of the Silver Comet Trail. You CANNOT park overnight at the trailhead parking.
There are many trailheads to the Silver Comet Trail. Many of them closer to Smyrna have water, but as you get farther away they are mostly just a porta-potty.
Here is the Silver Comet Trail website: https://www.silvercometga.com/
And here is the Chief Ladiga Trail website: https://www.silvercometga.com/chief-ladiga-trail/index-ladiga.shtml
Chief Ladiga Trail Map: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5157492.pdf
The surface of the Silver Comet Trail is excellent! It is a wide trail and gets lots of use. Most people use road bikes on this trail. It is paved with asphalt for the first 12 miles, but then changes to concrete for the rest of the 62 miles. The Chief Ladiga Trail is also asphalt, but not quite as wide. I rode these trails on Tuesday thru Thursday (3-day trip) and both trails were cleared with blowers on Wednesday. There are lots of trees lining the trail, so it needs weekly clearing.
While you could do this route a number of ways, here is how I split up my three day trip:
Day #1: Having slept at a local hotel, I got an earlier start. I got lunch in Rockmart at MM 37.5. I was feeling good when I got to Cedartown at MM 51.4. So, I decided to continue on to the next town of Piedmont, Alabama. BTW, Georgia is on eastern, but Alabama is on central time. I stayed at the only hotel in Piedmont and it was almost 80 total miles.
Day #2: I rode to the end of the Chief Ladiga trail at Aniston, Alabama. They are working on extending this trail another six miles into downtown Aniston, but that extension wasn’t open, yet. Then I turned around and headed back. I tended to bring my own breakfast, but if you want to go to a restaurant for breakfast you had better check to see which ones are open for breakfast near the trail. I returned back to Piedmont before 10:00, and there wasn’t a restaurant close to the trail open, so I pressed on the 24 miles to Cedartown (the 24 miles between Cedartown, GA and Piedmont, AL is the biggest gap between towns on the trail). When I got to Cedartown I got a late lunch and decided to call it a day. I rode 65 miles. The next 14 miles from Cedartown to Rockmart contain several short, steep hills and I wanted fresher legs for that stretch.
Day #3: It was 55 miles back to the hotel where I picked up my car and drove home. I was home by 7:00pm.
Some other options for doing this trail are:
If you wanted to do this ride another way in three days, an option is staying both nights in Cedartown. That means your second day is 88 miles, but you wouldn’t need to haul any gear that second day, since you’ll be returning to your hotel in Cedartown.
You could do this ride in two days with a road bike and limited gear. It would be a challenge.
You could make this a 4-day ride easily, as the towns of Rockmart (40 miles in), Cedartown (55 miles), Piedmont (80 miles), Jacksonville (92 miles), and Weaver (98 miles) all would have hotels and restaurants.