I've been planning a ride to Athens from home for a long while with multiple iterations. I planned several that meandered a bit but were on a bit less busy roads and were pretty long. I planned out a few that went around south after Athens to come back on less busy roads but were still long. This one that I ended up doing solved this issue by going to Athens as directly as possible in the morning, which required a very early start. I didn't really do a winter solstice celebration because I decided to save everything for this ride, which was only one day after the solstice anyway. Weather was forecast to be perfect with light east winds, and with school out for the holidays plus it being a long weekend with Christmas on Monday I figured that traffic would be less than normal. This would turn out to not be the case. The trip down 54 over to Jonesboro was fine, but I had just done this last Saturday and at an even later time(around 3-4am) and it was less traffic then. Still, we're talking 15 cars by Fayettville vs like 5. Fully a third of those this ride were bored cops though. I was a bit worried about 138 through Stockbridge by this point, but while the initial 2 lane road from Jonesboro had more traffic than last week, by the time it turned into 4 lane Lake Spivey parkway it was deserted. There wasn't any trouble heading down the sprawl around the two interstate crossings(I-75 and 675). I was glad that I decided to get off well before Monroe though, around mile 50 near Conyers. The traffic was picking up and it was a narrow 2 lane road. So the remaining predawn hours were spent in glorious dark solitude on quiet back roads. I wore a baselayer to hopefully keep me warm enough to allow me to use lighter gloves, and this worked well. The temperature hovered between 37 and 40 most of the time. But as time wore on it dropped further and when it got to 34 I had to break out my heavy gloves. I almost made it too, as it was after sunrise by this point. This didn't last very long and it warmed up quickly to over 50 soon enough and I switched back to light gloves. There was minimal traffic on all the roads leading into Athens. I had a series of large roads with some traffic but bike lanes. Stopped at the first Kroger and despite the early hour(before 9am) it was quite busy, and I actually had to wait for the self checkout(and they only had one register open). I really didn't need to stop just yet and could have held out till the 2nd Kroger which was probably less busy but oh well. The streets were deserted especially downtown probably because the population is so tied to the school and it's Christmas break. I only saw 2 people walking the paths the entire way through town, and soon I was back on 2 lane roads. The road to Watkinsville which was required to make the route short enough for my endurance abilities, was busier than I would have liked and hilly to boot. Everyone was courteous and I never felt unsafe, just annoyed. I was burning up by the time I got to Watkinsville and decided to peel off layers. Found a public restroom just off route with working water fountains thanks to an icon on my gps to change in. The route south was way less busy and while it was still fast pavement the traffic was very sparse. By the time I rolled through Hard Labor creek state park, I was in need of sodium and had no desire to go another 40 miles without a stop so I diverted slightly to the Dollar General in Rutledge. I made an executive decision to actually sit down and eat a bag of chips with a soda rather than take off asap. It was a really nice day so this was pretty pleasant although it was slightly too cold to sit in the shade. I felt lots better and would continue to feel better and better as the ride went on. It also helped that I had a proper soda this time. The first stop i accidentally grabbed a Coke Zero. EEW (I still drank it for the caffeine) The next miles were the best of the whole ride, lots of twisty gravel roads through forest. Just a ton of fun. I was very reluctant about getting off and having to ride highway 16 for almost 7 miles but it wasn't that bad. Higgins road to Flovilla was actually worse than 16. I was extremely glad to turn off that road. I missed my turn to the left for a gravel road and ended up getting back on track once traffic cleared by cutting through the grass and somebody's pallet pile area. I stopped at the DG in Flovilla and got more chips since that was working well, and I continued feeling good. On the short section of High Falls road that was on after I crossed highway 36, there was some sort of calmity afoot because I heard a siren and blue lights coming around the bend in front of me, and had to bail off the road into someone's yard to avoid getting killed by a reckless cop who almost ran down the car heading opposite me. I was shook up but continued on. Of course like herds of stupid deer crossing busy roads together without looking, there were more sirens and blue lights and this time it was two cop cars going so fast on my side I barely had time to bail to the grass as far as i could. They were going fast enough that it looked like they would flip They took the curve at least at 80 swerving around cars like they were in a video game with zero consequences. Could have killed all of us including themselves(there were cars around just as dumbfounded as I was). Really shook up now i reluctantly continued on, and in my haste to get off High Falls road I turned left down the wrong road(in my defense it was close to where i needed to go), had to turn around and get back on track. The miles leading into, through and out of Griffin were fine, albeit with more traffic that I would have liked, it being Saturday evening on a holiday weekend with terrific weather in the winter. A recipe for southerners to get out and drive around aimlessly. I felt really good and decided once I got to Kelly road in Fayette county to avoid riding most of Rising Starr road because I was just SO over riding on busy roads. Took the gravel diversion up and around and rode fairly hard because I was feeling so good. Nothing more fun than racing down a steep gravel road at nearly 40mph in the dark. When I got to Starrs Mill the 85 traffic was pretty bad, so when I got a gap I rode a decent little interval to hold 30 till the bridge and nobody really was on my ass at all till right before Waterfall Way. Still feeling good heading into town on the paths I decided to tack on more miles to bump me up to 230. So I rode Dividend and did a bit extra by the lake, and in our subdivision and actually ended up with the longest ride i've ever done by a tiny bit and it ticked just over 14000 feet of climbing right at the end.