‍I had two goals for this ride, one was to finally complete Coweta county, and the other was to ride significant parts of LaGrange including as much of the Thread greenway as I could including whatever new bits that have just been completed. I left early enough that I just took Lower Fayetteville road to Newnan the whole way for the first time in awhile and attempted to ride a mobile home subdivision south of Newnan that was probably private but I had never investigated. I rolled in around 3:45 in the morning or so and probably would have just rode it except there was a car with its lights on pointing at me and in any case it was definitely private so I turned around and continued on to Corinth road. Corinth road went by pretty fast in the dark. The temperature was more like late spring than early spring, in the low sixties and with oppresive humidity. I rode some dead ends in LaGrange for the first hour or so I was there before dawn till I jumped on the Thread trail which is technically not open till then and anyway I wanted to see it in daylight. There was a connector from a subdivision that someone had marked bike path on OSM so I decided to take that over to a park where the trail obviously existed. Except this was essentially just a powerline cut that had just been bushhogged with millions of little spoke killing sticks scattered all along the ground. I rode it carefully the 100 yards over to the park and met with an old 4 foot high gate. Peering over the gate revealed a small parking lot with two cars and a guy dressed up for the country club with a golf club and was setting up a ball on a tee. I was extremely confused and for half a second I thought i'd made a mistake and somehow wandered on to a golf course. It was supposed to be a park I thought. But there was a big hole in the wire mesh of the gate peeled back for a person to fit through. This gave me confidence to proceed despite the golfer. And indeed it was a park but apparently the Thread greenway butted up against an adjacent golf course to the north. I never made eye contact with the guy even though he was only like 30 feet away and he never looked in my direction either. Probably as confused as to my presence as I was with his. I rolled on the Thread through this park which also contained baseball fields west through other parks and office parks with a sea of parking. Explored a dead end road beside an old industrial site that is in the process of being tranformed into some sort of market. The end had a beaten down social trail to the adjacent highway. I didn't need this though so I turned around and went back towards downtown. Since it was just after dawn the little downtown core was very deserted with few cars and only a couple people out walking around. South of downtown the trail continued on brand new trail that looked very recently finished. I didn't plan on this but decided to explore and since I had already done a decent bit of extra exploring I decided to cut off a planned trip back south on streets only to come back up north again on the trail and simply connected the trail in a loop. Next followed a trip north on the trail to some old money subdivisions by a golf course and then I cut back south towards a gas station complex(there were at least 4, strange nowhere near the interstate, perhaps for all the boats?) with a brand new Publix and some fast food. I stopped here for the first time at a CVS instead of a gas station because I decided I wanted a self checkout rather than interact with anybody but ended up behind two other people and the cashier checked me out anyway. So I paid super inflated prices for fluids only to have to interact anyways. Oh well. By now it was sunny and about to get very hot so I applied sunscreen and then set off. Rolled by a Dollar General basically across the street and on my route that I didn't notice was even there. Strange as judging from the age of the sign it's been there for over 15 years. Water there is like 10% of the cost at CVS or a gas station. Oh well again. For the next miles I did a majority of the again very old money coded northside of town nearest the lake. Every inch of yard was perfectly manicured and people were out trimming, weed eating, mowing and leaf blowing at all times of the day. The azaleas and dogwoods on this day were in full bloom and really beautiful, their lassaz faire perennial beauty really striking a blow towards the theory that one needs to expend hundreds of hours of labor to have a pretty landscape. There was some shade here from tall trees all around so it wasn't too bad. Hilly but not really that bad and I didn't have a lot of dead ends till I headed out of town on Mooty Bridge road. This wasn't all that busy really and had a good shoulder. I expected it to be bad but it was perfectly rideable even in the middle of the day. I rode to the lake on the old highway that dead ends at the lake, followed a social trail to the lake and found the submerged road still there and so I rode it to about 4 inches of the lake and turned around just because. There were lots of boats out on the lake as if it were summer since it was so hot. By this point I was almost out of both water and food so I actually worked it out properly to roll up to the gas station at Wares Crossroads. I bought what I thought was way too much food and water(it turned out to be only a bit more than enough to Franklin). I paused in the shade to fill bottles, eat my ice cream sandwich and some chips and rest my feet. Next bit was a hot and slow ride through West Point WMA on some very loose chunky gravel. A lot of these bits planned here turned out to be closed to vehicular access so I was able to cut off miles. I was still able to make a little loop rather than all dead ends even though some turned out to be closed to everything but foot access. But since it didn't look like anyone was there I just rode through anyway without an issue. I then rode on some fast and fun properly maintained county gravel with much smaller diameter gravel and headed north to Franklin. Taking Glover road from the south by the river is so painless to get to town. I stopped at the Dollar General there to ensure enough water and snacks for the remaining 54 miles to home. It was in the upper eighties and so I got plenty of water. What I thought was too much again ended up being just enough. I rolled away and did a few more dead ends that went by without issue. Headed back to Coweta on gravel and ran across some teenagers on a golf cart in the muddy part of Bethel road. I rode Country lane to Smokey road, perhaps the last road that was not a dead end in Coweta that I needed for completion. Also went back to revisit two dead ends at a gigantic pasture to ride to the ends proper. Last time I had a truck behind me when I got there so I turned around for another day. This time I found the place deserted except for a lot of cattle. The first gravel dead end on the north end of Gaddy road went way, way further than I would have thought. I kept on riding the beaten down gravel waiting for a gate but it never did come. I turned on a powerline cut road that never said I couldn't be there but it looked like a driveway though. It just dead ended at a single house. There were dogs but I was off before they could really reach me. I also explored the rest of the road beside the fence of the farm which faded to a trace firebreak of sorts so I turned around to head back. As soon as I was heading back out two cars were heading down the hill to the house when they got to the curve for the road I was on and could obviously clearly see me a hundred yards away, they paused and I was dreading a conversation. I had a great excuse prepared and was not crossing over any gates or past any signs so I wasn't all that worried. But after pausing for a second they continued and some kids with the windows open were laughing and carrying on. I don't think they much cared and in any case I was on the way out so i'm guessing they figured I was harmless and also probably didn't want to talk to a weirdo on a bike in this place. The other end of Gaddy road used to cross over the nearby New river to Corinth, closely paralleling Corinth road in the same north south direction. This was closed in the past at some point and given back to the adjacent landowners in a handout from the public domain to the rich to be locked up in private hands that has always rubbed me the wrong way. I rode the gravel to the driveway for the last house and the roadbed continued on as grass to a gate and since I was alone I decided to check it out. There were two signs put there by the county when it was closed, one of which contained the date it was closed. May 16 2010, surprisingly recent judging from how overgrown it was. I moved here to Peachtree City only a few months after that date and it's interesting to think that I was very close in time to being able to explore this because before I saw that date I would have guessed 20-30 years ago at least. This done I headed back home and followed an alternate country road route back through Moreland and Sharpsburg that was honestly way more pleasant that I had feared. Actually a pretty good ride through even on Bob Smith and Lower Fayetteville. Although it could be because next week is Spring Break so there are probably fewer cars out on the road. 👍 69.29 new miles Completed Coweta County -- From Wandrer