[BillInGA]

This past Sunday I completed Test Ride 2 in preparation for my trip from Atlanta to Denver later this summer.

My planned route was to take US-41 from Kennesaw, GA (NW of Atlanta) to Kingston Springs, TN, just past Nashville. I started shortly after sunrise at 7 am.

We had rain all day Saturday that ended around 4 am, so the roads were damp with the temperature in the low 60's. I was dressed for the weather, so cold was not a problem. The biggest issue I had for the first hour or so was my visor fogging and mist from lingering foggy patches.

The ride to Chattanooga held no suprises and I'm getting familiar with this portion of the route. Heading out of Chattanooga took me up Lookout Mountain overlooking Nickajack Lake - beautiful scenery. By then the sun was fully up; the roads were drying nicely and it was starting to warm up. My first leg ended with a fuel stop in Jasper, TN after crossing over Nickajack Lake.

More nice scenery heading north out of Jasper. My plan was to take US-41 all the way to Nashville. However, I missed a turn in Monteagle and ended up on US-41A (alternate?). Instead of paralleling I-24 just north of the interstate, US-41A took me well west of I-24 around the west side of Arnold AFB through Tullahoma and Shelbyville. More great scenery and probably less congested than going through Murfreesboro and Smyrna.

By the time I was 15 miles outside of Nashville it became obvious that I wasn't going to make any headway on the surface streets. So I hopped on I-24 into Nashville and picked up I-40 heading west for about 10 miles out of town. I turned around about 10 miles short of Kingston Springs, considering my alternate course had already added about 40 miles to my route.

I got back on the freeway and took it back through Nashville down to Murfreesboro, about 30 miles outside of Nashville. From there I got on to US-41 proper. As I approached Monteagle I went up some nice twisty roads into town. I was sorry I had missed these on the outbound leg.

I rode US-41 back to Chattanooga. By that time I didn't feel like going through all the small towns along US-41 on the way back home, so I jumped on I-75 and rode it all the way back to Kennesaw.

Total miles: 540
Total time (including stops): 12 hrs 40 min

I need to wrap this up, but I'll post more comments later regarding route selection, performance, mileage and wind.