It seems that after two years of construction, the widening of Fury’s Ferry from Evans to Locks Road to Riverwatch Parkway is finally nearing completion. It’s got at least two lanes open in each direction for car traffic, and as an added bonus I didn’t expect, most of it has also got a bicycle lane in both directions.
Last night as we were driving downtown to watch some baseball, Andrea and I both noticed the bike lane, and I decided I’d wake up early this morning and go try it out. I’d stop on the way and have my morning cup of coffee at Abi’s Coffee Mill, a local coffee shop and roaster.
I didn’t make it out of the house until after 8 this morning, but there still wasn’t much traffic on Fury’s Ferry. It’s really a good thing, because I had to ride on the very inside edge of the bicycle lane due to the quantity of gravel collected there. Most of the pavement was new, so I hope and suspect all the gravel and other debris is just left over from the road construction, and we’ll eventually have a nice bike lane on that section of road.
Andrea suggested we should organize and publicize a large group ride from Savannah Rapids Pavilion, along Evans to Locks Road, where there is a multi-use trail beside the road, and then down Fury’s Ferry to one of the restaurants or coffee shops. She thinks if we can do this and get a lot of people interested and some good publicity out of it, it’ll raise awareness of bicycling as a means of transportation in Columbia County, as well as show a bit of appreciation to the planners who thought to include a bike lane. I agree with her, because that’s the kind of behavior we want to encourage from our civic planners!
The bike lane, aside from the gravel I already mentioned, was pretty nice, with no major obstacles in the way. It was well marked on the pavement and signed beside the road.
When I got to Abi’s, I was disappointed to see they were closed for Memorial Day weekend. I’d only ridden about half an hour by that time, and I knew I wanted to get a decent ride in today, so I switched to plan B. I cut through from there to Boy Scout Road using The Pass, then used Old Petersburg Road and Columbia Industrial Road to get back over to Evans to Locks Road. I arrived at the new Library just as the coffee shop was opening.
I grabbed a cold beverage and put it in my water bottle cage, then headed over to do a little shopping. After that I rode out to Hereford Farm and then to Patriot’s Park. I knew I was on track for a bit over 2 hours of riding if I headed home from there, which was less than I wanted to ride today, but it was already sweltering hot at 10:30 AM, and I could tell the air wasn’t getting any better either, so I decided to call it a day. I’ll set my alarm for real early tomorrow morning and hopefully get a nice ride in before it gets unbearably hot.
I can tell we’re getting to those 3 months of the year where it’s often unpleasantly hot to live in this part of Georgia, but I think it’s a small price to pay for being able to ride in decent weather for most of the rest of the year.