BOOM! August 2022

Travel Experiences with Jeff Barganier

Biking Chief Ladiga Trail

View from the bridge Bill Taylor with the Alabama Randonneurs

Enjoying a romantic trike ride on the trail

My first feature appeared in BOOM! Magazine during the summer of 2017 when I purchased a bike and rode from Jacksonville, Alabama to Cedar Town, Georgia on the Chief Ladiga and Silver Comet Bike Trails. On my five-year anniversary of writing for BOOM! I decided to bike the Chief Ladiga Trail again, this time from Jacksonville to Piedmont, Alabama and back—a daytrip of about twenty-six miles.

in the Dugger Mountain Wilderness. At the Georgia line, Chief Ladiga connects to the Silver Comet rail-trail where it begins on a slightly raised rail bed before entering open fields, passing beneath canopies of pine, dogwood and other native trees alongside enchanting wetlands. I enjoyed touring Piedmont, especially the downtown where I met some nice folks like Neal and Kathy Gladden of Ladiga Trail Trikes. Their shop is next door to Elevated Grounds Bakery & Coffee House and just down the street from Shell’s Downtown Bar and Grill.

The Chief Ladiga Trail— named for the leader of Welcome Sign the indigenous Muscogee (Creek) people—begins in northeast “Our home shop is in Huntsville—Rocket Alabama and passes through friendly City Trikes,” Neal explained. “The short towns and bucolic countryside, following story is, we began riding trikes about nine the old CSX railroad corridor. You’ll see years ago, fell in love with riding trikes, stacks of railroad ties along the trail. and always wanted to open a trike shop. Dugger Mountain and the southern When COVID hit, our other (printing) Appalachians provide a backdrop to fields business in Huntsville slowed down like that transition to forests. Terrapin Creek a lot of businesses so we opened a trike skirts the trail. A bridge carries you over shop in Huntsville. We came over here it. It’s a remarkably flat, smooth ride until one day and enjoyed riding the trail so east of Piedmont when it heads up a hill

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much; and liked this little town so much that we thought, you know, it’s crazy, but let’s put a little trail shop over here. We call it our trail shop because it’s only open on Saturday. We’re Monday through Friday in Huntsville. Business is great. It’s really been fun. We get a lot of people who just want a different type of cycling, a comfort level you can’t achieve on a two-wheeler. I enjoyed two-wheeling but it just wasn’t that comfortable for me. We also have people rehabbing from knee replacement, hip replacement or whatever their situation.” When asked if they were serving people coming off the Chief Ladiga Trail, Neal said, “We are. And some locals. In general, trike dealerships are not as common as bike dealerships. And we get a lot of people out of Birmingham and Atlanta. We’ve sold to some people in Montgomery, then up into Tennessee and Mississippi. People will come to ride a nice trail and test drive a trike. We’re a small shop and we can’t do everything. But our Huntsville shop kind of supports this. The trike business is a whole lot more fun than the printing business is. I’ll say that.”

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