Cades Cove is a flattened valley fenced in by the majestic Smokies.  A “cove” in the mountains is quite dry compared with the protected inlets of the coastal United States, but it is just as serene and surrounded by cinematic beauty.  Unique to Cades Cove are the Wednesdays set aside for hikers and bikers, when no cars are permitted to crowd the one-way paved circular trail. So Wednesday was set aside for this eleven-mile trip on rented bikes.

Even arriving at 8:25 a.m. we had to wait ninety minutes for the first available bike rentals at Cades Cove.  All 150 bikes were rented, some for an hour, some for the day. We still captured the morning breeze and cloudless sky for the first half of the journey, which  featured the some older homes and three churches.  The trail descended 100 feet from the initial 1880 foot elevation, but you hardly noticed until you had to get back those 100 feet on the second half of the loop.

The Cades Cove Primitive Baptist Church looked like the traditional white New England church with two entrances, one for the men and one for the women.  “Primitive” would describe the sanctuary, with straight-backed pews, holding 10-12 worshippers each. The story has it that the church divided after twelve years over the issue of “missions.”

Those who supported missions moved out and founded the Caves Cove Missionary Baptist Church down the road.  The Missionary Baptists constructed more contemporary pews inside and consolidated the two entrances into one. Between the two Baptist churches a Methodist Church was founded to maintain a social distance between denominations.

At the Missionary Baptist Church a group of five women sat in the back, while we settled up front in the choir pews. They broke into a few verses of “Amazing Grace,” and we joined their song. No one seemed to need a hymnal for at least three verses. They turned out to be Methodists, who cheerfully sang in all the churches on the route, regardless of denomination.

As we reached the half-way point of the trail, the mountains loomed up and humbled us along the east side of the road. Travelers stopped at small parking areas on the side to admire the view. The sun was heating up, and the breeze fading. The road began to drop more sharply. We had been warned to walk our bikes on one extended winding drop, so we did not speed out of control.

At length we reached the Visitors’ Center with its Grist Mill,  cantilevered barn, farmhouse and other outbuildings.  The Grist Mill was in near full operation from the deflected stream directed down to a Mill Race (see wooden channel below) to the turning mill wheel attached to a once-active mill for grinding the grain. The model stopped functioning at the wheel, but we got  the idea. There were some used grist stones discarded along the mill race.

The last half of the Cades Cove loop was more up and down, with the ups long and knee-crushing.  Too much of my up biking was walking and puffing.  We kept passing people who then passed us, but we sprinted at the end to arrive around 3:30 before the rain hit.

Puffing aside, this was our best day in the open, viewing a little nineteenth century Americana.  We biked eleven up-and-down miles and walked a bit more to reach our car.  11,000 steps, counting pedal pushing.