Has anyone here ridden the Blue Ridge Parkway

[Righteousbabe]

My husband did it last year (last half of October). He is has been a bicyclist most of his life, and is an experienced touring cyclist. He has rode from Fairbanks to Seattle self-supported, ridden across the U.S. with a buddy, and has cycled through Italy. That being said, he was a big dummy when it came to the Blue Ridge Parkway. He did his research, but he did not train nearly hard enough (we live in Dallas where there are no real hills or mountains). He started in Cherokee, NC and rode north. The first 40 miles north of Cherokee is really tough. A tremendous amount of climbing (I forget how many thousands of feet-the parkway rangers have maps with the elevation gains for sections of the parkway - get one ahead of time so you can plan wisely). I was riding the parkway (in our car), and going to do a little sightseeing/camping/hiking while he rode it on his bike. That was a very good thing because I had to come get him at one point because he ran out of water and he was exhausted. The section from Asheville north to Mount Mitchell is another tough part. Water is not regularly available on the parkway, so you will need to ride, in some cases, quite a ways off the parkway to get it at some points (my husband begged passing motorists). The southern part of the parkway is pretty rural and isolated, so except for a couple bigger towns (Cherokee and Asheville), there are no conveniences (gas, water, hotels, stores) directly on the parkway. You will have to know where those exits are, and how far off the parkway you need to ride to get to these things. The northern part of the parkway (Virginia), is not as challenging as the southern part. And it also more populated and has more towns on the parkway. My husband said if he had to do it all over again, he would have started in Virginia and rode south. That way he could have worked into the hills, and would be ready for the climbing that was required for North Carolina.

Mid to late October was GORGEOUS. Perfect weather, for the most part, and the scenery was amazing. We had a couple days of rain/fog in the mountains over the course of a week, but otherwise it was mostly sunny. There was a lot of traffic because of the pretty foliage, but my husband said the motorists were mostly very courteous.