cinnamon12

Hi All,

I am going with a group of friends to the Maggie Valley/Waynesville, NC area next week. The main purpose of the trip is for my boyfriend and friends to get in some scenic and steep cycling experiences, including Mt Mitchell. I, on the other hand, do not consider myself an experienced cyclist like the others in the group so I know I won't be able to keep up or even do the same cycling routes. I would consider myself a beginner to intermediate cyclist in that with training last year, I did a 50 mile charity ride but do not do that on a regular basis. Also, with the exception of this upcoming week, I haven't started training this season.

I am interested in finding out where to look or ask about good rides I could do on my own where I could go at my own pace and also that would provide some good but achievable training for someone at my level. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.

dtate

You may want to start by going to the website for BicycleHaywoodNC & checking out the Thursday evening ride that is scheduled for each Thursday at 6 pm. Also, you can join the google group & send a message to the group inquiring about any other rides. Also, in the Asheville area the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club, blueridgebicycleclub.org, has a number of weekly rides.

BikeWNC

If you have gearing that will allow you to ride at your pace on the hills around here, you can head up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and bite off as much as you want. Here's a list of local rides with maps. You can do a portion of any ride of course. I guess it depends on just how far you want to ride. Eventually around here you will run into a climb of some sort, and it could be long or steep. The advantage to the BRP is very low traffic and if you ride up as far as you want, the return is often a coast back down the hill. There are some local valley rides but they do require some knowledge of the roads to get around.