dualresponse

I live very close to Skyline Dr Va / Blue Ridge parkway. Above Skyline /Blue Ridge parkway in this area are several gravel roads most don't know about. Lots of climbing. Beautiful roads. I'm hitting the Blue ridge parkway tonight! Here are some pics you won't see everyday- first is a back way to top of mtn on fireroad. It is hard to get a feel for how steep this is. To put it into perspective, the bike is pointing straight up. I am standing below the bike. If you miss one pedal stroke, you are toast. :

Several more fireroads above skyline. Up here, you look down to the parkway.


Finally, a pic from the south end of skyline, overlooking rockfish valley during a forest fire several years back. The smoke over the valley gives the sky a distinct look.

dualresponse

This got me looking through some old pics- so I'll post some more. They aren't doing any good sitting on a memory card! The first pic/ someone has written "Sweat Smells Good" :

jamesdak 

^ Making me homesick

Thalia949

Skyline Drive, Laguna Beach, CA
Goes from basically sea level to about 700 ft elevation in under a mile.
Great view of the ocean and islands when descending.

verktyg 

When I first moved to the Bay Area in 1980 I lived in San Jose. My house in Albuquerque, NM where I spent the 70's was at 5,600'. It was nothing to ride up to Sandia Crest, altitude 10,600'.

I used to ride up to Skyline Drive from San Jose via Hwy 17 to Hwy 9 then down to Saratoga. The altitude of Skyline Dr. on the peninsula is about 2,000' feet. Back then, coming down to the thick air at sea level made climbing up to Skyline easy!

verktyg

mpetry912 

One of the coolest things about Hiway 35 / Skyline Blvd in the Bay Area is the place between Hiway 92 and Kings Mountain rd where you can see the bay on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. BITD the Sequoia Century followed this route. Today it's dicey cycling as noted above, there's no shoulders and lots of traffic on weekends.

Mark Petry
Bainbridge Island, WA USA

noglider 

There is a Skyline Drive in Morristown, NJ. It's a big-ish hill with a couple of switchbacks and scenic views. I think I rode up it once when I lived in New Jersey. I just looked for images, and they are all from realtors.

jamesdak 

There is a Skyline Dr in Utah too....but it is a 4x4 road.

amillhench

Skyline drive in Delaware Water Gap NRA off Old Mine Road in Sandyston, NJ. Good views to the East and dead ends at Crater Lake (great spot for a swim).

rootboy 

There's also a Skyline High School in Utah. My old alma mater.
Not exactly a drive tho'

Chombi1 

Chipseal that they put down on Hwy 35, in the mountains, every few years actually feel dangerous when you ride a motorcycle on it. I can actually feel my tires slip, quiet a bit, on most sharp turns with the new chipseal. Very disconcerting and frankly, butt clenching, when it happens. It eventually improves when the oil in the chipseal start to dry out on the surface, but that could take up to a year to happen...

Feldman

I have ridden the Portland one dozens of times and the SF peninsula one maybe a half dozen. Funny story, how I learned about motorcycle tribalism. 1977 or 78, I'm. riding up La Honda road from SF airport on my way back to LA. It's a Sunday morning. About halfway up I start getting passed by dozens and dozens of motorcycles. I get to the market/tavern kind of establishment at the top of the climb and the huge parking lot has the riders of different kinds of motorcycles congregating in different corners of the lot--hog riders one place, UK riders on their Triumphs and Nortons in another, Japanese and Italian bike riders in yet different locations. Funny, and more tribal than any group of bicyclists I've met before or since!

gugie 

That would be Alice's restaurant.

Chombi1 

Just in the last decade, the number of motorcyclists going up to and hanging out at Alice's had shrunk down considerably. It seem like the millenials and younger generations are just not as interested in riding motorcycles as much as we were at their age.
Last few times I rode my motorcycle up to Alice's on a weekend, in the middle of the day, there was barely a dozen bikes up there, when back in the mid to late 90's, the parking lot will be full with groups of riders constantly coming in and out of the parking lot. And the CHP regularly circulating through the lot, waiting to pounce on any hooligans that dare to hoon on their bikes.
As for "tribalism" at Alice's, yes, the motorcyclists tended to park as a group amongst each other, based on what they ride, but as soon as they get off their bikes, most circulate all around the lot to admire all the differen types of motorcycles and talk to their owners about their bikes.
The only ones that are "hesitant" in mixing in with the crowd were the Harley riders. Not all, but a lot of them never seem to lose their negative attitudes against motorcycles that are not "Murrican".......

Pompiere

When I was stationed at NAS Alameda in the 80s, we would frequently ride on the East Bay Skyline. It is slightly downhill going north, so we would enter from the south. Our hard climb up the side was rewarded with a long winding decent back into Oakland.

Feldman

Yeah, I find the Harley people and their sense of separateness from other bikers hilarious and I don't even ride a motorcycle. But maybe the Honda and Ducati riders make fun of them for all those HD dog collars, etc.

Korina

Hunh. There's a Skyline Dr. in Eureka, Ca. I did not know that. It's just a little loop off of Humboldt Hill Rd. and nothing spectacular. Now Fickle Hill Rd., that's the kind of road you guys are talking about.

jetboy 

First: Yeah Oakland Skyline! #1 ! it is beautiful up there, especially recently if you catch the fog and the sunset just right.

second: No one makes fun of the Harley riders (to their face) unless you want your *&^* messed up.