Yesterday's Ride, June 18

Yesterday’s Ride, Wednesday June 18th. Mileage for the day, 210.

We hit the road about 9:15 and headed west (not south as I stated the day before), for about 6 miles and entered The Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP), at last. I for one was immediately impressed by the quality of the road and the beautifully manicured grass on both sides of the road. We quickly ascended to an elevation over 5,000 feet. Once you are on the parkway, it is all at elevation and you are always looking way down on one side of the road or the other.

The weather was perfect albeit just a tad cool. As we climbed, the temp dropped but it never became necessary to add any clothing. The first stop we made was at the Yellow Face overlook, at an elevation of over 6,000 feet. The parkway has numerous overlooks that are right off the road with easy off/on access. You can pull over anywhere and see incredible views of the forests below. The woods are very thick, dense, green and wild. The mountains are truly smoky, as the name implies.

A bit later we stopped at Pisgah Mountain Inn. I had a bad cup of coffee and we talked with another couple, from Montreal, who were biking as well. We knew that later in the day we would have to get off the parkway due to a road closure. The man we talked with told us about a different route to get around the detour, one that included a very tight and twisty road that we eventually took to get us back on the parkway.

As we approached Ashville, we had to get on I-40 eastbound, as part of the detour. This was my 3rd time on this stretch of I-40! We stopped in a small town and had a late breakfast at a Denny’s and also gassed up the bike. We took off and once more humped over Black Mountain to an exit that would take us to Hwy 80, the twisty road that the other biker guy told us about. After doing a couple of DUT’s (Dave U-Turns), we found Hwy 80. It turned out to be extremely tight and twisty, in fact a bit too much as there were a number of turns that I had to make in 1st gear! That is tight! At the same time, the road is steeply inclined to add to the excitement. It’s tough on a 2-up, fully loaded Goldwing to push it through corners like that, one after another. Anyway, we finally made it back onto the parkway and continued north.

We stopped at Linville Falls and walked the 1 mile trail to the top. We took pictures, took in the views and started down. We stopped at another lookout and did the same thing there. We headed down, got ourselves loaded on the bike and headed out.

There weren’t a lot of choices as far as towns and places to stay so we decided to go all the way to Boone, NC. We arrived after 6:00PM and secured the last room (handicapped; they always save those for the last of the day), and went to dinner at a diner right next door to where we were staying. It was a short mileage day but a long one nonetheless.