This past Wednesday, I rode Britta to North Carolina to see an old college buddy of mine for a couple of days. He lives in "the high country" of NC near the small hamlet of Plumtree in Avery County, which is on the NC/TN border. He has a nice two-story cabin on top of a mountain that is 4,300 ft. in elevation. (You would not
believe his driveway, which is 1-1/3 miles long, gravel/dirt, with grades as much as 18%!)
I usually take the fastest way, which is the slab for the most part, back and forth from my house to his when I visit him, but yesterday I decided to take the Blue Ridge Parkway back to Asheville and then ride on home. The BRP had been closed on the section that I wanted to travel the last time I paid him last year, but I called the BRP ranger station near Asheville and was informed that all road repairs had been completed and the entire parkway was now open.
So, Saturday morning I said farewell to my buddy Dave and took off to Linville Falls, where I could get on the BRP and begin riding south. It was a beautiful morning in the 60s when I got on the parkway at 10:00am and began a leisurely pace of 45 mph (the speed limit). I thought I might have problems getting stuck behind cages and RVs (it is Memorial Day weekend, after all), but I was pleasantly surprised to find the parkway strangely devoid of traffic, except some motorcycles and the occasional cyclist trudging along.
I had my iPod playing Beatles tunes as I passed sweeping vista after vista to my left, exposing gorgeous expanses of valleys and mountain ridges in various shades of green. The parkway has many sections where trees are on both sides of the road, creating a "tunnel" of green, that gets so dark from the foliage it feels like you are riding through a tunnel! Going from birlliant sunlight to dark shade gave my eyes quite a workout, since I was wearing sunglasses.
And speaking of "tunnels", the BRP had eight, count 'em, 8 tunnels on the 70 mile section that I rode, ranging from a short 100-ft to nearly a 1/4 mile long. Going into them is really something! What a rush!
I stopped at the Craggy Gardens Visitor's center to use the restroom and stretch my legs. I noticed a large number of bikes (mostly Harleys) parked at the far end of the parking spaces, with a fire engine and an ambulance. I saw the crowd of riders milling about, and immediately thought,
"Oh boy, I'll bet someone had an accident on his bike." I walked down to the end where all the commotion was and saw an EMT worker packing up his kitbox. I looked around to see who might have been the injured party, but didn't notice anyone who looked hurt. However, I did the bike, a red Harley full dresser, missing part of the lowers, turnsignal dangling and bent handlebars. The fairing had some evidence of road rash, too. I thought to myself,
"Well, that bike is done for the day." As I was leaving, the county sheriff had shown up and was questioning the gentleman that I guessed was the guy who had to lay down his bike.
The parkway rises considerably in elevation as you near Mt. Mitchell, which at an elevation of 6,684 ft is the highest peak east of the Mississippi River. The curves one encounters along the way to the park entrance are simply wonderful. I could not believe my good fortune of not having any problems with traffic as I leaned back and forth on Britta as we powered through each curve as Mt. Mitchell loomed up ahead. I was going to stop at the park and walk around, but I had been there several times before and just wanted to stay on Britta and continue the ride, so we breezed on by the park's entrance and continued the sunny morning's ride, now going "down" in elevation, flicking Britta back and forth around the curves and trying not to get too distracted at the spectacular vistas that were to my left.
As I said, there was surprisingly few cars and trucks on the parkway yesterday, but quite a few bikes, including the usual Harley and Harley clones, Gold Wings several sport bikes, and lots of Beemers! I got behind a couple on a K1200LT that was cutting through the curves effortlessly. I was impressed as how easy the rider made it look handling a bike that probably weighed about 1,000 pounds with him and his passenger.
This bike was going "a little faster" than the 45 mph speed limit! I gave up trying to keep up with him and slipped back into the speed limit and watched him zip through the curves up ahead until I couldn't see him any longer. I guess he didn't want a lowly R65 tagging along with him!
I finally came upon my exit to Hwy 25 south towards Greenville, so I reluctantly slowed and got off the parkway and back into "civilization", meaning traffic lights, stop signs and (groan) traffic.
But for about two and a half hours, I was in "Utopia" - NO traffic lights, stop signs and (almost) No traffic!
PS.... Tried to post a map of the section of the BRP that I was on, but couldn't get the stupid file size down to 110kb!
Topic: Lovely ride Sat. on the Blue Ridge Parkway! (Read 1686 times)