Road Cycling the Blue Ridge High Country

Description

Screaming white-knuckle descents. Peaceful creek-side rambles. Rides across high mountain balds, through orchards, along old railroad grades, and past Christmas-tree farms. And, of course, grueling ascents, like the category-one climb up Beech Mountain, which gains nearly 1,500 vertical feet in three miles. "You can't play baseball at Yankee Stadium," says author Tim Murphy, "but you can experience the climb that drew some of the world's top endurance athletes, and changed one of them forever." "It's a classic," Lance Armstrong said of the Beech Mountain climb after his stage win there in the 1995 Tour DuPont. Armstrong's inspiring comeback from cancer began during a training camp in these same mountains three years later. The Blue Ridge Mountains provide some of the finest road cycling in the country, and the 26 rides in this volume constitute the best the High Country has to offer. Six mountain and foothills counties in northwestern North Carolina are covered, as are portions of southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee. Each ride description includes precise directions, information about road characteristics, detailed maps and elevation profiles, and lists of food, services, and outdoor options along the route.