I’m sometimes amazed that many people don’t know of the BRP and Skyline Drive since the combined roadways stretch some 600 miles across the western backbone of the Appalachian Mountains connecting Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park.  It’s one of the great scenic drives of the country and the fact it is closed to commercial traffic and has a 35 to 45 mph speed limit makes it a biker’s dream.  There is one caveat to cyclists though, it is an approximately 60,000 foot elevation gain from one end to the other.  That means there is a lot of climbing involved and with a loaded bike that’s a bit of work.    The other challenge is logistics since it starts in upper Virginia and ends in North Carolina. 

I’ve bicycle the BRP in the past and this year I joined a group of 12 cyclists who all come together through an ad Paul Gordy put on Adventure Cycling.  Paul has ridden the BRP several times and placed ads the last couple of years to get more people to do it.  In my case and the case of several others, we had all planned to do it alone until we happened upon Paul’s ad. It was a good group of people and the riding style of the group suit me perfectly.  Specifically, there was no riding style.  We left at different times in the morning, arrived at different times in the evening and crossed paths several times during the day.  For me this is perfect, you can be on your own somewhat, but not really.

Two of us, Rick Umlauf (also of Michigan) and myself also did Skyline Drive on the two days proceeding meeting up with the rest of the group.  While Rick and I didn’t meet up until late on day two we were never that far apart and word of one another kept reaching us.

While I have ridden the BRP before this was the first time I did the entire thing loaded.  Our intent was to camp most of the time but some of us ended up utilizing some of the motels along the way more often than planned.  This was in part due to the weather and just the desire for comfort and showers. While I don’t mind camping, the BRP is something that can also be done relatively cost effectively using motels and cabins too.  Since it was spring and the tourist rush wasn’t on yet the prices were cheaper and when the room is divided between two or three people the price is quite reasonable.  Personally, the next time I do the BRP I’ll probably skip the camping all together and just plan stops ahead.

The weather was our biggest problem this year.  There was a weather system stuck over the entire midwest and east that just kept circulating rain throughout the day.  The temperatures were much cooler than my last trip two years ago during the same time frame.  One the good side, I only had one day where it rained the entire day and one other where it rained most of it.  Beyond that we did have occasionally nice weather punctuated by rain and thunderstorms.  I can say from my past experience that I prefer the Parkway when it is sunny to partly sunny with temps in the 60’s.  The temperatures were on the lower side this year.  This presented a problem some days as climbs could be rather warm and descents very cold.  There were  a lot of moments changing clothes back and forth.

Unfortunately, I had to skip day 10 the final day into Cherokee due to a sore knee that came on half way through day eight.  I had been injury free and riding well up until day eight out of Blowing Rock when my knee started to hurt.  It was odd since I left two of my panniers in BR so I could travel lighter and while the bike was considerably lighter my knee didn’t seem to care.  Quitting was kind off a disappointment for me since I had developed a fan club of other riders impressed by the fact we were riding fully ladened the entire length of the Parkway.  None the less, I didn’t want to screw up my summers riding by over doing it.

Of all the times I have ridden or visited the BRP, I encountered more through riders this time than ever before.  While most were not loaded and utilizing some sort of SAG, we encountered several groups from both the US and Canada.  Seems the secret of the BRP may finally be out.  I learned from merchants at  lunch stops a long the way that riding the Parkway has grown in popularity greatly over the last couple of years.  I’m happy to see that more cyclists are using this wonderful road in such a friendly manner.