Originally Posted by
GrandpaSkittles
I'm currently in the middle of a not-exclusively-by-bicycle bike tour, meaning I'm not opposed to taking trains, renting cars, etc. as it makes sense to do so. With that in mind, I'm planning on riding from Savannah, GA to Charleston, SC soon, but from there I plan on going off the typical ACA route.
I have a few things I'd like to visit in the GA / SC / NC / TN region, and I'm trying to figure out a way to string them all together. From Charleston, I'm thinking of riding to Congaree National Park. I'd like to visit the Great Smoky Mountains, too, so I'm thinking Congaree → Columbia → Greenville → Asheville, and then I can figure out if maybe I'd rather rent a car to see GSM NP. I'd also like to visit Nashville, Chattanooga, and then Atlanta after that. I figure I can take the Silver Comet Trail after that if I want to keep going west.
Does anyone have any experience riding in any of these areas? Any recommended routes, any suggested adjustments to my plans, any "if you're in that region, you have to ride xyz because it's a beautiful ride"s?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts!
I rode across TN, then across Great Smokies, and up the Blue Ridge parkway through NC and VA back in July/August 2008. My first piece of advice is not to ride too much in the heat of the summer (although the higher elevations on the BRP were not too bad). Newfound Gap road in Great Smokies was not very much fun. Its 13 miles up climbing, with no shoulder and a tremendous amount of car traffic. The Blue Ridge parkway was good (again, not much of a shoulder but not so much car traffic in most places). Most of the ride across Tennessee was on various secondary highways, and those weren't too bad except near the larger towns. I remember the suburbs of Nashville being particularly bad.