General Cycling Discussion - Asheville North Carolina

I am pondering the idea of moving there, what is the cycling like ??
any links or info?

gracias mis amigos

Hi gqsmoothie,

Unlikely as it seems Asheville was the first place I ever visited in the United states! - The reason was to attend a scientific conference held there, and it seems to be a very nice place. The cycling could be great - don't know what your preferred bike flavour is (I'm a roadie myself) but there are plenty of hills to climb in the Great Smokey Mountains, and I bet there would be great trails for the MTBer.

About all I can say about it,

Good luck anyway,

Ed

Asheville is a very outdoorsy/laidback type town with excellent cycling,hiking and whitewater sports.I have mostly hiked/backpacked around there but my favorite areas are Hot Springs in the Pisgah N.F. on the French Broad River and Wesser or Fontana in the Nantahala N.F. I think most of the mountain biking opportunities would be in those two national forests and I understand there are some nice trails in particular around Hot Springs but maybe someone living in the area can give you more detailed information on this.For road biking/touring the Blue Ridge Parkway runs right through Asheville.The only negitives I can think of is its in an economically depressed region and while most people are very friendly there are a fair share of poor/hateful hillbilly types(many years ago I had my car broken into and some gear stolen at a trailhead near there so if your moving there to avoid having bikes stolen be cautious lol).Here are a few links of interest from my bookmarks: http://citizen-times.com/mtg/outfitters.shtml , http://www.cs.unca.edu/nfsnc/recreation/recreate.htm ,http://www.hotspringsnc.org/ P.S. On the Hot Springs link in the biking section following the outdooradventure link they list all the mountain biking trails in the Pisgah area.

Hey bro, I just got back from Boone, NC which is about 80 miles out of Asheville, but the cycling in Boone and the surrounding area is wonderful! The people are so nice down there, and the drivers are too! I pulled off the road to look at a map while on my bike, and I didn't even have to ask for directions, some guy just offered his help. And the wilderness is absolutely breathtaking!

I think you'll find Asheville is a lot like c12's description of Boone, in terms of people and riding. I'll qualify that, and disagree with RWTD a little, by mentioning that Asheville's been undergoing severe yuppiefication over the last several years that has driven the cost of living up, and introduced an unpleasant human element (I'll take the hillbillies ;)).

c12, I'm headin' down to Boone next week. I'll be thinkin' about ya. Lookout Snake Mtn. Maybe I'll even try Beech this time.

Yea, boooy! :thumbup:

I'll defer to roadbuzz about the city itself as I was talking more about the region.I have only been in the city itself once briefly stopping at an outfitter about 6 or 7 years ago(and that is close to the last time I was in the region) as I usually bypassed it heading to the mountains.I'm sure it has changed alot since then given all the talk I've heard of it lately. Everyone in the area use to be either a hippie or a redneck with not much middle ground but I guess that is changing.Maybe then I shouldn't have given out the best areas and just let everyone continue to go to the Smokies and deal with the tourist mobs lol.

roadbuzz, that's awesome man, you're going to have a blast! It's the best riding I've ever done! Try to get some pics for us if you can. And if you do Beech Mtn, don't stop at the town of Beech, but right where the sign the says "Welcome To Beech" on it, you can go left and continue up and it gets really steep, but it's a little slick too because there's some sort of gravel on it or something. But that's the best part of the climb. Have fun, you're gonna love it!

Originally posted by crucifixion12
The people are so nice down there, and the drivers are too!
I'm guessing you weren't wearing any Marshall gear at the time. ;)

haha, no I wasn't wearing any Marshall gear! Too much Appalachain State stuff everywhere and I didn't want to disappear mysteriously! There were a lot of attractive ladies in Boone, but didn't see them anywhere else, I guess the university must be right in town or something.

Asheville is great, here is a link to a book just on biking in and around asheville http://www.milestonepress.com/html/bk_rba.html

Greg Lemond said this about Asheville "Land of Sky one of the best training locations in the world"

Two places for riding that are almost all you need. Ilove the area and would like to live there.

Blue ridge parkway(road) and Bent creek/Pisgah trails(MTB).

The Asheville area is incredible for both road and off-road cycling. We head up at least once a year for several days of road riding and at least once or twice a year for off-road in the nearby Nat'l Forests.

Great road rides head north up past the Grove Park Inn and onto the BRP, then over the mountain down Oxbow Road OR, head the other way down the BRP past the Folk Art Center and out towards Black Mountain. Also good rides out to the Northwest over the foothills and then back into town along the French Broad River.

Off-Road venues are just to the south (Bent Creek), further south (Dupont Forest) or west (Pisgah & Tsali) and feature some of the best wooded single track in the southeast.

Here's another resource for finding out about cycling in the Asheville area.

Blue Ridge Cycling Club (http://www.blueridgebicycleclub.org/)