Raleigh/Durham, NC area visit

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DRLski

I'll be coming down from NH from Aug 17th-19th to check the area out since I may be moving down in October once my contract at work ends. I'm 25yrs old. I'll be flying into Raleigh Friday early evening and leaving Sunday night, will probably stay in Durham or the surrounding area. I wanted to drop by some races but there's none in the area that weekend. So, I was planning on renting a bike from The Bicycle Chain on Saturday and going for a ride from the shop, probably the Chapel Hill one. Anyone know of any good scenic routes from there, around 50-60mi or so? I was thinking of doing the following route: http://www.routeslip.com/routes/3758
Anyways, I"m looking for other routes to check out and other things to do while I'm in NC. So if anyone wants to go for a ride or meet up for some dinner you can shoot me a PM or reply back to here.

Thanks,
Dave

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bikingMILF

depends on how ya ride, but the Selma Cyclepaths have a nice ride that weekend out in Clayton. It's a big group of friendly people, with paces anywhere from 12mph on up to 20+. You can check out www.trianglecycling.com (http://www.trianglecycling.com) and look under rides/meetups for more info. It's only about half an hour from Raleigh, barely any traffic on the road, full SAG support. :D

DRLski

bikingMILF

ya know what? im a turd and gave you the wrong info. LOL
let me check real quick and see what ride we are doing that weekend.....

OK, its the Free Mon At Last ride (which is not posted just yet....it will be, along with a file you can upload to your Garmin if you have one) It's a 62 mile training ride. Speeds range from 12-20+mph and you can always find a decent size group to ride with at a speed you are comfy with. You can read about the group that does these rides at this website.... http://www.selmacyclepaths.org/ You can also see the cue sheet for the ride we are doing the weekend you will be here, but being that you aren't from the area, it won't do ya too much good, LOL.

Basically, the group gets together every saturday for a ride, with gradually increasing miles each week or so. After the big hurrah in September, the cyclepaths basically disband, but there are several who continue to ride each week through the fall and winter. These, among others, are the people you will meet on Triangle Cycling. :D

I'd definitely recommend keeping an eye on TC if you are planning on moving down here. It's a great forum for local riders, and you will find lots and lots of charity rides, events, LBS group ride info, etc there, and hopefully make some new friends in the process. :D

DRLski

thanks!!!

wolfpack

piper_chuck

That's a pretty good route, I've ridden on every one of those roads. I used to live near the Eastern part of that loop but now live a couple miles West of Jordan Lake.

Be careful on the 751 and Farrington Road stretches, some of the people in cars are less than patient. You also can encounter a significant number of people hauling boats to/from the lake on the weekend.

For other routes, check the Bicycle Chain site, I think they have some. The Spin Cycle in Cary is another potential place to find a long Sunday ride. They typically cover similar routes, but typically not heading so far up toward Durham. The Biking with the band ride will probably be good.

I'd offer to ride with you, but I'm just getting back into cycling and it's going to be a while before I could even consider such a long ride.

If you're staying in Durham, something else to do is catch a Bulls game. Looks like they've got several home games that weekend.

skiffrun

given that you are 25, looking for races, and prob fast (?).

Check the TarWheels site for rides that weekend. (Chapel Hill / Carrboro based.)

http://www.tarwheels.org/

Check the NCBC site, has calendar. And check the Road Dogs. (North Raleigh based.)

http://www.ncbikeclub.org/

http://groups.google.com/group/roaddogs

bikingMILF

it's bagging to bagley this weekend (8/4) 54miles.

Selma Cyclepath Training Rides. (http://www.selmacyclepaths.org/21376/index.html)

Training Ride Route Schedule (http://www.selmacyclepaths.org/docs/2007_Training_Routes.htm)

well unless hes gonna come on down two weeks early just to ride with us great, awesome people, he's not really gonna care what we're riding this weekend. LOL who loves ya? :p

wolfpack

haha. leave to me to not read the part about when he's gonna be here:rolleyes:. oh well.

blackcannon

Carrboro, which is next to Chapel Hill, has some great road for riding...You can find tons of people out riding in that area...I moved out here myself from Nashua, NH back in January and found the Carborro riding to be much like riding in the area of Concord, MA.

DRLski

Well, just got back from NC. Landed in Raleigh on Friday night via puddle jumper. Went directly to rent a bike from the Bicycle Chain in Chapel Hill, got a Specialized Roubaix in one size too big since it's all they had but wasn't too bad and they also made me buy an extra water bottle cage since they "didn't have anymore". Joined a MS150 ride at 8AM with a bunch of other riders to get in 67 miles. Figured the best way to see how the area was for riding was to ride some good long miles in the area.

Started off with some faster riders but thought the pace we were pushing was somewhat unreasonable for 67 miles. Met up with some triathletes until rest stop 2 and then went off solo to finish the ride. When I was supposed to have turned left onto Old US-1 for some reason I actually turned right, went 10 miles before I realized I took the wrong turn, turned around, and headed in the right direction where I eventually started seeing some other riders and some green arrows so thanks to this the ride turned into almost 85 miles. Overall it was a great ride and great to see the area, very hot to me (94F) and I think I went through about 8 bottles of water/gatorade (9 if you include when I got back to the car) which is a heck of a lot for me, about 1 bottle every 12 miles.

http://www.routeslip.com/routes/59813

Some nice riding around here, roads are in much better condition and everyone is extremely nice, much nicer than in NH. Instead of getting cans thrown at me and getting spit on or honked at I had people waving to me, felt kind of weird, didn't have to use my middle finger even once :P Very very flat riding though, as flat as a pancake and there's not many back roads, all main roads that just keeps going on for ever and ever. I was told that there is some more hillier terrain in NC but I guess I was in the wrong area? Am unsure as of yet if I want to move down or not, think I would need to move to an area with slightly more variety in terrain.

I'll spare you a story about the flight back, just one big mess thanks to the Chicago weather.

norskagent

~2 hrs. west of raleigh / durham it is much hillier (foothills), and 3 hrs. west it is mountainous, with all the hill you can handle.

pigah

I've lived in both mountainous (Idaho) and pancake flat (Central Valley of California) and I would say the areas around Durham and Chapel Hill are slightly rolling. If you go south and east of Raleigh it will be very (pancake) flat. So head north and west if you want a little topography.

* jack *

aw, I must have missed this thread first time around, I could've suggested some better routes.
Glad to hear your ride went well.
And yes, everybody waves here, and you gotta keep hella hydrated.

skiffrun

... very hot to me (94F) and I think I went through about 8 bottles of water/gatorade ... Very very flat riding though, as flat as a pancake and there's not many back roads, all main roads that just keeps going on for ever and ever. I was told that there is some more hillier terrain in NC but I guess I was in the wrong area? Am unsure as of yet if I want to move down or not, think I would need to move to an area with slightly more variety in terrain. ... I think you must make some lumpy pancakes up their in NH. :)

As other's have suggested, 1 1/2 hrs (via auto) NW of Durham/Chapel Hill you can find Pilot Mtn and a couple of its friends for a Three Hump Ride (look it up).

In 3-4 hrs (via auto) one can be almost anywhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway. There one can explore roads used for the "Assault on Mt. Mitchell", "Bridge to Bridge", "Blue Ridge Brutal", etc., etc. (look them up).

You did all that extra riding on old US-1, and although my confuser does not like routeslip, I can imagine some of the other roads you were on. US routes are leveled if possible, and the other roads that the MS training ride would try to choose would be among the flatter in that area - they ain't training Lance, ya' know, they're training the run-of-the-mill MS-150 rider, for the ride in Sept based out of New Bern, NC.

New Bern, now that's FLAT.
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For a def'n of pancake flat, check this out:

http://veloroutes.org/bikemaps/?route=776

Seven feet of "climbing" per mile. Now that's pancake flat.
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Maybe you should look in Winston-Salem. :) The terrain is more varied there.

DRLski

thanks, I'll do some more looking

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