dude! I love riding in raleigh, I go to school there at NC state. theres a big cycling community in raleigh. check out http://www.ncbikeclub.org/ you can ride year round pretty much (its gonna be 54 today), and there is not as much crap on the roads to flat your tires. one of my personal favorite rides takes me into the falls lake area...good scenery there. If anyone knows six forks/new light road, they know what I speak.

I've found that "good ol' boys" generally arent that bad, the raleigh durham area isn't as redneck as you might think.

as for the hills, there are plently. most of them are around a half mile long, not many longer than that, but theres enough that you can get a good workout. theres also flat areas you can ride that you can use to recover.