Thanks, BikeWNC for planning the routes, and wolfpack, for organizing this thread and getting us fired up for the ride. I've been looking forward to it since January. It's motivated me to put in some extra miles this spring, too.

I wasn't sure about the starting time for the Sunday ride, but I found it in the thread- 9:30am: drive to the starting point, 10:00am: start the ride.

There's a good BRP overlook website that lists each overlook's mile marker and elevation. There's a 360 degree panorama picture for each overlook, too. So BikeWNC: it looks like starting at Graveyard Fields at the 418.8 mile marker, up to Richland Balsam at 431.0 is only 24 miles round trip. But 2 miles away, Looking Glass Rock at marker 417.0 is 600 feet lower (elevation 4492)!

Here's the 12.4 mile one-way route, starting from Graveyard Fields.

For example, here's a 16 mile one-way route that also ends at Richland Balsam. Check out the elevation graph for the start of the ride! We will ride down this 1000 foot climb on Saturday.