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Missed the Road closure memo.

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Road Cycling “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.” -- Ernest Hemingway

Missed the Road closure memo.

Old 09-02-08, 08:42 AM
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Missed the Road closure memo.

In Ashville this weekend. Sunday, we were planning on riding the Blueridge Parkway to Mt Mitchell, and then up Mt Mitchell. Unfortunately the Park Service had other plans.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is closed at Craggy Gardens for 10 miles. A retaining wall is gone, and the road undercut. According to the Park Ranger it will be closed until at least May 2009.

By the time we realized it, there wasn't an option to reroute that would get us there. So we did a few repeats up the Picnic area at Craggy Gardens, and went up and down Ox Creek ( a nice little climb up to the Parkway with sections in the low teen's).

Got in 7,000 vertical, and a good work out. (actually steeper than climbing than Mitchell) but we were still a little bummed.


Next time we'll check with the Park Service ahead of time.

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Old 09-02-08, 08:52 AM
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Bummer! At least you got in your elevation gain, even if it wasn't the original plan.
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Old 09-02-08, 09:10 AM
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Do you know if this was this from Fay? We got about 11 inches of rain down in the lowlands. I hope it didn't spoil the trip for you.

edit - May 2008 -not recent.

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Old 09-02-08, 09:55 AM
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It didn't spoil the trip. A minor disappointment. Would have liked to have gotten the sustained climb in, but we still had a good ride.

Saturday we went south on the Parkway, and did Mt Pisgah, and Monday a quick loop around Asheville up Town Mountain before we left, so all in all a good weekend of riding.
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Old 09-02-08, 10:01 AM
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Ha...i like the "no bikes" sign. Mainly because we sometimes ignore road closures knowing we can most likely ride through whatever condition the construction site is in (after hours obviously), but that "no bikes" sign would have my inner dialog saying, "and that means me...oh well. Let's go ride somewhere else."
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Old 09-02-08, 10:37 AM
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Originally Posted by Psimet2001
Ha...i like the "no bikes" sign. Mainly because we sometimes ignore road closures knowing we can most likely ride through whatever condition the construction site is in (after hours obviously), but that "no bikes" sign would have my inner dialog saying, "and that means me...oh well. Let's go ride somewhere else."
I've had good luck ignoring signs like that
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Old 09-02-08, 10:46 AM
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Yeah, I'm not seeing what the problem is.
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Old 09-02-08, 10:50 AM
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One of my local loops (multiple options in this specific area) has been a no-go for a few months because of major road work. I was out in the area this weekend in my car and noticed that although the road closed sign was up, it was no longer blocking the road. I soon found out, after deciding to drive the road, that the road is nowhere close to being complete. Being in a car, I went ahead and continued through, as I never reached a point that mandated a turnaround. Passed a few cyclists along the way coming in the opposite direction. Each time I passed one, I commented to my gf, "I wouldn't want to ride on this stuff." When we got to the next main intersection, the road was fully blocked by two large "Road Closed" movable fences.

Seems like the cyclists pushed their luck and lost. Well, maybe they enjoyed the rough road. I know I would not have.
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Old 09-02-08, 10:53 AM
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merlin, I don't see any lights on your bike. I came down from Mt. Pisgah into Asheville after climbing up from Brevard a couple of years ago. I didn't know about the tunnels. I was scared snitless of hitting a dead raccoon or something inside of them. I recall one tunnel where you couldn't see the light at the other end as you entered-unnerving.
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Old 09-02-08, 11:06 AM
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Originally Posted by wanders
merlin, I don't see any lights on your bike. I came down from Mt. Pisgah into Asheville after climbing up from Brevard a couple of years ago. I didn't know about the tunnels. I was scared snitless of hitting a dead raccoon or something inside of them. I recall one tunnel where you couldn't see the light at the other end as you entered-unnerving.

Had a Guppy light on the front and back. You can see the rear in the pic. They're single LED lights, more for being seen than seeing.

I would have liked a more powerful front light on the one tunnel toward Pisgah. I've got a Cateye LED light that's a bit more powerful that would have been fine for the job, but I left it at home.
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Old 09-02-08, 11:09 AM
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Originally Posted by staehpj1
I've had good luck ignoring signs like that
I gave some thought to just going on. But the no bikes sign was kinda calling out "this means you"

Turns out that there's a section where they lost the retaining wall, which lead to the road being undercut, so that the pavement is hanging in the air with no support underneath, according to the Park Ranger. It didn't sound like a safe bet wether riding, walking or biking.
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Old 09-02-08, 12:02 PM
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Originally Posted by merlinextraligh
I gave some thought to just going on. But the no bikes sign was kinda calling out "this means you"

Turns out that there's a section where they lost the retaining wall, which lead to the road being undercut, so that the pavement is hanging in the air with no support underneath, according to the Park Ranger. It didn't sound like a safe bet wether riding, walking or biking.
It's always a judgment call. Of the many times I have ignored road closed signs only one actually said "Road Closed to Bicycles". We were actually nervous about that one, but we were on a cross country tour and had no map of the area other than the AC strip map (We usually picked up state maps of the states we passed through but hadn't yet for Kansas).

There was a sign that said "Detour Use Route xyz", but it didn't even point which way to go. We didn't have a clue which way to even detour. We said the heck with it and rode through maybe 10 miles of construction while the work was going on. The workers either ignored us or waved. The surface was poor but rideable. It would have sucked to have to back track 10 mles to where we started
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Old 09-02-08, 01:57 PM
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I'm pretty sure that is the road my cross country group rode through a couple months ago. Only the opposite way into Ashville. What we rode was fine. Some rocks here and there in the road and condition of the ground was decent.

It was nice riding without cars for awhile. The road going back down from the sign was bad if I remember correctly.
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Old 09-02-08, 02:16 PM
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That bites. Glad you still had a good weekend of riding though!
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Old 09-02-08, 02:24 PM
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Besides, you were on a tandem and that sign clearly was not a tandem. You would have been good to go!
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Old 09-02-08, 02:27 PM
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Originally Posted by mcoomer
Besides, you were on a tandem and that sign clearly was not a tandem. You would have been good to go!
Oooooo....good point. I hate it when non-engineers try to tell me something about my job, but I have to think that your profession (Merlin) would afford you an opportunity to create some wiggle room with this one.....
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Old 09-02-08, 02:31 PM
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My road wasn't closed.

Even worse, it was gone:



I've been mashing hard of this stuff since the end of May.

It makes me feel like Fabian rolling over the cobbles on the way to the velodrome.
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Old 09-05-08, 12:24 PM
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Bumping my own thread, just because I'm trying to learn how to post Motion Based files.






Edit: Couldn't figure how to get the HTML code to work, so I just posted as images.
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