DaveLeeNC

I will be in Pigeon Forge in a couple weeks and will have one afternoon free for a bike ride. My wife will have the car so, by definition, this ride WILL start and end in Pigeon Forge. A perfect ride would be around 40-50 miles and some semi-serious climbs would be nice, but not required. But I will be on my road bike with its 25mm tires, so no gravel roads.

Suggestion? Thanks.

dave

Juan Foote

Much short of any "real" help, what I might suggest is to pull up Strava (or the like) and use your start point to look for segments others have created, or routes. You can typically verify they are gravel/dirt both by average speeds and with Google Maps.

DaveLeeNC

Thanks for the comment. Strava was not of any particular value as it is mostly shorter stuff and the few longer rides that I saw were "only ridden once" kind of things - hard to know if it was all road or not.

MapMyRide had nothing, but RideWithGPS had a few. I was just hoping for more descriptive information (road conditions, traffic, etc) than is obvious from those sources.

Thanks again.

dave

Juan Foote

With that area being so touristy, there may really not be any rides going on. Further than going the extra mile on route sites like you did, perhaps look and see if there is a local club site with a route posted. I found a tremendous ride in Tampa that way.

Wish I was of more help. Hope you enjoy your journey and stay safe.

shelbyfv

I've ridden from Gatlinburg up to the end of the road at Clingman's Dome and back. Traffic was not too bad. Much colder at the top.

Rogerogeroge

Hope this isn't too late for you. As one said, you can go from PF to Clingmans' Dome. That would probably be 60 round trip. After G-burg you climb steady for 20 miles with one downhill section, to over 6,600 ft, which is just under the height of Mt. Mitchell. You briefly hit 8 pct grade, but it's mostly 5%. You get quite an alpine feel on this route.


Another option is take Wears Valley Rd (Hwy 321) towards Townsend, then turn right on Bluff Mtn and Goose Gap Rd. You'll get some twisty steep climbing with some views as well. This route has a lot less traffic than the first ride, but Wears Valley can get busy. If you take the first option to Clingmans Dome, go early on a weekday. But we're also coming up on peak fall colors in the mountains, so at the moment, all bets are off.