Any Wilmingtonians here brave enough to be a roadie in a VERY cycling unfriendly city**********?

Guess I am all alone down here......

Yeah I'm in Wilmington. Indeed very bike unfriendly. I live just north of UNCW, I usually take pine grove dr. to Masonboro loop to Myrtle Grove to Carolina Beach RD to River road for a good 30 mile loop. I usually don't have any problems in the mornings. Only get yelled at once in a while now, I used to yell back but I'm getting tired of that, well almost...

In ILM too. From my house, just south of UNCW, to once around Greenfield is a 10 miles loop...add 5 miles for everytime around. I do a 15 mile Greenfield ride a 2-3 times a week before work and then I commute to downtown. (4.5 miles from my driveway). Weekends I've been riding River Rd. or futher down towards the ferry. It's a 30 mile round trip for me from my house to the park near the bridge/ 50 to the ferry and back. As far as people yelling, I'm in the same boat as Jeffery.

Do you guys ride with the Cape Fear Cyclists? I'm a member but rarely ride with them. I tend to ride earlier than they get going to beat the heat. As fall rolls around, I plan on more group rides.

I haven't ridden with CFC in quite a while. I have either been out of town or just feel like doing my own ride. Some of their routes are a little far away for me.

I usually head down Independence to River Road. Weekdays I head down Pine Grove and do a loop via Masonboro Loop and Pine Valley back to my place.

Just today a guy in a Porsche flew past me at (my guess) 50mph+ on Pine Grove. Scary. I spent last weekend in the mountains riding in Highlands and Franklin. I have never seen so many courteous motorists. Not once did I have an incident with a driver. In contrast to my nearly daily problems here.

I moved to ILM about 3 years ago and I am growing pretty tired of the lack of support for cycling. OK, that is my rant.

Nice to see you guys on the forums.

any of you doing the Hot 100 ride this weekend? looks like ernesto will be out of here by then. (fingers crossed)

Century Ride from historic Moore’s Creek Battlefield, Rte. 210, Currie, NC (Approximately 20 miles northwest of Wilmington, NC). There will be separate loops (all starting and ending at the Battlefield park, of 18, 25, 27, and 30 miles. Check in at 8:00am. Ride starts at 9:15 AM. Sag Vehicles and Full sag at Park where all loops meet. See the downloadable registration form for more information.

Thinking about it. Depends on Ernesto I guess, and whether or not I want to pay the money......

never been to franklin or highlands. just looked them up online and both places look beautiful. any idea if there is camping around either? i've been thinking about a camping trip and want to bring my road bike along. i don't have a mtb. b/c, well we live in wilmington.

this campground is right outside highlands...https://www.greatcarolinaproperty.com...campground.htm

I haven't stayed there but I know it's in a beautiful area...looks cheap enough but no hot showers.
If you can stay in highlands you won't regret it, great little town with many recreational opportunities about. Hike up to the summit of whitesides mtn. for some "relief"...1000 vert. feet + another K to the valley floor.

If you go to that area you MUST climb Wayah Bald. About 6 miles, 2100 feet of climbing. My buddy and I climbed Wayah right outside of Frankin then came back through Franklin and headed to Highlands via 64, then headed up Buck Creek Road back to his cabin. Buck Creek Road is another 2000+ feet of climbing over 7 to 9 miles.

It was VERY hard.... turned out to be about a 50 mile ride. I did it on a double (53/29) with a 12-27 cassette and nearly died. Our max grade was 24%!!!!!!!!

Anyone do the MS150 in New Bern, NC this weekend? I did 75 both days, and felt better on day two. Go figure.

Hey all - I just posted this in a new topic, but probably should have checked here first:
I'm spending October 5-7 on Oak Island (just south of Wilmington), and want to bring my road bike. I'll have a car with a rack, and am looking for a good route near there - something in the 20-30 mile range. Anyone have a good, low-traffic loop they'd suggest (and can map or give directions for)? Anything that starts within a half-hour drive would work.

check this website:
https://www.pedalers.southport.org/wheretoride.html

My girlfriend and I just became Wilmington cyclists. I’ve lived here for fifteen years and always swore I’d never ride a bike in this town, but I guess I’m getting a bit crazy in my old age. It’s turned out to be not quite as bad as we’d feared, although of course we don’t ride Oleander, College, or Market. We live at the southeast corner of Forest Hills, and that dumps out to most parts of town in a relatively sane way.

Y'all come on over to Brunswick County...lots of great places to ride without the aggravation of Wilmington traffic!

I live in Wilmington ,I'm from NYC which is a way less stressfull place to ride .. any questions ?

Besides ..everybody down here thinks they're in Nascar

Ack! I ride Wilmington several times a year. Have friends there who live just north (Ogden) off of Middle Sound Loop Road. Whenever I'm there I try to get rides in down to Wrightsville. VERY perilous and getting worse!

I found a neighborhood that I can cut through to just north of Landfall (I nicknamed it "Landfill" ) but then.... I have to negotiate Military Cutoff. Not too bad now with the construction - there is a coned-off section for a ways - but after it's completed it looks like it's gonna be frightful. One saving grace is that it looks like they're adding a bike path along that stretch. Then, when I get to Wrightsville, I simply do back and forth up and down the island - from the CG Station to Shell Island. Traffic, once you're on Wrightsville, seems to be pretty considerate.

For leisure rides, downtown Wilmington is awesome. Otherwise, avoid the rednecky and yuppie areas and you'll be ok.

I'm Brunswick (Sunset Beach) bound on Friday. Already have my rides mapped out.

LUCKY!

I'm up near Southport but think Sunset is probably the most beautiful beach in Brunswick County. I've never ridden down that way but it's on my list! Where do you ride?

Enjoy your weekend!

I really like Sunset, have been going there for over 15 years. I'll be there alternating weekends for the next couple months. I take a variety of routes depending on my mood and how far I want to ride. For the longer rides I cross 17 so I can get out in the countryside. If I'm only going for a short ride I've even been known to do laps around the island. One lap is a bit less than 4 miles. It's especially fun to draft cars on main street. The terrain around home is hilly, so this will be my first chance to ride flat roads since I got started riding again about a month and a half ago.

I stored my candidate rides for this weekend here: https://www.mapmyride.com/user_profil...me=piper_chuck . Look for the ones called "beach loop". I'm going to do loop 2 or 3 on Saturday. They both start out the same, so I'll decide which part way through. If the weather is good I may also do loop 1 on Sunday morning.

+1 If you can get across the Cape Fear alive.

I'll be there in 3 weeks. I've been going to Sunset since before they put a stop light at the bridge. (Dang, I'm old.) Great routes piper. I've been doing the calabash-longwood-old shallotte rd-shallotte-ocean isle-sunset route for a long time. Drafting tractors is the best.

Three weeks, like in the last weekend of Sept? That'll be the next time I'll be there. My house is on 33rd St. I can't claim to have been going there quite as long as you. The early 90s is probably when I started going down there. Before that was going to the outerbanks.

I'll have to map out your route when I get my miles back up. I think it might be a little more than I'm ready for right now. It looks like it would be a good ride.

i dig me some brunswick county, but no joke--how ya'll keep your whips rustfree? i go down to wrightsville when i can (but my whips are in boston) and see ya'll ridin'. i'm gonna bring a whip down and ride there too. but do ya just keep your bikes inside or somethin'?