# Quick Rant About Motorists On the Blue Ridge Parkway; I Will Make it Fast....



## thechriswebb (Nov 21, 2008)

OK, so this is the first nice weekend in like forever; no snow, plenty of sunshine, birds singing, yada yada yada.... I was in such a lovely mood this morning. I got up early and tuned up my bike, checked the pressure in my tires, and headed for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Now, I've done some riding on the Parkway this winter, but it has been closed to vehicular traffic at elevation, so I've had it wonderfully to myself. I guess it was because the weather was nice, but everyone was out on the road today, hauling *ss up and down the road. This was the worst time I've had on the road in a long time. Cars were flying around me, honking their horns, and shaking fists out their windows at me: "Get a car, dumb*ss!!" At one point, on about a 10% uphill grade, a car rode up on my tail, honking their horn, and trying to intimidate me. I try to pull over in this situation most of the time for my own safety, but some stretches of the parkway have no shoulder whatsoever; just big drop-offs on the side. The impatient driver of this vehicle finally decided to speed around me, on a curve. Like God himself had planned it, another car came screaming around the blind curve as the SUV was immediately to my left. Somehow, by some miracle, it managed to thread the needle between us without hitting either, but I swear I felt the passenger side mirror clip the fabric on the outside of my left elbow....  

Now, there is never any excuse for driving aggressively anyway, but it really gets me on the Blue Ridge Recreational Parkway. That road is specifically designed with low speed limits and no commuting commercial vehicles to allow cyclists and motorists who want to enjoy the scenery to move along at their own pace. IT IS A RECREATIONAL HIGHWAY!!!! If you are trying to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, take the fu**ing interstate, where cyclists and slow traffic are the ones that are banned.....  

OK, that's my rant.


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## Guest (Mar 9, 2010)

Sadly, the Parkway can be one of the worst places to cycle. It can also be one of the best. I went to school at ASU and could ride on the Parkway any day I wanted. It was to be avoided like the plague on warm weekends. The combination of RVs and motorcycles can be maddening. The most dangerous Parkway drivers in the Boone area by far, however, were the students. The first warm day of spring, everyone was racing out to the Parkway to drink and hang. My point is, you really have to pick your times, and it's unfortunate that it gets nutso up there when you finally get respite from this winter we've had.


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## thechriswebb (Nov 21, 2008)

foothillsbass said:


> Sadly, the Parkway can be one of the worst places to cycle. It can also be one of the best. I went to school at ASU and could ride on the Parkway any day I wanted. It was to be avoided like the plague on warm weekends. The combination of RVs and motorcycles can be maddening. The most dangerous Parkway drivers in the Boone area by far, however, were the students. The first warm day of spring, everyone was racing out to the Parkway to drink and hang. My point is, you really have to pick your times, and it's unfortunate that it gets nutso up there when you finally get respite from this winter we've had.



Yeah, I live in Asheville and am lucky enough to live so close to the Parkway that it is easy to ride to it from my house. The people I was having problems with had license plates from other states. It probably would have been wise for me to have avoided the road on that day. It is very sad that it is so particularly dangerous to enjoy it on the days that one would think are most ideal.


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## Masi-Rider (Nov 2, 2006)

I too went to ASU and then lived in the area for a few years afterwards and I have to say that the only times I really churned the miles on the Parkway were Tuesday-Thursday mornings. Never the week-ends and never during the leaf-changing season.


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## Guest (Mar 16, 2010)

Oh yeah, leaf season, forget it. In fact, it was hard to find ANYWHERE to ride when the leaf-lookers converged on the high country. But that was probably the most congested the Parkway was in a given year.


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## tarwheel2 (Jul 7, 2005)

I've only ridden on the Parkway a couple of times but suspected this would be the case on weekends and nice days. The same situation occurs in Great Smoky Mtns National Park. The Cades Cove loop looks like it would be an ideal place to ride, but it is treacherous when traffic is bad. Fortunately they close it to car traffic a couple mornings each week.


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## dgittelman (May 31, 2007)

An older friend of mine lost his son to a high speed single motorcycle wreck on the BRP last year. Apparantly he and some other motorheads like the hairpin turns. This was no moron either; well-employed young financial guy. Also I know of one guy who suicided by launching his sports car off the parkway. 

Is this the sort of place to ride a 16 pound vehicle?


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## The Tedinator (Mar 12, 2004)

I have ridden from downtown Asheville, up to Town Mountain Road, and then on to Bulls Gap twice in the last week without incident. Past Bull's Gap toward Mt. Mitchell is still closed to cars, and offers a great ride for cycling. I am sorry to hear about your bad experience.

The commuter stretch between US 70 and Hwy. 191 can get very congested, but even then the lanes are pretty wide. The BRP is to be avoided in October, plain and simple.


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## MoonHowl (Oct 5, 2008)

My experience on the Parkway north of the Folk Art center in Asheville has generally been good. Most of the commuters on the stretch give me plenty of space. However, the weekends, esp. holidays, can get scary.

They are now removing some of the pavement north of Bull Gap; although closed to traffic; expect to see many dump trucks traveling up there. That said; glad to see the BRP getting re-paved.


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## Big Papa (Sep 20, 2009)

I wonder if they would be as bad if you wore a jersey with 'Sheriff's dept' , 'SWAT ' or even 'Smith & Wesson' on it?


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## wncbiker (Feb 18, 2005)

*Not on the BRP, but on topic.*

Yesterday I experenced one of the strangest examples of road rage I have encountered in over 30 years of cycling. I was with a group of 5, riding single file along a short, but busy section of US 19 in Bryson City, NC. As we were going along, a car pulls up behind us & the driver hits the horn & continued to follow us with the horn blowing for about 2 minutes straight. She then passes us and goes about 100 feet ahead of us and then pulls over on the side of the road. As we approach, she pulls back out into the road & drives in front of us for about 5 minutes at around 5 miles per hour. I guess she wanted to let us know how she felt while behind us? I kinda wish that I had called in to the Highway Patrol & reported her non working brake light.


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## EDUC8-or (Jan 2, 2009)

A good portion of The Parkway is closed to cars until they can clear trees and rocks, there was lots of damage from ice storms this winter. We rode the stretch from NC-80 to Mt. Mitchell yesterday and there was very little traffic. I believe it just opened a few weeks ago. We probably would go 30 minutes between seeing cars, but we did see quite a few dump trucks and they were driving borderline out of control, fortunately we could hear them coming and get out of the way.


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