NC Hills and Twisties

A friend of mine and I decided to take a good long ride this past Saturday and we wanted to ride up in the hills. Lucky for us, there are some really nice roads that lead up to the mountains. These roads are full of beautiful view and LOTS of twist and turns (twisties).

Our plan was to meet in Lincolnton and from there, go north. Here was our trip.

We met at 10am and wanted to make a full day of it. We left on time and headed for the hills. We took off on Why 27 towards Laurel Hill. The goal was to take back roads and to end up in Blowing Rock. I did not plan this route but was just following. Many of these roads leading up to the hills we take a lot so it was quite familiar. W got to Colletesville and took a different way to Blowing Rock.

Great ride it was. Then the Pavement Ends sing appeared. He rides a total street bike but was willing to give it a go. After about 5 minutes on this road, I knew where I was. This road is about 4-5 miles long on dirt/gravel and goes UP to Blowing Rock. It terminates in downtown. After about 15 minutes, the blacktop finally re-appeared and I could tell Mike was happy about that.

We got into Blowing Rock and the weather started to turn. We decided to park out bikes and find a place to eat. We decided to eat at the Storie Street Grill. What an excellent lunch we had. I have never eaten here before but they were able to get us right in. We took our time with lunch since it was raining and lightning outside. Once it lightened up, we decided to leave and continue our journey.

The weather looked like it would clear up. We put on our rain gear and it was still raining some and headed to Beech Mountain. Around Sugar Mountain, we stopped and took off our jackets (kept pants on for now). We continued on to Banner Elk and stopped for gas. No power. The whole city was out. No bathrooms either. So we backtracked to nearest gas station that had gas and filled up. Unfortunately the bathrooms were out of order.

We got back on the bikes left for Beech Montain (again). We finally got up there and stopped at a pizza place to use the restroom. What a beautiful view up there.

We took off our rain pants as it was a nice sunny day now. All the roads were dry as well.

We cruised around Beech Mountain for a bit and then decided to head towards Linville. So off went again. Once in Linville, time was not on our side so we drove to Morganton and then headed back home.

My total mileage was almost 325 miles with saddle time of 7 hours 52 minutes. A lot of riding but overall was a fantastic day riding around the hills and twisting turns of the North Carolina mountains.