Today was beautiful weather. The day started off with clear blue skies and the temps were quickly in the 70’s with the high reaching about 82. We took a tour down downtown Asheville and rode past the Biltmore Estate. We then headed out to Bat Cave, Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. The road that’s takes use there is interesting. It starts out as a 5 lane road and after about 10-15 miles narrows down to 2 lanes. About a mile or two after that you are in the mountains and the road has lots of tight curves for several miles. We passed the town of Bat Cave and then Chimney Rock, which is the park where they filmed of the final scenes from Last of the Mohicans. We continued on to Lake Lure, which is where Dirty Dancing was filmed. They have a bicycling event going on and there lots of peddlers on the road. We stopped at Lake Lure to get off the bikes and take a few pictures.
Lake Lure, North Carolina
We headed out of Lake Lure and the road turned twisty again. After we got back out of the mountains we headed north on 221. 221 was as straight as an arrow and we took that all the way to 226. 226, also known as Diamond Back, is another switchback road up the side of the mountains that leads us to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
View from above 226, also known as the Diamondback
We stopped at the top near Little Switzerland to take in the views and take some pictures.
View from Little Switzerland on the Blue Ridge Parkway
View from Little Switzerland on the Blue Ridge Parkway
View from Little Switzerland on the Blue Ridge Parkway
View from Little Switzerland on the Blue Ridge Parkway
We then headed down 226A, which has even more tight turns. We almost got out of the all tight turns on our downhill run when Kevin, who was leading, slowed way down and motioned me past. He didn’t have rear brakes and was going to have to take it really slow and cautious the rest of the way down. I went the rest of the way down and then thought that since I didn’t have a passenger, I should head back up the road and offer to take Nancy the rest of the way down to make it easier for Kevin with only half the braking power. He had already make it through the last couple of tight turns and we stopped on a side to assess the damage. It turned out to be a couple of loose bolts near his brake pedal that was allowing the bracket to slip instead of applying brake pressure.
We decided to call it a day since it was after 4:00 and headed back to the cabin. We dropped the girls off at the cabin, so they could shower while us guys took the bikes back down to the grocery store to get supplies for dinner. We had another excellent meal of salmon on the grill. We enjoyed the rest of the evening on the deck letting the hot tub soothe our sore muscles and then enjoyed the fire pit until we each called it a night.
Enjoying the fire pit at the cabin