Biking the Blue Ridge Parkway

Know what would be cool? To bike the Blue Ridge Parkway. Well, at least part of it. The problem is, its in the mountains. I'm not really that excited about biking up hill... for half of the ride. What I really need to do is figure out a good stretch that can be biked in a single day that is mostly a downhill cruise with limited uphill miles. There has to be some stretch like that, and it would be better if it was somewhere between Asheville and Mt Pisgah, NC.

There are several books out there about biking the BRP such as:

• Bicycling the Blue Ridge, 4th: A Guide to the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway (Paperback) by Elizabeth Skinner and Charlie Skinner

• Backroad Bicycling in the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains: 27 Rides for Touring and Mountain Bikes from North Georgia to Southwest Virginia (Paperback)
  by Hiram Rogers
  
  

There is also some info online about biking the BRP, including this bit of info, a mile-by-mile guide to the parkway. After some study, it seems that this shows the climb distance/climb height for various stretches along with climb index numbers, which I haven't yet figured out.

Looking at the area south of Asheville, I think the route from the NC Arboretum near mile marker 394 to US-276 near mile 412 would be a good route for a day trip -- 18 miles on the parkway.



I need to look closer at the climb index data for this route and see what kind of torture this would really be. Is it downhill? I'm thinking that it would be a climb up to Mt Pisgah, but then it drops down as you approach Graveyard Fields. But I really don't know. I need to get my folks to drive up to the parkway (they live nearby) and scope out the route for me. Too bad their car doesn't have an altimeter. :)