“Mountains to Coast” Ride by CycleNC

How Was It? 

As I just finished many of the segments of the “Mountains to Coast” ride I figured I would write a quick report on how it went and the fun (and not so fun) experiences that I had along the way. As a bit of background, the Mountains to Coast ride is an annual ride that covers most of the state of North Carolina from the ‘mountains to the coast’. It organized by Cycle NC, which is part of North Carolina Amateur Sports. In 1997, North Carolina Amateur Sports, the North Carolina Division of Tourism, the North Carolina Department of Transportation and Capitol Broadcasting Company discussed the idea of starting a fully supported cross-state bicycle tour in North Carolina.  Two years later in 1999, the Cycle North Carolina Mountains to Coast fall ride began its inaugural trek across the State of North Carolina.  Since then, CNC has attracted participants from all 50 States and 8+ Countries, stopped overnight in 95 North Carolina towns, traveled more than 4,900 miles on the scenic backroads of the state and passed through more than 600 North Carolina communities. Cycle North Carolina has been voted "Best Biking in America" by the League of American Bicyclists and selected as one of the best events in the United States.  This year the ride began in Waynesville, NC (just a bit west and south of Asheville) and was scheduled to finish in Oak Island on the coast.

I got to Waynesville by taking a rainy bus ride on Saturday and once I was there I quickly found an indoor camping spot in the Waynesville Community Center. “Indoor” camping is a nice term for a bunch of people sleeping on the floor of a gymnasium or other wide open space. I chose indoor because it was raining in Waynesville (see the theme yet?) and I was not thrilled about setting up a tent in the rain much less sleeping in it. I put my mat and sleeping bag on the floor beside an interesting old guy and among a bunch of other older guys. I would later read that the average age of this ride was 56 years old… kinda cool. 

A Typical "Indoor" Camping Arrangement

The first day of the ride started out in the rain and promised to be a real fun time with a brutal climb over Mt Pisgah where the last four miles of the climb were going to be at an average of 10% grade. Once I got into that part of the climb I had to stop twice and just stand beside my bike in order to rest my legs a little and to catch my breath. I made a conscious decision on both of those occasions NOT to take even one step up hill – “I may stop and rest but I’m not going to walk my bike” was my thought process. I later posted that I used every gear on my bike except W(alk) and F(all). Once I cleared the top of that climb it was a quick scoot downhill for a few miles followed by a couple of much smaller hills before stopping in Hendersonville for our first overnight. Since it was still raining I choose the indoor camping option again and setup my little area in order to get some sleep overnight. During the ride that day I missed the lunch rest stop and therefore ended up eating only about 3 or 4 bananas and few other snacks during the whole ride. As a result I was famished and sought out a family restaurant for lunch / dinner. I ate the fried chicken dinner and when the waitress asked me if I would like anything else I ordered a hamburger steak dinner and ate that also. I told you I was hungry. The ride covered only 61.5 miles but had 3,866 feet of climbing and I finished it in about 4 hours and 30 minutes at about 13.2mph for the average speed over the whole route. These were themes that were going to follow me for a while.

Day Two started out raining also as did Day Three. By now they are all a blur and I ended up taking advantage of the indoor camping in order to stay somewhat dry each of the nights I was on the ride. The rain fell almost constantly the whole time I was on my bike and had only slight moments of ‘no rain’ just a few times a day. Day two went from Hendersonville to Shelby and included one of the most fun segments on the whole ride. As we rode into the town of Saluda, NC I sought out a diner in order not to repeat the mistakes of the day before. I sat down and had a very nice breakfast before proceeding on and ridding down the “Saluda Grade” which is a very smooth and wide road segment that allowed me to go just about as fast as I would ever want and pass several people along the way (despite the steady rain.) Many more ups and downs followed that fun segment and as I rode into Shelby day 2 would be over after 76.6 miles with 4,219’ of climbing. I finished the ride in about 5:45 at an average speed of 13.3 mph.

Day 3 was more of the same as we rode from Shelby to Concord. This route was very poorly chosen in that we spent about 35 miles of the entire 80 miles riding in and around the Charlotte Metro area. Charlotte is a very congested place that is populated by a large segment of drivers that could not care less about cyclists. Lots of horn blowing and flipping off makes for a nerve racking time on the bike and I was happy once I finished the 80 miles and pedaled into the Concord Arena. Although we were fairly far from the mountains with their long single climbs for the day we were now finding ourselves working very hard to ride up the rolling hills of the Piedmont area of NC. My totals for the day were 3,412’ of climbing, 6+ hours on the bike and averaging about 13 mph. And all in the rain. 

My Wet Bike After Three Straight Rainy Riding Days

Day 4 was actually a nice riding day and I found myself needing my sunglasses as we crossed from the Piedmont section of NC into the Sandhills section. More rolling hills with a higher chance of them being really long left me sore and very tired as we rolled through Pinehurst and into Southern Pines. The day’s totals were 81 miles, 3,886’ of climbing and just under 6 hours of riding. It was about that time that I decided to check the weather and see if I could figure out something about the Nor’ Easter / Hurricane that had been bringing us all the rain during the week.  Several riders had already checked out of the ride and once I saw that Thursday was going to be a very rainy ride into Lumberton followed by a rainy Friday ride I decided to ‘call it a ride’ and catch a ride back to Greenville. I am ashamed to admit that I actually left the ride earlier than planned but somewhat vindicated by the email  that I received from the ride management stating that Thursday (Day 5) would be the last day of the ride since the coordinators were becoming so wary of the nearby storm. So technically I will only need to finish riding one segment and after that I can proudly wear my “Cylce NC” t-shirtJ.  

The totals for my four days of riding show that I rode 299 miles with 15,383’ feet of climbing. All that work took me about 22 hours on my bike and I ended up averaging 13.4mph, which is considerably less than I ride around here…turns out that going uphill actually slows me down!

That’s about it for the Mountains to the Coast ride. It was very well run and laid out (with the exception of the Charlotte piece) with lots of challenging hills, downhills and flats. The accommodations were great and I met quite a few interesting people. You should go! ! !

What's Next?

Next up on my schedule is the Hincapie Gran Fondo ride on October 24. It starts just north of Greenville, SC and rides up into the mountains for about 50 miles. If you are interested in riding in it you should hurry up to the website (GranFondoHincapie.com) and register. You can even use my discount code of “FriendsofJames15” and get a good discount off of the registration fee. 

I really hope you enjoy reading these ramblings and look forward to hearing your comments about them…until then, take care and be careful!