Adventure Cycling Association

We'll meet midday in Roanoke, then shuttle together over to Fancy Gap for the start of our tour. In Fancy Gap, we'll have our orientation meeting then a fantastic meal prepared by our caterer. Before we start our roller-coaster ride along the Blue Ridge, you might consider checking out the outstanding nearby Blue Ridge Music Center. Run by way of a partnership involving the National Park Service and the National Council for the Traditional Arts, the center -- established by Congress in 1985 -- celebrates the music and musicians of the Blue Ridge region. Facilities include an outdoor concert amphitheater and an indoor interpretive center, where a couple of nice hiking trails originate and wind through a forest filled with ferns, rock outcrops, and rhododendron.

For those hardier riders, a side trip to the Music Center 13 miles south of Fancy Gap will make for a more challenging day of riding, adding 26 miles for a 69-mile day. Today, we'll pass the 1892 Mayberry Trading Post (could this be where Andy got the name for his fictional town?) and then, at Milepost 176.1, arrive at Mabry Mill, one of the most photographed spots on the Blue Ridge. Here, at a restored gristmill/sawmill/woodworking and blacksmith shop, old-time mountain skills are demonstrated by docents -- basket weaving, seat caning, spinning, and more. Approximately five miles farther down the road, you might want to take a detour of less than a mile off the parkway for a tour and a taste at the popular Chateau Morrisette winery.

We'll enjoy another fabulous day of finding our way through a rolling landscape of homesteads tucked against low hills, trickling streams, grassy knobs, and distant farmhouses. Characterized as our easier day of riding, the parkway drops down into the Roanoke Valley as we stay a stone's throw east of the city of Roanoke. Riders looking for a challenge can add up to 10 miles of serious climbing to take in the view of the city from Roanoke Mountain or the Mill Mountain Star, the world's largest freestanding, illuminated man-made star, constructed in 1949 at the top of Mill Mountain.

As we leave Vinton, we will wake up our legs with a nice six-mile climb to Great Valley Overlook, then continue north toward the famous trio of mountains known as Sharp Top, Flat Top, and Apple Orchard. We'll find ourselves soaking in the magnificent vistas at the highest point on the parkway in the state of Virginia (3,950 feet). The day ends with a sweet 13-mile downhill to the beautiful James River, the lowest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway at just 649 feet. We will camp just past the James River Visitor Center.

You know it will be uphill today! We start at 649 feet and immediately climb 12 miles to our first significant overlook, Whites Gap (2,567 feet). We'll ride the ridge most of the day as we stretch into the northern reaches of the Blue Ridge Parkway and begin the gradual downhill slope toward its end. We finish the day at Milepost 0 of the Blue Ridge Parkway and a nice three-mile downhill scream into camp for the night.

We begin our day with a steep three-mile climb back up to the entrance to Shenandoah National Park at the Rockfish Gap South Entrance. Skyline Drive begins at Rockfish Gap and continues 105 miles north, but for the time being your climb continues another 500 feet over three miles to McCormick Gap (2,455 feet). The ride will twist and turn -- and climb and coast -- along Skyline Drive through a pastoral landscape of endless mountain views, with the added colorful June touches of blooming Catawba rhododendron and mountain laurel. As on other days, you'll want to keep your eyes peeled for a variety of birds and wild critters. If you're lucky, you may even spot a black bear or a mountain lion. We'll spend the night at Big Meadows Campground on Skyline Drive, where you are likely see dozens of deer grazing in the high meadows.

Your ride today will take you to the highest point on Skyline Drive (3,680 feet) as well as past such descriptive overlooks as Skyland, Pinnacles, Hawksbill, Stony Man, Panorama, Hogback, and Signal Knob. On this, our final day of Blue Ridge Bliss, we'll finish up with a thrilling 12-mile downhill from Compton Gap to the Front Royal North Entrance (Milepost 0) and a short jaunt to our campground for the final night.

After a farewell breakfast, you and your companions will board a shuttle back to Roanoke where we'll depart, anything but blue after our ridgeline adventure.