I have been living in the Durham, NC area for a few (3) weeks now. This being Easter weekend and me being away from my family until we sell the house in NY, I wanted to do something, preferably with family. I have a nephew I have not seen in several years who lives in Asheville, NC, about 4 hours to the west. I contacted him and made the arrangements, we were both excited about getting together. I decided to tell my GPS to "avoid highways" and take a longer, more scenic route. If this is an example of the roads in WNC, I will be visiting often! I ended up on NC 64 and NC 9, if anyone is familiar with them. I am not a particularly agressive rider, but I never knew you could get the bike heeled over so far and have so much fun at 35mph! My nephew and his girlfriend are in a band (the Honeycutters, check them out if you like country music at http://www.thehoneycutters.com/ ) and I got to see my nephew play, but not his band. He hires himself out to other bands in need of a lead guitarist when it doesn't interfere with the Honeycutters schedule, he's good! I got to sample just a few of the roads in the area by pure chance, I can't wait to go there for the purpose of exploring more of them! A few pics of the area, many will recognize some landmarks..

http://pix.kg/p/989396144214%3A99848768/sct

Sounds like a kicka$$ Easter. Pretty nice riding up that way, what do ya think.

You should consider joining us in Suches from the 19th/22nd of April. There are already 50 signed up, will prolly get 60-70 showing up. One of the contingents from down here is heading up at 0 dark 30 on the 19th. It's only about 350 miles over for ya. Details:

http://forum.cog-online.org/index.php/topic,29764.0.html

Have Fun.

Lake Lure and Chimney Rock. The waterfall in #5 and 6? Featured in the movie The Last of the Mohicans. The old hotel across from the lake? Dirty Dancing.

The road that I find to be best for visitors. That and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

And yep, some of the best slow roads in the world I believe are in the Appalachian mountains.

Need to know some more great roads, give me a holler.

Simply looking at a Google map of the area, there seems to be no shortage of great roads! I hope to be able to visit my nephew often! I'm all ears if you have suggestions...

Narrow it down: make an X with 40 and 26.  Each has its own set of roads. I am located in the north(ish) 40 and east(ish) of 26 quarter, near The diamondback and NC80.

Looks like you took in Lake Lure and Chimney Rock Park. Come back and hit the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Dragon!

Passed thruogh more than "took in". I would love, and am really looking forward, to spending more time exploring the area. Having a nephew in the area is a good excuse to visit the area on a repetitive schedule  , like I need an excuse!

You might like this road:

http://www.wayahroad.com/

Nice. When I started looking for work in NC, Franklin was among the towns/areas I was looking at. As much as I would have loved to have landed a job there, the opportunities were less than spectacular for the rest of the family. There were other issues as well, housing costs and medical services in the areas I was looking at were also not great. So I will have to deal with needing to travel a few hours to get there, and maybe crashing on my nephew's couch (well worth it  ) for a weekend of exploring NC's finest roads.

You're a heckuva lot closer than I am. Enjoy.